Can someone explain the college eligibility rules for these international players? I remember Lamelo Ball wasn’t allowed to play in college since he played in Lithuania and the JBA, so I assume the rules are different
They used to not allow any international players who accepted more than cost of living coverage in their salaries to play in the NCAA. Or any youth players who accepted money from endorsements or whatever else. So you’re right lamelo ball and other cases such as Enes Kanter weren’t allowed to play.
Now that’s over and done with and even the highly touted international players, like Kasparas Jakučionis on the Miami Heat, who was paid well as a teenager, can make the transition to the NCAA no sweat. Players like him used to suppress their abroad earnings — to qualify for cost of living payments only — if they knew they wanted to play college basketball: Domantos Sabonis, Franz Wagner, etc.
The current NCAA rule is that your five year “clock,” begins whenever you enroll at a 2 year or 4 year university; hence, why one year postgrad prep school players have long been unaffected. You have five years to play four seasons; notwithstanding NCAA waivers for injury, sickness, or what have you.
Now that international players see the opportunity here, and college coaches see the potential to win more games with them, undrafted guys as well as upcomers are flocking to scene with high demand from programs. A lot of these international players have been in youth “academies,” since they were pre-teens or teenagers.
Different academies/families take different approaches to education while their children pursue professional athletics; however, plenty of them never enroll in a four year college. So now that money isn’t an issue, guys who would’ve spent their whole careers abroad and got money while they were younger are playing college hoops. It’s no harm no foul when they’re college aged, but because many of them never planned on going to university — or maybe wanted to wait until they finish playing professionally— the first time they are enrolling themselves in a 2 or 4 year university is when they get to America.
So there are semi-professionals or actual professionals (some players in academy play only U18, U20, U23 etc) arriving to the USA at ages 17 to 25, and having 4 years of playing eligibility. So this trend alongside the transfer portal created an ecosystem where less and less American players are getting college scholarships outta HS.
The Diego Pavia ruling was a game changer because it differentiated between two year non NCAA athletics and 4 year NCAA competition. This gave Yaxel Lendenborg, Pavia, Tennessee’s quarterback and many others who played at a JUCO an extra year or two to compete.
So the NCAA, even while fighting the idea, had to adjust from the standard they had before. In a roundabout way, it will also solve the problem of these older international players.
They are now changing the rules to solve a lot of problems with redshirts, international players (not just in basketball but soccer and other sports have this problem as well), and rampant youth reclassifications. Among other things, no more late 20s Australian punters lol.
The new rules state that every player will have 5 years to play 5 seasons. No more redshirts, no more hardship exceptions, etc. A player’s 5 years of eligibility will begin when they graduate from high school or when they turn 19, whichever event comes first. Only people who can qualify for an exemption are pregnant women or new mothers, military personnel, and religious missions delaying college enrollment aka Mormons.
I am unsure if there would be differing eligibility consequences for a prospect who turns 19 in November of his senior HS year versus one who turns 19 in march of his year, however; what the new rules do will effectively make NCAA sports universally either U23 or U24 besides the religious/prenatal/military exceptions. It additionally eliminates redshirts of all kinds—so Chase Smith and Toure wouldn’t have been allowed to suit up for us this year.
