One of the main offseason fights Florida had was trying to get Denzel Aberdeen eligible for the 2026-27 season. At the crux of the fight was the NCAA’s decision to move to a “five-for-five” model that would allow all athletes five years of playing elegibility, but it wouldn’t take effect until this year, meaning athletes from the high school class of 2022 were out of luck.
After lengthy court battles, Aberdeen is cleared for this upcoming season.
At SEC Basketball Tipoff ‘27, Todd Golden called out the NCAA for what he believes is a double standard.
Todd Golden makes a case for why Denzel Aberdeen should be eligible
Golden was asked about the NCAA’s efforts to prevent the class of 2022 from playing this season. It’s safe to say that Golden isn’t a fan of the lawsuits from the NCAA:
“I believe the current standing of the stance the NCAA is taking is the situation that's causing the chaos right now. I think when you have a rule that clearly states that players get five years of eligibility within a five-year clock, you're trying to arbitrarily carve out a class to prevent chaos when said chaos has never been shown in really any examples across America or any sports.
There's a lot of points in this discussion that don't make a lot of sense to us. The NCAA has marketed and spent millions of dollars promoting the Protect College Sports Act. If that were to pass, the class of '22 athletes would be eligible to play.”
He’s got a great point Sting.
It has felt silly from the start that the NCAA has been actively preventing the class of 2022 from playing rather than grandfathering them in. And when challenged in court and told by the courts that the NCAA is being silly, the powers that be have insisted on digging their heels in rather than just doing what is common sense.
But this is the NCAA we are talking about, so maybe our standards are too high.
And in Aberdeen’s case, he wasn’t one of these guys who went pro and then tried to come back. He followed the normal college path and is simply trying to take advantage of a rule that everyone in the class of 2023 will have apply to them.
With Aberdeen in the mix, the bar for Florida this season is Final Four or bust. And hopefully we can just focus on basketball starting next month rather than being worried about some 2000 WCW style swerve from the courts for the sake of a swerve.
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