{"id":593660,"date":"2026-02-10T01:33:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T01:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/593660\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T01:33:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T01:33:14","slug":"ncaa-president-charlie-baker-releases-statement-after-charles-bediako-eligibility-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/593660\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA President Charlie Baker releases statement after Charles Bediako eligibility ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"

NCAA President Charlie Baker has released a statement following Monday\u2019s ruling in Charles Bediako<\/a>\u2018s injunction to continue playing this season. Bediako was denied by a judge on Monday and is no longer eligible to play for Alabama.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommon sense won a round today,\u201d the statement reads<\/a>. \u201cThe court saw this for what it is: an attempt by professionals to pivot back to college and crowd out the next generation of students. College sports are for students, not for people who already walked away to go pro and now want to hit the \u2018undo\u2019 button at the expense of a teenager\u2019s dream. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we\u2019re glad the court upheld the rules our members actually want, one win doesn\u2019t fix the national mess of state laws. It\u2019s time for Congress to stop watching from the sidelines and help us provide some actual stability.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NCAA has been firm on their stance on Bediako\u2019s case since the now former Alabama big man filed a lawsuit against them last month. He was granted a temporary restraining order and eventually played five games for the Crimson Tide as both parties awaited the hearing. <\/p>\n

Bediako\u2019s re-arrival in Tuscaloosa was unprecedented in college basketball to this point. It\u2019s not uncommon for teams teams to pull talent from Europe to fill out their roster. This season has even seen former G-League talent \u2014 who never played college hoops are eligible because of just that. Even Baylor\u2019s James Nnaji who was even drafted in 2023, the same year Bediako turned pro has been deemed eligible by the NCAA. The difference between the two cases is that they never played college basketball and never signed a NBA contract. <\/p>\n

In Bediako\u2019s case, he\u2019s done both. He played two seasons of college basketball for Nate Oats at Alabama before going on to sign a two-way deal with the San Antonio Spurs. He\u2019s played for three G-League teams since last suiting up for the Crimson Tide.<\/p>\n

In the five games Bediako was able to play in, he averaged 10.0 points, 4.6 rebounds and 0.2 assists per game on a 77.3% field goal percentage. The Crimson Tide went 3-2 over that stretch. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NCAA President Charlie Baker has released a statement following Monday\u2019s ruling in Charles Bediako\u2018s injunction to continue playing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,75501,6,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-593660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-charles-bediako-21-img-academy","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116043763226524710","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}