Add The New York Post on Google RJ Luis Jr. is cleared for college ball.
A Louisiana judge granted the 2024-2025 Big East Player of the Year a temporary injuction to play for LSU on Monday, despite signing several NBA contracts.
Following the ruling by East Baton Rouge Parish District Court Judge Ronald R. Johnson, Luis hugged LSU coach Will Wade.
After securing second-team All-American honors in his junior season for St. John’s, Luis went undrafted in the 2025 NBA Draft but latched on with teams and was even included in a trade.
He never played in a regular-season NBA game, though, and sought a return to college, committing to the Tigers in May although he was not yet eligible to play.
Luis’ ruling could start a new wave of eligibility challenges for the NCAA.
The college sports governing body has been fighting those in the 2022 class who are chasing a fifth year of eligibility after they were excluded from the new age-based eligibility rules giving every athlete five seasons to compete. The ruling was meant to eliminate the need for redshirts and waivers.
Luis is not a fifth-year player, and he could open the door for others who have signed professional contracts and want to come back to college.
In the five-hour hearing, Luis’ attorneys pointed to the NCAA granting exceptions in the past, allowing players from overseas professional leagues to join college basketball in the U.S.
They argued that American players deserve the same chance.
After going undrafted, Luis, 23, signed a two-way contract with the Jazz followed by an Exhibit 10 contract with the Celtics’ G League affiliate after he was traded from Utah to Boston.
He was later waived after only seeing preseason action.
We have traded Georges Niang and two future second-round picks to the Utah Jazz for RJ Luis Jr
His attorneys stressed Luis’ lack of NBA experience — he never played in a regular-season NBA game and also did not see time for the Celtics’ G League team due to an injury.
“I hear that every time we do one of these eligibility cases: ‘This is going to be the end of the NCAA.’ That is not true,” Elliot Sol Abrams, one of Luis’ attorneys, told the media after the judge’s ruling Monday. “The NCAA chose to allow schools to start paying players directly. It made that choice. It could’ve fought that but it chose not to and so when you create the NCAA now as a professional league and then you start drawing these arbitrary distinctions and saying, ‘This is too much or that’s too much,’ all of these things, every time someone challenges an arbitrary decision of the NCAA, the NCAA cries wolf.
“This is just a judge forcing the NCAA to live up to the law as so many judges have had to do because the NCAA has decided to try to draw distinctions that don’t stand up to reason.”
NCAA attorney Taylor Askew argued Luis’ status can’t be compared to players who played for developmental teams of international professional leagues as he deliberatley chose to leave college for the pros.
Rather, Askew said Alabama’s Charles Bediako is a comparable case after he was allowed to play five games under a temporary restraining order last season before an Alabama judge declared him ineligible.
For the ruling, Johnson said, “In the court’s mind, [Luis] did not actually play professional basketball,” and that whether he was advised of his options by the time he left college “lingers heavily before this court.”
Baton Rouge-based attorney, Tony Clayton, who also represented Luis, said the ruling for him is “monumental” but admitted the timeline for the legal process is unclear.
“I don’t know, but there’s a lot of discovery that Elliot and I have to obtain,” Clayton said. “We’ve got a lot of questions.”
Luis’ case comes as LSU is making a similar football addition with former Ole Miss tight end Dae’Quan Wright expected to land with the Tigers after being waived by the Browns.
“College athletes, not former professional athletes, have been at the heart of the Southeastern Conference,” the statement read. “Individuals who choose to leave college athletics, sign professional playing contracts, and compete professionally should not then be permitted to return to college competition. Allowing that to occur will blur the line between college and professional sports, create significant competitive equity concerns, and reduce opportunities for high school and current college athletes.
“College sports are for college athletes. The current confusion around national eligibility standards emphasizes the need to advance the Protect College Sports Act.”
Luis, a 6-foot-7 wing, joins LSU, which only had four players on its official roster earlier this month.
In the 2024-25 season, he averaged 18.2 points on 43.9 percent shooting from the field across 35 games for St. John’s.
