Per recent court filings, former Alabama center Charles Bediako is attempting to come back to school after a stint in the G League.
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Former Alabama basketball center
Charles Bediako is suing the NCAA for immediate eligibility. Matt Stahl of AL.com first reported the news.
Bediako played two seasons at Alabama from 2021-2023. After an SEC All-Defense team selection during his sophomore season in 2022-23, he declared for the NBA Draft with two years of eligibility remaining. He went undrafted in the 2023 and has played in the NBA G-League ever since, going from the Austin Spurs, to the Grand Rapids Gold, and now currently the Motor City Cruise.
“Official regular season games for the University of Alabama’s 2025-2026 men’s basketball season have already begun and the team has already started conference play within the Southeastern Conference,” Bediako’s attorneys wrote in his court filing, per Bama247. “Mr. Bediako will be irreparably harmed if he is not able to join the team immediately because of the lost development and opportunity to become integrated with his teammates and potentially participate in a postseason run.”
Bediako’s court filing also noted that he has enrolled in the spring semester at UA for classes.
Professional basketball players suing for eligibility in college basketball has become a recent trend. Recently Baylor forward
James Nnaji, the 31st overall pick of the 2023 NBA Draft that never appeared in an NBA game, was cleared by the NCAA after a court filing. Louisville guard
London Johnson and BYU forward
Adbullah Ahmed are examples of recent G League players cleared by the NCAA to play in college.
Earlier this month, Alabama head coach
Nate Oats weighed in on professional players playing in college.
“If they’re eligible and somebody else is going to get them, I wouldn’t say that I’d be one of the guys that was necessarily for it to begin with,” Oats said on SiriusXM with ESPN’s Peter Burns. “Because I think it’s taking away opportunities from kids coming out of high school. I was a high school coach for 11 years. I wanted my kids to get opportunities when they left my program. This is taking opportunities away from those kids.
“But on a competitive level, if it’s allowable, and they’re going to be eligible to play and they’re the better players that you can get, then you probably have to go after them.”
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