Lawyer in Diego Pavia’s eligibility lawsuit against NCAA cites NBA draft pick’s return to college

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A lawyer for Heisman Trophy runner-up Diego Pavia and 26 other football players has cited the NCAA’s decision to allow an NBA draft pick to return to college basketball as a reason that a federal judge should let his clients play in 2026 and 2027.

Although Pavia plans to enter the NFL draft, he is continuing the lawsuit — which challenges an NCAA rule that counts seasons spent at junior colleges against players’ eligibility for Division I football — to help other former junior college players.

On Wednesday, Baylor announced that 7-foot center James Nnaji had joined the Bears after four seasons playing professionally in Europe, a span that included Nnaji being drafted No. 31 overall by the Detroit Pistons. His rights were traded to Charlotte and later the New York Knicks.

Attorney Ryan Downton seized on that news in a memorandum he filed Friday in a Tennessee federal court to support his antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA. He’s asking U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell to block the NCAA from enforcing its eligibility rules.

With Nnaji’s arrival at Baylor having been announced on Christmas Eve, Downton began his memo with a reference to Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”

“When what to my wandering eyes should appear, but … the hypocrisy of the NCAA granting four years of eligibility to a 21-year-old European professional basketball player with four years of professional experience who was drafted by an NBA team two years ago,” the attorney wrote.

The memo noted that Nnaji, who also played in the NBA Summer League, will be 25 before he runs out of eligibility.

“Meanwhile, the NCAA argues to this court that high school seniors are harmed if a 22- or 23-year-old former junior college player plays one more year of college football,” according to the filing.

Pavia initially sued the NCAA in November 2024 and won a preliminary injunction weeks later that allowed him to play this season. He led Vanderbilt to a No. 13 ranking in the AP poll and the best season in program history. The Commodores will play Iowa in the ReliaQuest Bowl on Dec. 31.

The lawsuit has since added 26 other plaintiffs, including Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar.

NCAA rules give athletes five years to play four seasons under an eligibility clock that starts at any “collegiate institution” regardless of whether that school is an NCAA member.

Pavia started playing at New Mexico Military Institute in 2020; the NCAA did not count that season toward eligibility because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He led the junior college to the 2021 national championship, then played at New Mexico State in 2022 and 2023 before transferring to Vanderbilt for 2024, making this season his sixth in college football but only his fourth at the Division I level.

The NCAA is facing several eligibility lawsuits, and Downton is representing players in another lawsuit over the NCAA’s redshirt rule, with Vanderbilt linebacker Langston Patterson a lead plaintiff.

Patterson and four others asked Campbell on Dec. 15 for an injunction to play the 2026 season.