re: The collective melt over Nate Oats and Bediako should be a wakeup call.

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People keep saying this but there is an intrinsic difference between a Euro pro and a domestic pro. In Europe most high schools don't have teams. You play for your local club team. If you are identified at the club level as having talent you start moving your way up to higher clubs which puts you into "Professional" clubs at an early age. By 15-16 the most talented players are playing in their local federation and are getting minutes in the lower division pro leagues. So any meaningfully talented player from Europe will have pro league experience by the time they hit college age.

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Doesn't matter. They are paid professional athletes. They do not deserve accommodations due to the lack of athletics in secondary education in their states.

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The fact that the people making these decisions care more about what they can legally get away with than preserving the intent of the mutually agreed upon eligibility rules is a huge issue that no set of rules will be able to fix.

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Once the first norm breach in the compact was made, it was all over but the crying. If we want those norms back, it is going to involve our federal elected officials getting off their arse and changing the field of play such that these norms can be collectively bargained with the players. No different than the NBA bargaining with the players to not allow any player until one year removed from their graduating HS class or the NFL with 3 years removed. Those are collectively bargained limitations held together by a contract between the players union and institution/organization.

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Once the first norm breach in the compact was made, it was all over but the crying.

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Yes, because the collective character of college basketball coaches is horrendous, and their bosses have no spine.

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There is a specific NCAA bylaw that addresses the distinction. To my knowlege, this is the first case to ever challenge that bylaw in this manner. There are plenty of cases where players were allowed collegiate eligiblity when they followed the bylaw, example every Euro pro that has not played in college. Same goes for the Baylor player.

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NCAA bylaws aren't US legal code. They do not matter.

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Interesting. So, what US legal code determines a player's eligibility to compete in collegiate sports? Last I checked, those are determined by the NCAA bylaws.

So, for a court to be able to rule on the legality of eligiblity, the NCAA bylaws would in fact be what matters.

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The courts will ultimately decide whether the NCAA can enforce those rules or if they violate anti-trust laws. So, yes, they do not matter as much as they say. The NCAA could write a new bylaw that says every school in the NCAA has to give me a dollar but it is only legally actionable insofar that it survives any court dispute.

NCAA bylaws matter as much as some frat's internal rules. They only survive if everyone agrees to them internally but if there isn't concord on the matter then they must hold up to the scrutiny of the state/federal government's code.

Got it, so we've gone from there is no distinction between a euro pro and this case, to the bylaws don't matter, to they do matter but only if a court decides they are legal. That was a quick walk down and finally agree that ncaa bylaws are enforceable as long as they are legal and the distinction of the case at hand does, in fact, matter.

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must hold up to the scrutiny of the state/federal government's code.

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So, which code would this bylaw be in violation of?

Because this is the first case to challenge the bylaw in this manner means the bylaw doesn't exist or isn't an acting bylaw for dictating collegiate eligibility? Is that the stance you are trying to make? If you have a case where a player played in college, went pro, and then tried to come back and play college, i'm all ears. To my knowledge it has never been attmpted so there can be no cases for or against it. Which, again goes back to my original comment that there is an actual distinction that does matter between this case and the cases around other pro's.

There are cases where the bylaw has been used to not grant a player eligiblity. Enes Kanter is one.

And again.

Bama has used EuroPros on their basketball team before and will continue to do so in other sports.

I'm not shocked they are struggling to understand the difference but I do find it funny.

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Keep in mind Auburn is a team benefiting from European pros playing in college. But you probably don’t have any problem with that right.

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So, you don't know the actual bylaw either. Got it. Last I checked, he never played collegiate athletics. I have no problem with the Baylor case either. Nor the Louisville case. Let's see if you can accurately figure out why.