PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Two Providence College basketball players hoping to suit up for the Friars this winter will have to keep waiting. A federal judge heard their request for a temporary restraining order against the NCAA on Monday but did not rule at the end of the roughly 90-minute virtual hearing.
Joe Pinion and Derek Simpson, both members of the high school class of 2022, want a fifth year of college eligibility. U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose acknowledged the real stakes for the two players and said a decision would come quickly. Pinion and Simpson watched from the same room as Friars coach Bryan Hodgson, and none of them spoke during the hearing.
The case turns on an overhaul the NCAA Division I Cabinet approved this year. The new age-based model lets athletes compete across five years as long as they start college by the school year following their 19th birthday, and it does away with redshirt rules, season-of-competition limits and eligibility extension waivers. It applies in full to prospects who first enroll in fall 2027 or later, with current athletes getting whichever system treats them better.
Lawyers for the players argued the change took effect Aug. 1 and that letting the class of 2022 play this one season looks forward, not backward, adding that no other group would be affected. The NCAA countered that the players were asking the court to second-guess its rulemaking.
Both players have already played four college seasons. Pinion opened with two seasons at Arkansas, then played for Hodgson at Arkansas State and South Florida. Simpson played two seasons at Rutgers and two at Saint Joseph. Providence wraps up its exhibition schedule Saturday at home against Georgia Tech, and the regular season opens Monday, Nov. 2, against Maine.
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