“Look, there are a lot of older gentlemen with beards playing basketball in college right now,” Arkansas head coach John Calipari said after his Arkansas Razorbacks won against an older Fresno State team early in December.
Calipari, once viewed by some as a provocateur when it came to bending the rules, is now one of the elder statesmen of college basketball coaches. To his credit, he has long been against players lingering in programs, having been one of the biggest promoters of the one-and-done model during his glory years at Kentucky.
Coach Calipari says what we’re all thinking: The once-beautiful sport of NCAA College Basketball is in a state of pure absurdity—all thanks to a few certain self-serving lawyers claiming their clients would be “harmed” without a 9th year of eligibility… pic.twitter.com/UIDPRU2keS
— NIL 𝘯𝘰𝘵 NLI (@NILnotNLI) December 25, 2025
The Cal goes for quote of the year:
“The one that’s crazy is the guy comes in and he’s waving to his kids up in the seats. And you’re like, wait a minute. The guy’s got two kids. He’s still playing college basketball. Crazy thing. He’s using NIL for his first wife’s alimony. And now he’s still playing college basketball. Are we nuts?”
“So now you have these kind of games and these kind of scores. That team [Fresno State] is really old. My guess is, again, we’re probably the youngest team in the SEC. We’ll be one of the three youngest teams in the SEC. Those teams are old. Last year, every team was old in our league. They were old. And so now, you’re going to have those kind of things. And you’re also going to have a team like Fresno beat somebody because they got all grad students, seniors, and their average age is 25. And your average age is 19 or 20.”
To say the NCAA has relaxed its rules on eligibility is an understatement. A few pandemic holdovers—when the NCAA granted everyone an extra year of eligibility—a redshirt here, a fifth year there, and suddenly there are some old dudes out there hooping for schools and getting paid to do it.
An example of a really old dude’s career:
Year 1: Redshirt
Year 2: COVID year
Year 3 & 4 Normal Eligibility
Year 5: Graduate Year (extra season if player earns undergrad degree)
Year 6: Medical Waiver.
24 or 25 years old, they are still eligible and making $.
