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Todd Golden had already retained enough talent for his Florida team to be a contender for its second national championship in three years. Then came another win, this one in a courthouse allowing guard Denzel Aberdeen to join the top-ranked Gators for his fifth college season.
"He has a great legal team that put an incredible argument forward, so we're planning on having him and we feel good about it," Golden said during Southeastern Conference basketball media days.
These days, leading a major college athletics program requires a touch of legal proficiency alongside the Xs and Os. Lawsuits tied to player eligibility are crawling through courts across the country. Some target the NCAA's new age-based eligibility model, others the question of whether even minimal involvement with a professional American team equates to losing the now-lucrative chance to play in college.
It's not stopping with the start of basketball season, either. The only thing certain now is volatility, with rosters changing by the week, even the day, at the bang of a judge's gavel. Consider it an added test for frustrated coaches who were already scrambling to fill rosters in the era of free player movement through the transfer portal.
Even Aberdeen's case, after he received a favorable ruling in September, is under appeal from the NCAA. For now, he's good to go for the Gators opener Monday night against No. 14 Miami.
"They're not going to say, 'Oh, we have to end it by November 2nd so there's clarity for the season,'" second-ranked Duke coach Jon Scheyer said when broadly discussing the eligibility chaos. "I think these cases are going to go well into the season. I think no question you're going to have cases where certain players get an injunction, they're eligible for a certain period, and then they're not. And so how is that viewed from an NCAA Tournament standpoint?
"It's going to be (unresolved) going into the season, which is the worst thing for the sport. Your roster should be set now."
Court fights
The lawsuits have largely centered around the NCAA's adoption of a five-year eligibility model that is due to be fully implemented next fall. It will allow players to have five years of eligibility with the clock starting when an athlete turns 19 or graduates from high school, whichever is earliest.
That quickly led to lawsuits from players in the high school class of 2022, who began their careers in the 2022-23 season and completed four seasons of eligibility but are seeking that fifth year.
Then there was the added wrinkle tied to a once-unthinkable notion: players leaving college, signing with pro teams and then returning to college.
Those storylines enveloped the start of football season in September. The most notable example was LSU's showdown with the Southeastern Conference in a bid to add at least two players who signed with NFL teams as undrafted free agents. That ultimately led the Power Four conferences -- the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten and Big 12 being the others -- to toughen up rules banning professional athletes from returning to college.
Now men's and women's basketball face the same urgent questions.
As of Thursday morning, the NCAA said there have been 200 lawsuits filed since the June approval of the age-based eligibility model with approximately 850 plaintiffs across all sports seeking eligibility for the 2026-27 season. More than half of those lawsuits (about 115) are tied specifically to the new eligibility rules, the rest to questions over involvement with professional teams along with all other case-by-case complaints.
There are 362 men's and 62 women's basketball players in the total plaintiff count. Of that group, nearly half (171 men, 30 women) have received some type of relief from the courts allowing them to play while the rest are currently ineligible.
What's next?
Yet things can change rapidly, with players moving from one category to the other. Some are tied to lawsuits in more than one state. Some athletes who lost in federal court turned to state judges with their arguments. There is even a College Sports Litigation Tracker website.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued an executive order allowing a fifth season of eligibility for college players in his state from the 2022 class. That decision impacted some cases even beyond Ohio's borders and prompted the NCAA to sue DeWine.
All of this is set amid the backdrop of efforts to pass the NCAA-backed Protect College Sports Act, a bill that has passed the U.S. Senate but is uncertain to pass the House. It includes a five-year eligibility provision along with some protections for the NCAA against lawsuits.