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How the NCAA's eligibility patchwork left Madina Okot behind
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- How the NCAA's eligibility patchwork left Madina Okot behind
The timing could not have been more unfortunate for the Gamecocks.
Within 48 hours of South Carolina's devastating loss to UCLA in the national championship game, one of the most compelling stories in women's college basketball came to an unceremonious end. Not on the court, but in an NCAA compliance office. The season-of-competition waiver that the South Carolina program submitted to the NCAA for Madina Okot was denied, confirming the decision that the Gamecocks' senior has exhausted her collegiate eligibility.
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"Early in her basketball career, Madina made courageous choices not just to pursue just the sport, but also to better her life," South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley said of the Gamecock center. "Her path included just a short time with us in Columbia, but we are grateful to be part of her story. She made our team and our sport better."
Okot's story is actually quite extraordinary, as her ambition to play in the United States was tested repeatedly. The Kenyan basketball player was denied a student visa on four separate occasions before finally making it to Mississippi State for the 2024-25 season. Okot only played one season with the Bulldogs before transferring to South Carolina. As a Gamecock, she averaged 12.8 points and 10.6 rebounds per game and led the SEC in rebounding while recording 22 double-doubles, the third-most in the country.
Okot only played two seasons of NCAA basketball, but the NCAA counted the two seasons she spent playing in Kenya while waiting for her visa against her eligibility clock. South Carolina's argument for eligibility was simple: the seasons Okot played in Kenya were at a small university while she was dealing with an immigration system that repeatedly rejected her. Therefore, those seasons should not be considered the same as competitive NCAA seasons. The school's position was bolstered by recent rulings that junior college seasons simply do not count the same way toward eligibility. Okot began playing basketball in 2020, so the argument was that she still needed another year of development and college experience.
The NCAA said no.
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Meanwhile, In a Courtroom in Tennessee…
To understand the...well, misunderstanding...of how this works for some student athletes and not others, you have to understand what happened with Diego Pavia.
Pavia's journey to a D1 starting QB position was anything but conventional. First, he led his junior college team to a national championship, then he transferred to one, then another Division 1 school. And by 2024, he became a breakout star in the SEC, leading Vanderbilt to a historic season with a win over Alabama. He even started drawing attention from NFL scouts and receiving lucrative NIL offers, yet his eligibility was in doubt.
According to NCAA rules, Pavia's two JUCO seasons counted toward his four-season cap on competition. Pavia sued the NCAA under the Sherman Antitrust Act , arguing that the NCAA was unfairly limiting his ability to earn money by counting his junior college years, which were governed by a separate organization, against his NCAA eligibility. His attorney put it plainly: "A junior college season shouldn't be the equivalent of an NCAA season when the junior college season has no meaningful opportunities to earn NIL, no television exposure."
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Ultimately, a federal judge agreed, and five days later, the injunction was granted. The NCAA Division I Board of Directors approved a blanket waiver that granted an additional year of eligibility to former JUCO transfers in similar positions to Pavia. It ultimately opened the door for college athletes across all sports to spend one more year competing. And the legal argument that unlocked that opportunity was the NIL. JUCO athletes have limited or no NIL earning opportunities, so the NCAA's rules restricting their eligibility were deemed a potential antitrust violation.
The Core Contradiction
Here is where it gets a little uncomfortable. The difference between Diego Pavia's extra eligibility and Madina Okot's denied waiver not only comes down to how the NCAA classifies prior competition but also how flexibility gets applied under its waiver system. Under Bylaw 12 in the NCCA Division I rules, athletes are generally allowed four seasons of competition within a five-year clock. The critical issue is what counts as a "season" and whether exceptions are granted through waivers. In Okot's case specifically, the NCAA determined that her pre-U.S. competition in Kenya does count as seasons of competition, which means she had already used up her eligibility before and during her NCAA career. South Carolina requested a waiver to have those international seasons not count or to restore a year, but the NCAA denied it, leaving her without remaining eligibility.
Diego Pavia's situation was different and followed a different legal path. His case centered more on how eligibility timing and JUCO competition are both calculated under the NCAA's "clock" and seasons framework. Pavia's case was also influenced by legal and institutional pressure that forced a reconsideration of how those rules were applied in his category. Instead of being locked out by the classification of prior competition, his argument challenged how eligibility time itself was being interpreted and enforced. The case ultimately led to additional eligibility being granted. The NCAA simultaneously filed an appeal after the injunction was granted, meaning they didn't actually concede the legal argument; they just issued the waiver to manage the fallout.
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Simply put, the argument worked for Pavia centered on him losing NIL opportunities and on JUCO athletes missing out on earnings because non-NCAA seasons were counted against them. It was NIL access that gave the courts jurisdiction to intervene. Okot's situation is arguably even more sympathetic, but it would have required filing a lawsuit under the same antitrust framework, which takes time, resources, and a legal team willing to build that case. Unfortunately, none of that was feasible with the 48-hour deadline she had after the championship.
The Systemic Problem
Okot's case reveals more than just unfortunate timing or a single bad decision by the NCAA. It is an eligibility system that's been pushed to its limits by legal cases, COVID waivers, the transfer portal, and the NIL era all at once, and it's starting to crack under the pressure.
Even though the Pavia case was able to reframe the JUCO rules of eligibility, the results have been uneven across the board. Several players who previously entered the transfer portal were still denied eligibility The landscape remains murky even months after the blanket waiver was issued.
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The system seems to reward those with the resources to sue, and the athletes who have benefited the most from the blanket waiver were the ones whose situations fit neatly within the legal framework. The NCAA's eligibility rulebook was not written with the Madina Okots in mind; that much is clear. The question that college athletics is going to have to answer as internationalization accelerates and NIL money reshapes what "eligibility" even means is whether the rulebook will ever catch up to the athletes it governs. Or whether it will keep catching them in the same trap, where they play by the rules, file the right paperwork, and still lose anyway.
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This article originally appeared on College Sports Wire: NCAA eligibility: Difference between Diego Pavia and Madina Okot cases
