Lead
On Dec. 24, 2025, Baylor announced it had signed James Nnaji, a 21-year-old, 7-foot center who was the 31st pick in the 2023 NBA draft and has played professionally in Europe since 2020. The move — announced on Christmas Eve and expected to make Nnaji available for Big 12 play the following week — underscored a growing practice: NCAA rosters adding former NBA draftees midseason. The roster change is legal under current eligibility interpretations and has provoked sharp debate about rules, precedent and the NCAA’s role in modern college athletics.
Key Takeaways
- James Nnaji was the 31st overall pick in the 2023 NBA draft, has played pro in Europe since 2020 and averaged about 3.4 points per game in professional minutes.
- Baylor publicly announced Nnaji’s signing on Dec. 24, 2025; the school said he would be available for upcoming Big 12 games.
- Other programs — including Oklahoma, Dayton, BYU and Kansas State women’s basketball — have also added professional players with prior draft status in recent months.
- Legal shifts dating to the 2009 Ed O’Bannon litigation and the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous 2021 ruling in NCAA v. Alston weakened the NCAA’s longstanding amateurism defenses.
- The judicial and legislative failures to restore a strict amateurism model opened pathways to immediate eligibility for transfers and, in practice, to pros joining college rosters midseason.
- Coaches and athletic directors face competing duties: maximize roster competitiveness for their programs while navigating evolving eligibility guidance and public scrutiny.
Background
The NCAA long defended a model of college athletics built on amateurism, resisting direct pay and tight controls on athlete movement. That posture began to collapse under legal pressure, most notably after the Ed O’Bannon case and then the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in NCAA v. Alston, which rejected broad NCAA defenses to antitrust claims and signaled the courts would not preserve an uncompensated labor model by deference.
Instead of adapting earlier, the NCAA and many institutional leaders doubled down: funding expensive legal defenses, hiring lobbyists and seeking congressional carve-outs that never materialized. Those strategies did not restore the NCAA’s prior leverage; they prolonged uncertainty, encouraged court-driven remedies and left roster-management questions unresolved for athletic departments and coaches.
Main Event
Baylor’s announcement that James Nnaji would join the Bears in late December is the highest-profile example yet of a broader trend: programs adding players with professional experience and prior NBA draft status during the academic season. Coaches framed the signing as within the rules and in service of their teams; Baylor coach Scott Drew said the staff had verified eligibility and expected Nnaji to play.
The signing drew immediate reaction from peers and rivals. Connecticut coach Dan Hurley offered a wry social-media reaction noting the jarring nature of midseason additions; others called for clearer, uniform policy. Athletic departments defended their decisions as legal and in the interest of student-athletes, while critics warned of competitive imbalance and confusion for roster planning.
It’s not an isolated occurrence. Programs across the sport have pursued players from European leagues or other professional environments who retain NCAA eligibility under current interpretations. Those players often arrive with modest professional statistics — Nnaji’s pro scoring average is roughly 3.4 points per game — but still represent experienced, mature additions to college lineups.
Analysis & Implications
The essential legal pivot is straightforward: courts have limited the NCAA’s ability to enforce a strict no-pay, no-professionalism model, which in turn constrained the association’s capacity to police eligibility on the old premises. With antitrust avenues largely closed to the NCAA, institutions and athletes have found routes that were previously impractical or blocked.
That shift produces immediate operational consequences. Athletic departments must reconcile recruiting cycles, scholarship management and roster stability with unexpected midseason arrivals. Coaches who prioritize winning will naturally take advantage of newly available talent, creating a marketplace tension between program competitiveness and fair process.
Longer term, the debate points toward labor recognition and collective negotiation. Treating athletes as employees and establishing collective bargaining could enable structured windows for signings, transfer deadlines, and agreed eligibility criteria. Without such negotiation, each legal defeat will continue to reshape roster rules by default, not design.
Finally, the optics and competitive balance questions matter. Programs able to recruit internationally or offer appealing return paths may gain an advantage. That raises equity concerns across conferences and divisions and increases pressure on conferences, the NCAA and lawmakers to adopt clearer, enforceable frameworks.
Comparison & Data
| Year | Event | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Ed O’Bannon files suit | Started legal challenge to NCAA’s image/use rules |
| 2014 | District rulings against NCAA practices | Court decisions signaled limits on NCAA control over compensation |
| 2021 | NCAA v. Alston (Supreme Court, 9-0) | Rebuffed NCAA’s broad antitrust defenses and weakened amateurism arguments |
That timeline shows how litigation, rather than internal reform, has driven the biggest policy changes. In practice, judicial decisions produced a patchwork of outcomes: immediate transfer eligibility, a permissive NIL era, and now, ambiguity around post-draft and international professional experience returning to college play.
Reactions & Quotes
Peers and commentators framed the Baylor signing as both legal and symptomatic of wider policy failures.
“Santa Claus is delivering midseason acquisitions,”
Dan Hurley, UConn coach (social media)
Hurley’s quip captured the surprise many coaches felt seeing former pros join rosters midseason. The remark was widely shared as shorthand for the sport’s chaotic eligibility landscape.
“I just know they told us he can play, so I’m happy,”
Scott Drew, Baylor coach
Drew emphasized institutional duty to his program and players, noting that compliance offices and conference rules guided Baylor’s decision to add Nnaji.
“That argument is circular and unpersuasive,”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, U.S. Supreme Court (NCAA v. Alston, 2021)
Kavanaugh’s line in the Alston opinion summarized the Court’s resistance to preserving an uncompensated labor model for college sports and remains a touchstone in legal discussions about eligibility and compensation.
Unconfirmed
- Whether the NCAA will issue a new, binding blanket policy restricting post-draft returns to college programs in the coming months remains unannounced.
- The frequency and scale of midseason signings by major programs this season are not yet fully cataloged; more additions could appear before transfer windows close.
- Any private negotiations between conferences and the NCAA over narrow antitrust carve-outs or transfer-window reforms are unreported publicly at this time.
Bottom Line
Baylor’s addition of James Nnaji is less an isolated curiosity than a visible symptom of a system reshaped by litigation, shifting public sentiment and policy gaps. The NCAA’s repeated legal losses and delayed internal reform created incentives for institutions to exploit remaining pathways to talent acquisition, even midseason.
Fixing the instability will require deliberate policy design: either collective bargaining that produces agreed windows and standards, or clear, enforceable rules from governing bodies that reflect the modern realities of athlete compensation and movement. Absent that, roster volatility and legal patchwork will continue to dictate how college basketball is rostered, coached and contested.
Sources
- ESPN (news coverage)
- Supreme Court – NCAA v. Alston, 2021 (official court opinion)
- Baylor Athletics (official institutional site for team announcements)