Cameron Fens, a seven-foot center who transferred to UNC from South Dakota earlier in August, is now ineligible to play for the Tar Heels in the 2026-27 season after ruling from the Tennessee Court of Appeals Wednesday. The court has issued a stay on the injunction granted to several athletes – Fens included – who graduated high school in 2022 and are seeking a fifth year of college eligibility.
The Tennessee Court of Appeals has issued an order staying the injunction granted to the plaintiff athletes pending appeal.
As with Ohio, those players are now ineligible unless and until the Court of Appeals rules in their favor. pic.twitter.com/l6LdAGCYj2
— Sam C. Ehrlich (@samcehrlich) August 26, 2026
Wednesday’s ruling is another win in court for the NCAA. Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit granted a stay of its own in the case of Wisne v. NCAA, ruling ineligible many class of 2022 athletes across the country who weren’t attached to a specific state’s lawsuit. Two of those athletes of particular interest to Tar Heel fans were UNC kicker Rece Verhoff and newly-minted Louisville Cardinal Seth Trimble, who played his first four years of college basketball in Chapel Hill. The stays in the Wisne case and in the Tennessee case are both pending appeal, meaning Fens, Verhoff and Trimble could still be eligible to compete in 2026-27.
Fens had recently been confirmed by the UNC program as a part of its roster and has been undergoing workouts with the team. The big man split his first four seasons of college basketball between Illinois-Chicago and South Dakota, but was far more productive at the latter stop. As a senior, Fens averaged career bests in scoring (14.4 points per game), rebounding (8.7 per game) and shot blocking (1.5 per game), while his 12 double-doubles ranked in the top 30 among all Division 1 players.
UNC rosters three other centers on its roster: international recruits Sayon Keita (Mali) and Alexandros Samodurov (Greece) as well as Northwestern transfer Cade Bennerman. None of those three have competed in an official NCAA basketball game.
The back-and-forth between the NCAA and class of 2022 athletes comes as the NCAA has recently updated its eligibility rules, granting five years of participation to all athletes competing in the 2026-27 academic year onward. Class of 2022 athletes are seeking to be grandfathered into this amendment — while their predecessors were granted a maximum of five season of eligibility thanks to the “COVID year” given to all athletes who competed in 2020-21 and their successors will benefit from the NCAA’s new rules, class of 2022 athletes will only have enjoyed four years of participation.
Featured image via South Dakota Athletics/Hailey Price
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