The eligibility fight involving Cincinnati and Xavier players took another turn Thursday, and this one swung back in favor of the athletes.
The Ohio Supreme Court stayed the Ohio Court of Appeals’ ruling in the Borovicanin vs. NCAA case, restoring the injunctive relief that had previously kept several student-athletes eligible.
The move came one day after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued an executive order declaring “Class of 2022” student-athletes at Ohio public colleges eligible.
The high court also directed the parties to file simultaneous supplemental briefs by 5 p.m. on Oct. 19. Those briefs are to address the effect of the governor’s Oct. 13 executive order on the case.
The dispute has centered on several players, including Cincinnati guard MJ Collins and Xavier forward Filip Borovicanin. Their eligibility has bounced around through the courts, with rulings changing the landscape more than once.
Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Christopher Wagner granted injunctive relief on July 9, making Collins, Borovicanin and others eligible. That decision was later suspended. Then on Oct. 2, the Ohio First District Court of Appeals ruled the players in the case ineligible again.
The new stay applies to all of the student-athletes tied to the case, not just players at Ohio public schools. That includes Evan Mahaffey from Moeller High School and Akron, who is the brother of UC’s Eric Mahaffey, as well as Keyshawn Hall, who is from Cleveland and has played at UNLV, George Mason, UCF and Auburn.
DeWine’s order itself applies to players at Ohio colleges and universities.
The legal backdrop is the NCAA’s “five for five” rule, announced in late June. The policy was described as a major change to eligibility, allowing Division I athletes up to five years of eligibility if they enroll in college no later than the academic year after their 19th birthday. But players who had used up their eligibility under the old rules after the 2025-26 season - the “Class of 2022” - were left out, triggering lawsuits across multiple states.
For now, the stay puts the Ohio case back where the players want it.
That matters immediately for the local programs, even if their exhibition games continued without those names on the floor. Cincinnati beat Ohio State at the Lindner Tennis Center in Mason in the CareSource Invitational without Collins. Xavier beat Dayton there without Borovicanin.
Xavier has an exhibition at Tennessee on Oct. 15 and another on Oct. 23 at Cintas Center against Kent State before opening the season Nov. 2 against Mount St. Mary’s. Cincinnati plays Illinois in an exhibition at Fifth Third Arena on Oct. 17 at 5 p.m., then faces Oakland in its final exhibition Oct. 27 before opening Nov. 2 against American.
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