Barnes Urges NCAA to Stop Fighting Fifth-Year Players in Court and Fund Olympic Sports Instead

Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes used an appearance before the Knoxville Quarterback Club on Monday to offer the NCAA some pointed advice: quit spending money on courtroom fights over fifth-year eligibility and put those legal fees to better use. Barnes said he would like to see an audit of what the association is spending on attorneys, arguing that it has dug in on the issue when a simpler, fairer solution is available.

The comments came as Barnes discussed the case of forward Jalen Washington, whose bid for a fifth season remains unresolved. The 6-foot-10 transfer averaged 8.9 points and 5.6 rebounds for Vanderbilt last season after starting his career with three years at North Carolina, and he has been practicing with the Vols since arriving in Knoxville over the summer. Washington briefly became eligible when he signed with Tennessee on August 5 after receiving an injunction in his lawsuit against the NCAA, but that ruling was stayed on August 26, leaving him ineligible again following decisions in both chancery court and on appeal.

Barnes has made the same point throughout the preseason: if some fifth-year players are cleared, all of them should be. Eligibility has so far turned on state-by-state rulings in separate lawsuits, producing different outcomes for players in essentially the same position. He estimated there could be around 500 such cases involving men's and women's athletes, and suggested the financial exposure of fighting each one could be enormous. In his view, the NCAA created the problem, in part by passing its five-for-five rule in late June and announcing it at a time that guaranteed the dispute would hang over the entire season.

What happens next for Washington is still unclear. Barnes noted that the forward is from Gary, Indiana, and raised again the possibility of refiling there, pointing out that players in Indiana have been cleared and are set until early December. For now, Washington has been held out of exhibition games against Xavier and Duke and a closed scrimmage against Davidson. Tennessee opens the season next Tuesday at home against Wofford, tipping off at 6 p.m. Eastern at Food City Center on SEC Network+, still waiting to learn whether one of its frontcourt additions will be allowed to play.