Last week, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, along with six other states, filed a lawsuit against the NCAA regarding their multiple time transfer rules.
With this was a temporary restraining order to make the rule that two-time transfers have to sit out and for that rule not to be applicable.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, who joined Morrisey’s efforts, announced that a TRO hearing will be heard on Wednesday at 10 a.m., in federal court.
The implications for this go far beyond just RaeQuan Battle’s eligibility. Obviously, Battle has been the focal point of all of this, after his water was denied by the NCAA, and then he had an appeal denied soon thereafter. Battle last week went into detail about the NCAA’s process of denying him eligibility, and even had his own lawsuit against the organization.
This also has major implications for WVU’s Noah Farrakhan. Farrakhan, like Battle, is a two-time transfer, going from East Carolina to Eastern Michigan. WVU did not submit a waiver to make him immediately eligible (like they did for Battle), assuming he would sit out this season.
However, the TRO could impact Farrakhan because the rule would not just be applied to Battle’s waiver, it could also be applied to Farrakhan as well, opening the door for him to play this season.
Now, this is a big deal for multiple reasons.
The first is, both Battle and Farrakhan bring a lot of good traits to the floor when they are on it, but more importantly, it helps with depth as the Mountaineers close in on Big 12 action and desperately need their rotation to get deeper.
That rotational depth was aided this week in the return of Akok Akok from a medical scare, and it will get another boost this weekend with the return of Kerr Kriisa from a suspension.
Either way, a lineup which features Kriisa and Battle, along with Jesse Edwards, could change a lot of things for West Virginia as far as competing at a high level this season.
Battle’s appeal was being “reconsidered” already this week according to interim head coach Josh Eilert, who revealed the news following WVU’s win over Drexel this weekend. But now, there is legal action that is happening with regard to the NCAA’s rule, which could make things even messier than they are to begin with depending on a court’s decision.
However, even if the court rules in favor of the state, they could still later down the line rule them ineligible, which would complicate matters even more, especially if Battle and Farrakhan both see playing time on the court with regard to the court’s decision, and then the NCAA later says they are ineligible to play. This piece is crucial to not just this season but possible future penalties depending on the direction all of this goes.
