College basketball's latest eligibility fight is now being litigated in three states, on behalf of over 80 combined plaintiffs. By most reasonable estimates, it should be resolved well before the season starts, with a likely window sometime in August. The NCAA's public position, meanwhile, hasn't moved since the first lawsuit landed in June, though perhaps the landscape has.
The dispute traces back to a rule change announced in May. The NCAA's Division I cabinet adopted a five-year, age-based eligibility model, informally called "five-for-five.” The rule goes into effect on August 1 and, in essence, eliminates the traditional redshirt. Going forward, athletes get five years of eligibility tied to age rather than four seasons within a five-year window.
The rule was not applied retroactively: players who exhausted four seasons in 2025-26 without ever redshirting, specifically the high school class of 2022, were excluded. That gap produced three separate lawsuits in Ohio, Colorado and California.
