Report: NCAA not expected to grant extra eligibility to basketball players, other winter sport athletes
With March Madness and other NCAA postseason events canceled this month, many have wondered if basketball players (and other winter sport athletes) would receive an extra year of eligibility.
While it looks like spring sports athletes will get an extra year as their seasons have been preemptively canceled, don’t expect that to be the case for winter athletes.
Per college basketball insider Jon Rothstein, the NCAA is unlikely to grant another year to basketball players:
Sources: The NCAA is unlikely to grant an extra year of eligibility for student athletes who participated in winter sports and had their seasons cut short due to coronavirus.
An extra year of eligibility is still in play for student athletes involved with spring sports.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) March 18, 2020
While that’s obviously a tough break for those seniors, they did get to play the full regular season, which is probably how the NCAA came to this reported decision.
Still, it’s rough that this was the way their collegiate careers had to end.
Doesn’t make sense to me. Why not give these athletes another year to compete?
Because they had a whole year. They missed the post season, but a lot of teams weren’t going to be playing in that anyway.
That’s true. And besides, 5-star recruits won’t be happy if they have to sit behind seniors because they hoped for a 1 and done career
It would negatively impact the scholarship limits in place, as well as putting more athletes on an already full roster in most cases.