How’s this for a midseason plot twist: We’re about to flip the calendar to January and suddenly unranked Baylor has become the Black Hat of college basketball.
Before I explain why BU coach Scott Drew is catching heat, here’s the need-to-know background on how college basketball has reached a new level of the bizarre in an increasingly volatile roster-building environment.
On the morning of Christmas Eve, the NCAA sent word to Baylor’s compliance staff that 7-foot Nigerian-born center James Nnaji had been cleared for competition. The controversial decision was groundbreaking in men’s college hoops. Nnaji is the first person to reverse course and play college basketball after being selected in the NBA Draft. And it’s not like this guy was just off the board last June. Nnaji was the No. 31 overall pick in 2023. He played for the Charlotte Hornets in NBA Summer League that year.
Crucially, Nnaji has never played in an NBA game, which is purportedly still a key distinction for a player’s college eligibility. (Though we should brace for that rule to be tested in 2026, I’m sure.) Still, the guy guarded Victor Wembanyama in Summer League and was even part of the big trade that shipped Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks in exchange for Julius Randle to the Minnesota Timberwolves in October 2024.
While the Knicks still own Nnaji’s draft rights per the terms of the Towns/Randle trade, Nnaji is not signed to an NBA contract. More crucial context: Nnaji was never paid outside of his Summer League and travel per diems during his brief time in the NBA pipeline. For the majority of the past five years, he’s been playing EuroLeague basketball.
That being the case, he had a path to pursue college eligibility, since he never played college ball prior to 2023. (Nnaji was in the FC Barcelona program in the years before he was drafted.) Because Nnaji never enrolled in college here in the States, and because he’s within a five-year window of what equates to his high school graduation, his five-year NCAA eligibility clock starts now.
Yes, it’s crazy, but worth emphasizing that although Baylor is on the receiving end of a lot of outcry over the state of college basketball, Drew’s program is far from the only one doing this. The rules keep changing because the threat of legal action is prompting one fold after another.
BYU (Abdullah Ahmed), Dayton (Sean Pouedet), Washington (Nikola Dzepina) and others have also brought aboard in-season roster additions from other professional ranks. The only difference between all of them and Nnaji is that he was promising enough more than two years ago to have an NBA team select him in the draft. Even within the Big 12, Kansas State’s women’s team rosters Nastja Claessens, who is second on the Wildcats in scoring at 10.6 points per game.
Did you know Claessens, who hails from Belgium, was the 30th pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft?
In hockey, Colorado College just added the son of a notable NHL player and someone who’s already skated with pros for years.
Drew did what many — but certainly not all — coaches in his position would do in a period of need. At Oklahoma, Porter Moser just welcomed a 6-11 Russian center named Kirill Elatontsev. It was overshadowed because of the Baylor news, but the newest Sooner arrived on Christmas. Moser told me he’s probably going to play him immediately. The past two seasons, the Sooners lost their starting centers to injury down the stretch. Now Elatontsev is an insurance policy. His reasons were the same as Drew’s.
“I’ve never taken a mid-year transfer that can play right away, it’s never been part of the game, but if the NCAA clears it and say it’s OK, you have to look at it and see if it’s good for your situation,” Moser told CBS Sports. “In my situation, I have two 5s on the roster and one is currently hurt. We did it for depth. And if he helps us win one game, it was worth it. Back-to-back years we have lost our starting 5s down the stretch and one was pulling out a violin to talk about our lack of depth.”
But because Baylor made a roster addition with a guy who was an NBA pick, unlike all the others, it’s not sitting well with plenty of college sports fans who look around and see the fundamental nature of the sport changing to a level that is unrecognizable from what college basketball was for decades.
Drew tells CBS Sports why he pursued former NBA pick
Fifty-five years old and in his 23rd season with the Bears, Scott Drew isn’t trying to be a villain or the poster coach for renegade roster building. He’s merely doing what many, many other coaches have been doing — and all within the rules. You can love it, hate it or be indifferent to it, but Baylor hasn’t done anything wrong here. Nnaji went through the vetting process at the NCAA level. He is allowed to play under the current (fluctuating) structure of college basketball.
Drew is aware that he and his program will nevertheless be viewed in a negative light by some. He told me his guiding principle was to do what was best for Baylor.
“We (coaches) don’t create the rules, and if we agree by them or not, I equate it to the speed limit,” Drew told CBS Sports. “You go through a construction zone, it changes. You get on the highway, it changes. Right now, the NCAA has speed limits, and it changes. I don’t blame the NCAA because a lot of it’s about what they feel they can win in the courtroom. To me, until we get to collective bargaining, there’s not going to be a solution. Until that time, my job is the coach of our program and we needed to add a player at semester break because we’ve had two season-ending injuries to two of our biggest players and had a third player out. If you’re coaching a team, aren’t you going to add the best player you can add that fits your program? That’s what we did.”
High Point transfer Juslin Bodo Bodo was expected to be the Bears’ starting center, but he’s been injured since the summer and won’t play this season. The same goes for another frontcourt player, Maikcol Perez. Keep in mind, the Big 12 is probably the best league in the country in 2025-26 — and definitely the strongest at the top. Drew has endured a couple of seasons with major roster issues due to injuries, and with a potential stopgap, he and BU general manager Jason Smith pursued Nnaji’s eligibility case dating back to early October. The connection came about because Smith has a working relationship with Nnaji’s agent, who also represents former Baylor lottery pick Jeremy Sochan.
“For the good of the game, I think most coaches are about 99.9% aligned on things we would have done to change things,” Drew said. “The NCAA, athletic directors would feel the same way, but until we have collective bargaining, it’s not going to happen. If it’s solution-based, how long have we been talking about congressional help? That’s not looking like it’s going to happen.”
Michigan State’s Tom Izzo had some pointed words about the situation a few days ago, though he hadn’t spoken to Drew when he was asked about Baylor/Nnaji in a media scrum after a Michigan State practice. Izzo and Drew spoke over the weekend, Drew said.
Tom Izzo rips Baylor’s NBA Draft pick loophole signing of James Nnaji: ‘Shame on NCAA, shame on the coaches’
Brad Crawford
“Me and Izzo are friends, I respect him and it was a great conversation,” Drew said. “At the end of the day, both of us agree on things we’d like to see done with rules for the future. When he first came out and talked about G League guys getting to play, I was against it too, but it’s a lot like NIL and the portal. You can agree or not agree, but you have a job to do. We can wait on congressional action or we can get to the inevitable of collective bargaining.”
Drew doesn’t expect anything from Congress in the months/years to come. He’s open to having a hard-line stance on who is and isn’t allowed to enroll to play college basketball, but until there’s clarity, can you blame him?
“If you say you can have a shot in basketball worth 5 points, who’s not going to take it?” he said.
Pros pivoting to college hoops a likely growing trend
Drew won’t be the last coach to do this, that’s for sure. He’s just the latest, and the issue could exacerbate in the weeks ahead. Consider the case of former Louisville commit/top-40 high school prospect Trentyn Flowers. Like Nnaji, he never played in college. But unlike Nnaji, Flowers logged real NBA minutes earlier this month for the Chicago Bulls. And in recent days, his agent has been exploring avenues to maybe try and jump down to the college ranks. Flowers is currently in the NBA’s G League, but has a two-way contract. And although an initial report about the number of schools “interested” in Flowers went viral on Sunday was inaccurate, there are a few kicking the tires.
“Doing our due diligence in the new world, don’t have a choice,” one power-conference assistant told CBS Sports about the possibility of recruiting Flowers. “At this point it’s a little bit of both: agent reaching out but schools finding out and reaching out. More two-way street than some think.”
Now we wait for the next stage of this story: The moment Nnaji will step on the floor for Baylor. Drew told me he has to pass a physical before any further steps are taken, but clearance is expected Tuesday. Baylor’s Big 12 opener is Saturday at TCU. Will Nnaji see the floor then?
“Definitely could,” Drew said. “But until he knows our offense, knows our defense, it doesn’t matter how good anyone is, you can’t put him out there [for too long]. I think it’s going to be a gradual process. If he was ready for the NBA, he would be playing in the NBA.”
Don’t expect Nnaji to be logging north of 25 minutes for the Bears in the weeks to come. But later in the season? We’ll see. After all, he was good enough to be drafted No. 31. It’s not such a reach to think he might be the key to getting Baylor to a sixth consecutive NCAA Tournament. In-season free agency is now officially a thing in college basketball, and it might be here to stay.