Even coaches aren’t sure who will be on their rosters for a ’26-27 hoops season like no other

Less than three months after reaching what many would say is the pinnacle of coaching — leading a program to an NCAA championship — Dusty May left Michigan for the NBA.

When it came to what May wanted in his career, he said the Dallas Mavericks checked all the boxes. And when it came to coaching in college, the 20-year veteran of the sidelines stated the obvious: “It’s much more complicated than it used to be.”

The hundreds of college coaching brethren he left behind, who next week begin the quest for a spot in a newly expanded 76-team version of March Madness, feel his pain.

The months between the Wolverines cutting down the nets at the Final Four and the start of practice for the 2026-27 season have been beset by lawsuits over player eligibility that have turned roster-building into not only a matter of who can write big checks in this untethered era of NIL payments but also a crapshoot being played out in courtrooms across America.

“I can’t imagine what a college sports fan is going through with all this chaos,” Arkansas coach John Calipari posted recently on social media. “I know how challenging it is to be a coach and a player.”

Among this year’s favorites to win it all on April 5 at the Final Four in Detroit are AP preseason No. 1 Florida and No. 2 Duke, both at 6-1, and No. 4 UConn at 11-1. No. 3 Illinois is listed at 12-1.

No. 16 Michigan, with its top three scorers from last year now in the NBA and with a new coach at the helm in May’s former assistant, Mike Boynton Jr., is 30-1.

But really, who knows?

“I live it, sleep it, and eat it and I don’t know what teams have who because of the incredible stupidity of our system,” Michigan State’s Tom Izzo said. “We still don’t have everybody on teams. We’re a month into school and guys don’t know if they’re eligible, or if this judge is going to make them eligible, or this governor is going to do this.”

Governors, court decisions have a big impact on rosters

It was less than two weeks ahead of the season’s Nov. 2 openers that Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, attempted to put his hand on the scale.

His executive order allowing a fifth season of eligibility to college players in his state who graduated high school in 2022 — a group the NCAA did not include when it adopted a five-year eligibility rule in the summer — had an impact beyond the borders of Ohio.

Yes, the order did influence a state Supreme Court decision that allowed Filip Borovicanin back onto the roster for Xavier in Cincinnati. But it also, at least for now, placed another plaintiff, Javon Bennett, back on the Gonzaga roster and made about two dozen other players eligible for their teams.

Another potentially key piece for Mark Few’s 15th-ranked Zags: Florida transfer Xavian Lee, whose eligibility was restored by a ruling in California.

The Ohio and California cases are two of 74 matriculating through state courts, according to the College Sports Litigation Tracker last week. According to some estimates, more than 500 players are involved (not all from basketball) in those cases and more than 250 of those have had eligibility restored.

“Tell me the rules and I’ll follow them,” Louisville coach Pat Kelsey said on the witness stand while testifying in a case in Kentucky. “Nobody follows them. You’re trying to trick me with a bunch of stuff. End the chaos.”

A new twist on the same story takes hold at Kansas

Chaos took on yet another new wrinkle when a player who graduated high school not in 2022, but 2021, got a positive legal ruling in his own case seeking a fifth year of eligibility.

Trey Kaufman-Renn was an all-conference forward at Purdue when the Boilermakers made the national final in 2024. He was selected by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round of NBA draft in June and played in the NBA summer league but never signed a contract.

Though an eligibility case involving the LSU football team led college conferences to pass fresh rules against welcoming back players who have been pros, Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark — in an interpretation of the rulebook that’s bound to turn some heads — said unlike underclassmen who declare for the draft, Kaufman-Renn was entered into the draft after supposedly exhausting his eligibility.

Counting Tre White and Melvin Council Jr., the 17th-ranked Jayhawks head into the season with three players on the roster who have played in the summer league and who are involved in court cases that, at this point, have allowed them to return to college.

All-American, lottery pick? It’s a different set of names playing the same game

Even with all the flux and uncertainty, there are plenty of players whose eligibility is not in question and are hoping to become household names by the time America’s thoughts turn to March Madness.

Jeremy Fears Jr. (Michigan State), Thomas Haugh (Florida) and Tyler Tanner (Vanderbilt) are three members of the AP’s preseason All-America team.

And yet, in another sign of the blurred nature of who makes a great college player vs. who makes a great pro, the three players atop a number of NBA mock drafts are all freshmen, none of whom can be expected to stick around college for more than a year or two, let alone five.

Tyran Stokes (Kansas), Jordan Smith Jr. (Arkansas) and Caleb Holt (Arizona) all play for headline-grabbing coaches — Bill Self, Calipari and Tommy Lloyd — who have figured out ways to keep their teams in the mix no matter how the rosters are built.

“I’m going to coach the same whether we have them or not,” Self said. “I’m coaching like they’re here today, and preparing that way. If they’re not, I’m going to hate it, but I’m going to deal with it like it’s a season-ending injury and we go on.”

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AP Sports Writers Larry Lage and Dave Skretta contributed.

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