After being given a temporary restraining order (TRO) by a Tuscaloosa circuit judge last week, Charles Bediako took the floor for Alabama last Saturday night at Coleman Coliseum in the Crimson Tide’s 79-73 home loss to Tennessee.
Bediako, an immensely talented player, especially on the defensive side of the floor, proved to be a bright spot on an otherwise miserable night for the injury-riddled Tide, scoring 13 points, grabbing 3 rebounds, and blocking 2 shots in defeat.
That might have been all she wrote for Bediako in round 2 of his collegiate career, but mother nature had other plans.
With an assist from the arctic blast and blizzard that pounded the southeast and eastern seaboard states last weekend, an NCAA lawyer was unable to travel and attend the injunction hearing slated for January 27. As a result, Bediako’s TRO was extended 10 additional days, making the Tide center eligible for Alabama’s Tuesday night blowout victory over Mizzou (Bediako started, scored 14 points in just 18 minutes, and grabbed 6 rebounds) and, presumably, Sunday’s nationally televised showdown at reigning national champion Florida.
The NCAA won a small victory on Wednesday, when the judge who granted the TRO, James Roberts, a longtime, significant Alabama athletics booster, recused himself from the lawsuit. But as of Wednesday afternoon, no hearing date was scheduled and no new jurist assigned.
Will Bediako ultimately prevail?
It’s easy to fashion compelling legal arguments on either side.
The facts and law are not — contrary to the bluster of Bediako lawyer David W. Holt — “clearly on Bediako’s side.” They aren’t necessarily on the NCAA’s side, either.
While I am a lawyer (and I think, a good one), I am not here to litigate the facts or law. If you are interested in a breakdown of the lawsuit, I wrote about the fundamentals of the case in this space last week. I also broke down potential winning legal arguments from both Bediako and NCAA standpoint here.
This week, I am writing to wonder aloud when the Madness, which in college basketball we prefer to reserve for March, will end?
If you read my work consistently, you know that in addition to being a longtime basketball and football writer, I practice law in the sports space and that, in the main, I tend to come down on the side of college athletes, especially in battles with the NCAA over being able to profit off their labor in the same way that every other red-blooded working American can.
That said, there is no clear innocent or blameless party here.
Nate Oats insisted this week that Bediako, who is 23, isn’t to blame, and while I agree with Oats that he’s the closest to blameless, Bediako certainly knew, upon entering the NBA Draft in 2023 and remaining past the deadline, that NCAA rules dictated he forfeit his remaining NCAA eligibility. It is factually indisputable that the NCAA rule in question existed as written when Bediako elected to leave Alabama and enter the NBA Draft. Bediako, in other words, is now seeking a court order excusing him from his own clear-eyed choice.
Furthermore, the argument Bediako lacked NIL opportunities in 2023 is not compelling, at least in terms of obtaining an injunction to keep playing, for reasons I’ve discussed in the articles linked above. To obtain an injunction, Bediako must show “irreparable harm” that cannot be remedied by money damages alone. In other words, “lost NIL opportunities” is insufficient. Bediako can obtain money damages for that and be made whole without also being deemed eligible.
Reasonable arguments aside, the NCAA is also at fault for the current mess.
Once the NCAA declared James Nnaji, now at Baylor, eligible, a case like Bediako’s was inevitable.
While there is a skill distinction between NBA players and G league players like Bediako, there is not necessarily a legal distinction between them. Both types of players are professionals playing in unionized professional leagues. In other words, how do you justify permitting a player drafted to the NBA, such as Nnaji, returning to college basketball, but not a player like Bediako, who signed multiple NBA 2-way contracts but went undrafted?
The answer is complicated.
The comparison made by Oats and Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne between Bediako and European professionals makes sense at first blush but badly misses the mark when you look under the hood.
First, there is a clear, substantive financial distinction between a player like Bediako, who earned nearly half-a-million dollars playing in the G League over the past 3 seasons, and a player like Florida’s Urban Klavžar or Auburn’s Filip Jovic, who, as part of the developmental pathways unique to European basketball and global soccer, played for professional clubs in Europe as teenagers, earning monthly stipends along with academic tutoring opportunities. The average Adriatic league player, where Jovic played, earns 2,000 Euro a month. A player like Klavžar, who played in the Spanish second division, earned a similar wage.
Second, players like Klavžar and Jovic have almost no developmental path as basketball players in Europe outside of the professional ranks. To play basketball at any high level in Europe, young players must either move to the United States or align themselves with the developmental arm of a professional club. You have multiple options in America (or, in Bediako’s case, in Canada).
Structurally, Bediako’s circumstances are more akin to other G-League players recently deemed eligible, players who are full-time professionals in unionized leagues. There is arguably a distinction between Bediako and a player like Louisville’s London Johnson, but it’s hardly a financial one. Johnson was deemed eligible to play in college despite signing a then-record G League contract with the developmental team G League Unite. Unlike Bediako, Johnson never entered the NBA Draft and never signed an NBA contract. But his G League Unite contract alone outpaced Bediako’s earnings, even though Bediako signed 3 different NBA contracts.
If the distinction is about money, as opposed to contract type or amateur status, it’s hard not to sympathize with Bediako.
The NCAA may have a difficult time threading the needle.
After all, is there a difference substantively between Bediako and a player like Nnaji, who was drafted but ultimately never signed an NBA contract, instead playing professionally on a lucrative contract at the highest level of European basketball?
Nnaji never played in college, to be sure, but in permitting him to play collegiately after being drafted 31st in the 2023 NBA Draft — the same draft entered by Bediako — the NCAA tempted fate and established a slippery slope.
Oats, who lamented the future of high school development in the aftermath of the Nnaji situation, is simply exploiting that slippery slope.
Btw Nate Oats had this to say a few weeks ago when James Nnaji signed with Baylor:"I think it's taking away opportunities from kids coming out of high school. I was a high school coach for 11 years. I wanted my kids to get opportunities when they left my program. This is taking…
— Seth Davis (@SethDavisHoops) January 21, 2026But Oats also openly acknowledged that if these are the rules, he’s not going to handcuff himself while others exploit loopholes.
“That ship has sailed,” Oats said after lamenting the lost opportunities high school athletes may suffer as a result of the NCAA’s loosened eligibility standards. “That’s not where we’re at anymore.”
In other words, Oats, who has won more basketball games than any coach in the SEC since 2019-20, isn’t going to cut off his nose to spite his face.
It was Oats’ decision to bring back Bediako, and he’s not going to worry much about what type of impact that has on the sport as a whole, even if he acknowledges, as he has done, that it will have a detrimental impact.
Oats is employed to win games, and he’s great at it.
Restoring order to the sport? Not his job.
He’ll pass the buck to the next guy to figure that out because, after all, winning is the thing.
Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne is happy to pass the buck, too.
While Coach Oats provided his perspective earlier today on Charles Bediako and the process of him becoming eligible to compete for the Crimson Tide, I wanted to follow up with some additional thoughts. I think it’s safe to say the majority of us have concerns about the state of…
— Greg Byrne (@Greg_Byrne) January 24, 2026Byrne’s suggestion that perhaps Bediako’s case “can shape the future of the sport” is a fair assessment of the stakes of the litigation, but his sentiment that Alabama welcomes that “clarification” is gaslighting at worst and disingenuous at best. If Bryne, Scott Drew, Nate Oats, and other coaches and athletic directors truly welcomed solutions, they would be actively engaged in discussions to craft them. All the Bediako case does, beyond fixing the obvious roster construction errors Nate Oats made with his frontcourt ahead of the 2025-26 season — is create new precedents that eviscerate existing rules.
At present, Oats is more concerned with fielding a team that can compete with Florida’s vaunted frontcourt on Sunday in Gainesville. That’s what he’s paid to do, and if he can improve his team’s chances by racing to the courthouse, he’s clearly willing to do so, regardless of the criticism and outside noise.
A cynic, or even a good sports lawyer, might say upending the status quo and whatever’s left of its rule structure is a good start. Maybe so.
But therein lies the true rub.
If any time you don’t like a clear NCAA rule, you can run into court and get an order stating you don’t need to follow it, are you truly concerned with the future of the sport? Wouldn’t a better investment of time be spent outside courtrooms and in boardrooms, trying to carve out long-term eligibility solutions?
I get, by the way, that solutions aren’t easy.
The best one is likely a judicial decree stating that athletes are employees, paving the way for collective bargaining between institutions and college athletes. But even that solution is riddled with obstacles. For one, why would Power 5 (basketball) players collectively bargain with players outside power leagues? What’s in it for them? More probable is a separation between the Power 5 and non-power leagues, with some loose confederation remaining to allow for the NCAA Tournament. Or the end of the NCAA Tournament as we know it, at least the Cinderella version that captivates America each March.
But how do we get there when the modus operandi in the status quo is a race to the courthouse? How do we get there when the NCAA’s solutions fail and coaches across America are understandably more focused on winning within the current chaotic framework than fashioning a new, workable one?
You can’t blame — or shouldn’t blame — Oats and Byrne for seizing on a competitive loophole. This is hardly just an Oats, Byrne, or Alabama problem.
But you can fairly wonder why everyone is so content to let lawyers sort out the loopholes instead of writing rules that promote equity and fairness for the athletes and institutions alike. Where does the buck stop? When do we become problem solvers instead of problem exploiters?
In coaching circles (I also coach basketball), we call that a leadership vacuum. Leaderless teams die. So do leaderless sports.
College basketball has a dangerous leadership vacuum, and left to its own devices, it threatens to upend the sport at a time when the play on the floor is better than ever.
The athletes and fans deserve better. This is a moment for leadership. Until someone steps up and leads, the sport will suffer.
More than anything else, the Charles Bediako case demonstrates college basketball’s leadership vacuum Saturday Down South.
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