​The last thing any of us should do is carry water for the NCAA, arguably the most self-serving and dysfunction-filled body on the planet. And yet, out of nowhere, a fresh challenger has appeared. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the judicial system. Or, in the slang of the current NIL era, judge shopping. Never— and I mean never— have a group of judges savored a mere 15 minutes of fame with such calculated restraint. It almost makes you sympathize with the poor, misunderstood NCAA.
The latest ridiculous display of this judge-shopping trend unfolded Thursday afternoon, when an Ohio judge granted a preliminary injunction for 24 men’s and women’s college basketball players in a direct rejection of the NCAA’s new age-based model. In short: 24 players reached the end of their eligibility and decided they, too, should benefit from the NCAA’s fresh standard of five years to play five seasons of competition. Xavier forward Filip Borovicanin and a chorus of others crisscross the court as the drama unfolds around this decision.
The Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas went all-in, no holds barred. You might ask, Court of what, exactly? The answer: apparently, whatever court is convenient when the goal is to insert a judiciary in the middle of a labor dispute about athletes chasing easy cash one last time before being forced into the cold, impersonal world of professional constraints. And in a twist that defies ordinary logic, the judge who gave this ruling admitted in the final judgment that he had no real faith that the parties’ interests related to academics at all.
That judge, Christopher A. Wagner, hails from the area, with an undergraduate degree from Xavier and a law degree from Cincinnati. In a surprising turn of fate, Xavier and Cincinnati were two of the three schools formally representing the players at the hearing. Yes—these schools, the institutions that are supposed to be safeguarding the players’ interests, were suddenly stepping up to defend the athletes against their own universities. And we’re not talking about a fringe departure from protocol; we’re talking about the very schools that are staunchly aligned with the five-for-five plan—at least until it no longer served their recruiting aims.
Meanwhile, the basketball coaches from those three schools conspicuously testified on behalf of the players, essentially against their own institutions. It’s a level of internal rebellion that would make any observer blink in disbelief. I’m not exaggerating when I say this sounds like something out of a satirical script.
Wagner opened his ruling by quipping that “sport is the most important of the least important things,” a line that evokes a moment from a satirical movie—think Judge Smails in Caddyshack—transposed into the modern arena of college athletics and legal maneuvering. The remark, while perhaps meant to puncture pretension, underscored the peculiar interplay here: a legal framework stepping into a debate that many still treat as a matter of amateurism and moral priority, even as money and five-year eligibility rules swirl around it.
The broader context remains unchanged: the NCAA’s attempts to standardize eligibility and balance the interests of players, schools, and commercial realities continue to provoke pushback from every corner. The latest development—24 players seeking a broader window to pursue college basketball under a five-year, five-season regime—highlights how messy the legal and athletic ecosystems can become when education, commerce, and competition collide. And it’s not just about the players; it’s about the institutions that claim to champion them, the coaches who navigate a tangle of loyalties, and a judiciary that sometimes steps into the fray with a perspective that feels more improvisational theater than impartial adjudication.
If the point of all this is to illustrate the chaos that defines college sports today, then the scene has delivered in spades. The judges, the universities, the players, and the coaches have all stepped into a rapidly shifting landscape, where intentions blur and stakes rise. The result is a spectacle that invites both cynicism and curiosity: cynicism about who gains from such interventions and curiosity about how, or whether, this saga might eventually settle into a coherent, enforceable framework that truly serves the athletes’ long-term interests. Until then, the courtroom remains a stage where the boundaries between amateur ideals and professional realities are negotiated—with all the drama and complication that entails.