A potential groundbreaking decision was made in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on Monday that could change NCAA eligibility forever.

A judge denied Charles Bediako’s motion for a preliminary injunction that would allow him to continue playing basketball for the Alabama Crimson Tide after he returned despite declaring for the 2023 NBA Draft.

So, after just five games, Bediako’s season is over, per AL.com’s Nick Kelly.

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“Common sense won a round today,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said in a statement, per Yahoo Sports. “The court saw this for what it is: an attempt by professionals to pivot back to college and crowd out the next generation of students. College sports are for students, not for people who already walked away to go pro and now want to hit the ‘undo’ button at the expense of a teenager’s dream.

“While we’re glad the court upheld the rules our members actually want, one win doesn’t fix the national mess of state laws. It’s time for Congress to stop watching from the sidelines and help us provide some actual stability.”

Bediako filed a lawsuit against the NCAA in order to return to his Crimson Tide squad, where he last played during the 2022-23 season. The 7-foot center declared for the NBA Draft after that year, but he went unselected in the two rounds.

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Bediako eventually spent time in the G League over the past three seasons, which includes six games for the Motor City Cruise this season.

However, he was granted a temporary restraining order in January, allowing him to return to Alabama to play for his old team despite the NCAA initially denying the Crimson Tide’s request to have him on the roster.

Bediako isn’t the first player whose attempt to head back to college after going pro hasn’t gone swimmingly.

James Nnaji, who was actually taken in the same draft as Bediako, shocked everyone when he committed to Baylor. While he hadn’t played in an NBA game, Nnaji was the first former draftee to be cleared to play in college.

It started a wave of similar commitments, which include G League players Thierry Darlan and London Johnson heading to Santa Clara and Louisville, though it is for next season.

Alabama head coach Nate Oats told The Athletic that Bediako will remain on scholarship even if he can’t play.

“Charles has done nothing wrong. I will stand by our guys every single time, no matter what the outside says when they’ve done nothing wrong, and Charles has done everything right,” Oats told the outlet.

Meanwhile, Arkansas head coach John Calipari unloaded on the current state of college basketball for allowing players to head back into college.

“Does anybody care what this is doing for 17- and 18-year-old American kids?” Calipari questioned in his nearly seven-minute monologue in December 2025. “Do you know what this opportunity has done for them and their families? There aren’t gonna be any high school kids. Who, other than dumb people like me, are gonna recruit high school kids? I get so much satisfaction out of coaching young kids and seeing them grow and make it, and their family’s life changes, that I’m gonna keep doing it. But why would anybody else, if you can get NBA players, G-League players, guys that are 28 years old, guys from Europe — do we really know their transcript? Do we have somebody over there? Do we really know their birth certificate? Or don’t we?

“If you put your name in the draft, I don’t care if you’re from Russia and you stay in the draft, you can’t play college basketball. ‘Well, that’s only for American kids.’ What? If your name is in that draft, and you got drafted, you can’t play college because that’s our rule. ‘Yeah, but that’s only for American kids.’ OK. OK.”

But Alabama feels that it has been done wrong by the NCAA considering players have been allowed in other programs to play this season despite going pro, Nnaji being an example.

“I respectfully ask the Court to uphold the NCAA eligibility rules challenged in this case, which are essential to the integrity of college sports, to the educational mission they serve, and to the opportunities they provide for current and future student-athletes,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a four-page affidavit filed last week.

The university added a statement following the court’s ruling, per Yahoo Sports.

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“While we understand the concern around competitive and developmental implications of former professional athletes participating in college, it is important to acknowledge reality,” the statement read.

“The NCAA has granted eligibility to over 100 current men’s basketball players with prior professional experience in the G League or overseas. Granting eligibility to some former professionals and not to others is what creates the havoc we are currently in and why consistency from decisions-makers is so desperately needed.”

The Crimson Tide went 3-2 with Bediako back on their bench.

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History has rarely been kind to Alabama’s governors. Few are remembered for long, and fewer still for having led the state well. Governor Kay Ivey is likely to be judged differently—not because she reshaped Alabama politics, but because she set a governing standard that has too often been absent.

Measured against her peers—in this state and across the region—Ivey has led Alabama better than most. Not louder. Not flashier. Better.

In an era of noisy, self-indulgent governance, she has been better than her peers simply because she treated the job as work, not performance.

She inherited a state that has often confused ideological signaling with leadership and volume with results. What she offered instead was competence, continuity and a seriousness about governing that has grown increasingly rare. Ivey did not promise transformation. She delivered stability. She did not seek national attention. She focused on Alabama. And while her approach rarely produced dramatic moments, it produced something far more valuable: a state that was consistently managed, economically competitive and largely spared the self-inflicted chaos that has plagued executive offices elsewhere.

For most Alabamians, that did not feel dramatic. It felt like schools opening on time, paychecks arriving as expected, roads getting paved and crises handled without panic. Good governance rarely announces itself—it simply spares people from unnecessary disruption.

She will not be remembered for fiery speeches or grand crusades. She will not be remembered for cable-news dominance or viral moments. She will be remembered for keeping Alabama on steady footing at a time when steadiness itself became a scarce commodity.

That steadiness was not accidental. It reflected judgment, discipline and an understanding that governing is not about theatrics, but about responsibility.

Fault can be found with any leader. Kay Ivey is no exception. There were moments of caution, moments when political realities shaped policy choices, and moments when the gravitational pull of her party’s most aggressive elements was difficult to escape. But what distinguishes her tenure—and what sets it apart from many of her contemporaries—is that she consistently chose outcomes over outrage, policy over performance, and long-term stability over short-term applause.

She governed with policy, not performance.

For decades, Alabama—like much of the South—has talked about the idea of a “New South” governor. At its core, that idea has always meant the same thing: a leader focused on economic growth over grievance, management over messaging, and results over rhetoric. Other Southern states have elected versions of that leader. Alabama, notably, has not.

Instead, the state has often oscillated—sometimes choosing cultural familiarity over competence, sometimes rewarding ideological signaling over executive ability and sometimes settling for leaders who spoke loudly but governed thinly. That pattern did not belong exclusively to one party or one era. It has been a feature of Alabama politics for generations.

Ivey did not become Alabama’s first New South governor. But she governed closer to that standard than most of her predecessors. She practiced conservatism not as spectacle, but as stewardship—a quieter, more functional form that treated governing as an executive responsibility rather than a cultural performance.

As she enters her final year in office, Alabama stands at an inflection point. We know what Alabamians want because they have told us—clearly, repeatedly and across survey after survey that cuts through party labels and campaign rhetoric.

They want a governor focused on affordability and economic stability. They want attention paid to the cost of living, to whether wages keep pace with prices, to whether growth reaches working families instead of stopping at press releases and ribbon cuttings. They want competence in managing the basics—infrastructure, education, health care access, workforce development—and seriousness about the long-term health of the state.

They are not asking for ideological theatrics. They are not asking for endless conflict. And they are not asking for leadership consumed by national attention rather than Alabama outcomes.

In poll after poll, voters prioritize practical concerns over performative ones. They value results over rhetoric, steadiness over spectacle, and leadership that improves daily life rather than dominating the news cycle.

That is not nostalgia. That is data.

The appeal of competence is not ideological. It is rooted in lived experience, especially among people who cannot afford the consequences of instability, mismanagement or performative leadership.

Alabama remains a conservative state. It always has been. For much of its history, it elected conservatives whether they ran as Democrats or Republicans. What changed was not ideology, but sorting. Beginning with Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy and reinforced through later realignments, including Ronald Reagan’s accommodation with the Christian right, party identity gradually replaced judgment. Over time, the letter beside a candidate’s name came to carry more weight than preparation, temperament or capacity to govern.

That is not wisdom. It is habit.

And habits, left unchecked, can quietly erode the standards voters believe they are defending.

Kay Ivey’s tenure stands as a reminder of what happens when judgment still matters. She did not govern as a brand or an avatar. She governed as an executive. Her appeal was not novelty or outrage, but familiarity, restraint and a willingness to do the work without demanding constant validation.

When identity replaces judgment, the risk is not that voters choose the wrong ideology. The risk is that they stop asking whether a candidate is prepared to govern at all. And when that question goes unasked, the cost is never abstract—it is paid quietly, over time, by families who do not have the luxury of treating politics as entertainment.

Kay Ivey will not be remembered as the loudest governor Alabama has had. She will be remembered as one who led the state well—and who showed, almost inadvertently, how rare that has become.

Standards, once lowered, are difficult to restore. And when they slip quietly, they rarely announce themselves until the consequences are already felt.

Alabama now faces a choice that will not be resolved by slogans or party labels. It will be resolved by whether voters continue to ask the most basic question of anyone seeking executive power: are you prepared to govern—or only to perform?