By admin 
GREENSBORO, N.C. (WNCN) — More than 50 former college basketball players, including several with ties to North Carolina colleges and universities, have filed a lawsuit against the NCAA seeking another year of eligibility, arguing the organization’s new eligibility rules unfairly exclude athletes who graduated high school in 2022.
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The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Guilford County Superior Court, names the NCAA as the defendant and asks a judge to issue a preliminary injunction allowing the players to compete during the 2026-27 season while the case proceeds. The plaintiffs are also seeking a permanent injunction preventing the NCAA from enforcing the rule against them.
Among the plaintiffs are former North Carolina State players Darrion Williams, Tre Holloman and Ven-Allen Lubin, along with athletes who most recently played at Wake Forest, Appalachian State, Charlotte, High Point, UNC Wilmington, North Carolina A&T, Elon and other Division I programs across the country.
North Carolina guard Seth Trimble is not a plaintiff in the lawsuit, but he could benefit if the courts ultimately rule in favor of the players challenging the eligibility policy.
At the center of the lawsuit is the NCAA’s recently adopted “five-in-five” eligibility model, which generally allows athletes five years to compete beginning with their initial full-time college enrollment. The plaintiffs argue the NCAA unfairly excluded athletes who graduated high school in 2022 while extending similar eligibility opportunities to athletes from earlier and later graduating classes.
According to the lawsuit, the NCAA voted in June to grant a fifth season of eligibility to current athletes from the high school graduating classes of 2023, 2024 and 2025. The plaintiffs contend that decision left the Class of 2022 as the only recent graduating class denied the same opportunity.
The complaint alleges the NCAA violated its contractual obligation to treat student-athletes fairly and consistently and also violated North Carolina’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act by excluding the Class of 2022 from the rule change.
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The players are not asking the court to eliminate the NCAA’s eligibility rules altogether. Instead, they argue the governing body applied its new policy inconsistently by allowing athletes before and after the Class of 2022 to compete for five seasons while denying that opportunity to their graduating class.
The plaintiffs argue immediate court action is necessary because Division I basketball rosters for the upcoming season are nearly finalized.
Without a preliminary injunction, they say they’ll lose roster opportunities, scholarships, revenue-sharing agreements and potential name, image and likeness (NIL) earnings that cannot be recovered through monetary damages alone. The filing also asks the court to prevent the NCAA from penalizing schools or coaches that allow the players to compete under a court order.
The North Carolina lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to the NCAA’s new eligibility standards. Earlier this month, an Ohio judge granted a preliminary injunction allowing another group of college basketball players to compete while a similar lawsuit moves forward.
As of Friday, the NCAA had not filed a response to the lawsuit in Guilford County.
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