Binary Response: The Eligibility Line Everyone’s Afraid to Draw

This whole Bediako thing at Alabama isn’t just a quirky rules story, it’s a preview of what college basketball is going to look like if nobody draws a hard line between college player and professional trying to reboot his stock. And if you’re asking me, once a guy leaves campus, goes undrafted, and spends real time in the NBA/G League, the door back to college ball should slam shut for good.

The facts aren’t complicated. Charles Bediako played two seasons at Alabama, was in the 2023 draft, signed multiple NBA deals, and has spent the last couple of years bouncing around the NBA/G League and Summer League. Now, after that pro run hasn’t turned into an NBA gig, he’s back in Tuscaloosa with a temporary restraining order that lets him suit up again while the courts and the NCAA fight over what eligibility even means.

This isn’t some clerical error; this is a 23‑year‑old professional big man dropping back into a college locker room for a late‑career do‑over because his first bet didn’t pay off. CNN’s coverage rightly points out how weird this looks in real time – Alabama preparing to play Tennessee with a seven‑footer who literally just came off a NBA/G League floor.

You’ve got a judge with ties to Alabama athletics signing off on a TRO, the NCAA insisting its long‑standing rules still mean something, and other coaches openly wondering if they’re just burning the rule book on a Friday Zoom call. When UConn’s Athletic Director David Benedict is out there saying games with Bediako shouldn’t count toward the tournament, that’s not jealousy, that’s people realizing you can’t build a system if individual courts and programs get to carve out exceptions whenever it helps the rotation.

But the bigger issue is the pipeline. The NCAA has already bent over backward to accommodate international players who were pros overseas and guys who used the NBA/G League pathway before ever stepping foot on a college campus. That ship has sailed. NIL checks are flowing, transfer rules are looser, and everyone has admitted this is a business now. Fine.

Even in that world, there still has to be one bright, clear line saying that once you leave college, sign NBA/G League contracts, and start your pro climb, you don’t get to circle back to campus years later and re‑enter the same competition you aged out of.

Otherwise, what are we doing? Imagine being a freshman trying to fight for minutes at Alabama right now. You committed when the message was, We’ll develop you, you’ll get your shot, we’ll build this thing together. Suddenly, a 23‑year‑old with NBA/G League experience walks through the door with a court order and a jersey, and your developmental reps just evaporated. That’s not about opportunity for student‑athletes; that’s a win‑now roster patch driven by coaches and lawyers, not the supposed educational mission.

And from the NBA side, Dan Gavitt isn’t wrong when he says that if pre‑ and post‑draft eligibility rules can’t be enforced, the environment becomes unstable for everyone. The point of the current setup is that players and teams know the consequences of staying in the draft past certain dates, of signing certain contracts, of choosing the G League over another year in school.

You start letting guys come back two or three years later when the big call‑up never happens, and suddenly every decision is provisional. Go ahead, chase the bag; if it doesn’t work, we’ll see you for your fifth year at age 24. That’s not structure; that’s chaos disguised as flexibility.news4jax+3

Supporters of Bediako’s case lean on fairness, pointing to Baylor’s James Nnaji – another player with pro experience and NBA/G League time who was cleared to play this season. But even there, the wrinkle matters… Nnaji didn’t already have a college career in his rearview mirror before going pro, which is exactly the distinction the NCAA is trying to hold.

Is the NCAA perfectly consistent? Of course not. They’ve been making it up on the fly for years. But they’re inconsistent is not a good enough reason to blow up the last meaningful boundary between college basketball and the developmental leagues.

There’s also a competitive balance angle people are glossing over. If this becomes the norm, who actually benefits? Not the mid‑majors. Not the programs trying to build with three‑ and four‑year players. It’s the big brands with legal resources, friendly local courts, and coaches willing to take the PR hit in exchange for a few extra rebounds per game in February.

If Alabama can get a judge to green‑light a returning pro this year, what’s to stop another blueblood from re‑welcoming a former star in a few seasons when his NBA/G League tour stalls out? This quickly becomes a rich‑get‑richer mechanism, not some heartwarming second‑chance story.

The piece of this that really sticks, though, is honesty with the players. When you tell a 20‑year‑old, Declare, go undrafted, grind the NBA/G League, and if it doesn’t work, maybe you can come back, you’re selling a fantasy. Most of these returns won’t get TROs. Most schools won’t have the appetite – or the legal infrastructure – to wage that fight. And even if they did, do we really want rosters filled with mid‑20s veterans cycling in and out around 18‑year‑olds who are supposed to be sharing the same student‑athlete label?

Once you’ve left college ball, gone undrafted, and chosen the NBA/G League route, you’ve moved into the professional world and you don’t get to come back and reset your clock. The NCAA can still modernize, still pay players via NIL, still allow international pros who never had a previous college career, and still create real flexibility around the draft withdrawal dates. But when a player takes that full step into the pro ecosystem – with contracts, agents, and years logged in the G League – that has to be it for his college eligibility.

Here’s the thing, folks: Bediako’s story makes for a fascinating headline, and yeah, it’s going to be wild seeing a guy who was in the NBA/G League a week ago checking into an SEC game. But if college basketball wants to keep any coherent identity at all, this should be the exception that finally forces everyone to say out loud what the rule needs to be.

With that… You can chase the NBA, or you can stay in college a little longer. Once you’ve picked the NBA/G League and spent years there, you shouldn’t get to climb back into the student‑athlete window just because the show hasn’t called yet.

If you do not play with them, sometimes you still want to see a fair opportunity given to their peers.