The NCAA and Eligibility

By: Andrew Mercer

Photo by: Andrew Mercer

After the NCAA basketball tournament was cancelled there was question as to if the seniors for the previous fall/winter semester would keep their eligibility for next year. A few weeks later the NCAA voted to allow spring semester seniors to keep their eligibility. However, this was not the case for the fall/winter semester seniors. The vote opted for them to lose their eligibility even though they did not get to participate in their end of season tournaments. The thought was that the seniors played most of their games and although disappointing, the seniors would not get more eligibility. 

There would also have been a problem with teams having too many scholarships. Future freshmen had already committed to schools and most teams’ scholarships amount were full for next season. In the end, there were too many obstacles to allow this to happen. The reason they granted seniors for spring semester sports was because their season had barely started or not started at all. This situation has never happened before, so the NCAA was unlikely to allow it in the first place.

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