I’m ineligible. I think.
I never participated in a college practice or got an athletic scholarship dollar, but I went to school at LSU for five years. My clock probably ran out in 2011. Maybe.
As for R.J. Luis and Jack Pyburn, I’m even less sure. What I do understand is that LSU is interested in rostering both this school year despite the fact that they’ve signed and practiced with the pros.
Despite their similarities, I ultimately find both cases different.
Luis’s case will be heard in a Baton Rouge courtroom on Monday. He played three years of college basketball, the last being in 2024-25 as the Big East Player of the Year at St. John’s where he averaged 18.2 points and 7.2 rebounds for Pick Pitino’s Red Storm team that won 31 games and earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
At that point, he set sail for the NBA ranks and burned his collegiate eligibility boat.
After going undrafted and signing with the Utah Jazz, he missed the Summer League and was traded to the Boston Celtics. He logged a few minutes in the preseason before being waived.
He never saw the floor in an NBA game despite being compensated by two NBA franchises. Now, with his basketball future in doubt, he’d like to reboard the vessel he set ablaze in 2025 and set sail back to the collegiate ranks.
That’s where I draw the line.
To be clear, I don’t fault Will Wade for one second as he tries to assemble the best team he can. We’re in an era of perceived lawlessness that allows almost anyone with a heart beat and an attorney eligible. Luis’s case is essentially that he’s not good enough to play in the NBA. I don’t find that compelling.
Pyburn, one the other hand, I get.
Depending on the sport, college athletes who started their careers from 2016 to 2020 got a fifth year of eligibility due to COVID-19. Those who began their careers in 2021 had four years to play. They moved on. The high school class of 2022 just finished their four years as the class behind them was granted a fifth by the “Five for Five” rule that recently went into place.
This isn’t a function of a poor decision. It’s bad luck. Pyburn and his classmates were born in the wrong year.
Unlike Luis, whose choice was to leave the collegiate ranks, Pyburn was forced to. Now his professional career is predictably teetering on the brink because he went undrafted.
It’s reasonable to suggest a player who tallied two sacks in an NFL preseason game 21 days before LSU’s opener shouldn’t take the field that day. It’s also reasonable to suggest a fifth college season wasn’t available to Pyburn eight months ago. Now it is. That changes the game.
As far as courts go, Luis belongs on one in Europe instead of in one in Baton Rouge. Pyburn and his classmates may get cut by NFL franchises, but I’ll cut them a break. Play a fifth year. That’s my ruling that no one asked for.
Meanwhile, I’m still out of eligibility and tired of trying to determine who’s not.
