Happy New Year, all.

Let’s hope 2026 is full of success, good health … and a lot less chaos in college sports.

1. College basketball’s path ahead

On Christmas Eve, Baylor sent shockwaves across the college basketball landscape by signing James Nnaji, a 21-year-old Nigerian forward who, more notably, was the 31st pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.

An NBA draftee, for the first time in history, is going to play college basketball, potentially as early as Saturday when Baylor plays TCU.

Nnaji being ruled immediately eligible by the NCAA — and given a full four years, at that — is the latest relaxation of the governing body’s once-strict eligibility rules. But over the last several years, those standards have steadily eroded, in no small part because of a growing list of court orders and injunctions — and the fear of more to come. Given the unwieldy amount of money flowing through college sports, anything that limits a player’s eligibility is already walking the tightrope of being an antitrust violation. Nnaji’s situation exemplifies that to a tee, and I highly recommend checking out our deep dive on the subject if you haven’t already.

NCAA president Charlie Baker at least attempted to draw a line in the sand this week, in response to both the Nnaji news and reports teams were interested in signing Chicago Bulls two-way guard Trentyn Flowers, who played NBA minutes in December. Baker said the NCAA will not grant eligibility to anyone who signed an NBA or two-way contract, which feels like a valid line of demarcation.

But if someone brings such a case to court, will the NCAA’s hard line hold up? Impossible to say.

The whole thing, understandably, has long-tenured coaches up in arms, with Tom Izzo, Matt Painter, John Calipari and Dan Hurley spouting off on the subject in the last week. “It’s a frustrating game to play,” Hurley told CBS Sports, “when you don’t know the rules, and rules are being made up as you go, and there’s no communication, and there’s no leadership.”

But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

In speaking to college coaches and stakeholders this week, everyone is convinced that as long as college basketball (and college athletics, more broadly) continues to exist in this nebulous space, the system will continue to break down in real time.

And there are still new frontiers where eligibility rules could be disputed this summer.

First, consider the case of former St. John’s wing RJ Luis Jr., last season’s Big East Player of the Year. Luis entered the transfer portal and the NBA Draft in the spring, before ultimately deciding to go pro instead of returning to college basketball. But then he went undrafted. And while Luis subsequently signed a two-way contract with the Utah Jazz — which puts him in the same off-limits territory as Flowers, according to Baker — what if he instead had tried to come back to college basketball? The NCAA has a bylaw that players who stay in the draft after the withdrawal deadline are forfeiting their remaining eligibility, but can that be litigated, too?