This one's been a mess for the NCAA all summer. Back in July, a Hamilton County judge sided with Xavier forward Filip Borovicanin and a group of 24 college basketball players, ruling the NCAA's fifth-year eligibility denials were "arbitrary and capricious" and ordering the association to let them keep playing. The NCAA immediately called the ruling wrong and started fighting to get it paused. Every attempt got denied. Until now.
On August 17, the Ohio Court of Appeals finally gave the NCAA what it wanted, staying the injunction while the underlying appeal plays out. That's a real swing in a case that had been going the players' way for weeks straight.
Ohio Court of Appeals stayed the injunction in the Borovicanin vs. NCAA case: “The NCAA argued and the Ohio Court of Appeals agreed the injunction harms the thousands of college athletes and member schools across Division I who are playing by the rules. The new model is clear: It ensures college sports are played by college students while allowing opportunities for future generations of students to access the life-changing benefits of college sports participation. We appreciate the court’s recognition of the harm caused by the injunction and the substantial arguments we have presented in favor of reversal, and we look forward to fully arguing the merits of the case in the future."
The NCAA wasted no time putting out a statement framing the stay as a win for the whole system, arguing the injunction was hurting "the thousands of college athletes and member schools across Division I who are playing by the rules." It's the same talking point the association has leaned on since this litigation started: the new model is supposed to draw a clean line so schools and athletes across the country know what they're actually working with.
But this isn't the only fifth-year eligibility fight the NCAA has going right now, and the Ohio win doesn't clean up the rest of the board. Similar suits out of Colorado and Wisconsin are still unresolved, and athletes tied to those cases remain technically eligible in the meantime.
Athletes are still technically eligibile with the Colorado/Wisne suit still in place. https://t.co/1IyP8kwkTL
So the practical reality on the ground barely moved. The Borovicanin plaintiffs are the ones most directly affected by the Ohio stay, but coaches and compliance departments elsewhere are still operating with athletes suited up under injunctions the NCAA hasn't managed to knock down yet. Filing the Colorado and Wisconsin cases as related to each other back in mid-August only underscores how scattered this litigation has gotten.
Bigger picture, this is the NCAA trying to claw back control of the eligibility model piece by piece in front of whatever judge or appellate panel will listen. One favorable ruling in Ohio doesn't settle the underlying question about whether the fifth-year denials were fair in the first place — that fight over the merits is still coming. Until Colorado and Wisconsin resolve one way or another, expect more of these state-by-state skirmishes before there's anything close to a uniform answer for college athletes nationwide.