Why Gonzaga's Tyon Grant-Foster was granted one more season of eligibility

A Spokane County judge granted a preliminary injunction for Tyon Grant-Foster on Monday, allowing the 6-foot-7 forward to play for Gonzaga in the 2025-26 college basketball season.

The ruling from Judge Maria Polin put to rest a lengthy legal saga between the NCAA and Grant-Foster, who committed to the Bulldogs in May but had several eligibility waivers denied over the summer, setting up a date with the governing body for Monday inside Spokane County Superior Court.

With the dust settled, let's take an in-depth look at some of the key arguments made by Grant-Foster's legal team, including attorneys Carl Oreskovich and Elliot Abrams, as well as the attorney representing the NCAA at the podium, Matthew Ralph.

Arguments made in favor of Grant-Foster being eligiblity

Discrimination

One of the first claims Oreskovich made in his opening arguments was that the NCAA was discriminating against Grant-Foster and his physical disability, citing the several exceptions the governing body can make for student-athletes regarding its five-year clock, including ones for medical reasons, pregnancy and religious mission trips.

The NCAA allows student-athletes to play four seasons in a five-year span, counting seasons spent at the JUCO level as well. Grant-Foster played two seasons at Indian Hills Community College, a non-NCAA institution in Iowa, for two seasons before spending the COVID-shortened season at Kansas (2020-21), followed by a transfer to DePaul, where he collapsed on the floor during the team's 2021-22 season opener. Grant-Foster was later diagnosed with a rare heart condition known as Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, and was forced to miss the remainder of the season plus the entire 2022-23 campaign after having surgery.

"Had he been medically able, judge, to go and do foreign study, foreign services, foreign peace corps; we wouldn't be here because it's already determined to be an exception [by the NCAA]," Oreskovich said. "So to determine whether or not [the NCAA] discriminated against [Grant-Foster]; they are treating him, with a member of a protected class, different than those people who are not members of that class."

Mar 21, 2025; Seattle, WA, USA; Grand Canyon Antelopes guard Tyon Grant-Foster (7). | Stephen Brashear-Imagn Images

"There's an exception to the five year rule for an internship or a cooperative educational work experience, and there's an exception for pregnancy; all kinds of enumerated exceptions to the five year rule that would be allowed under circumstances different than Mr. Foster's. His circumstances are he cannot play because of a medical condition, yet the NCAA wants to count those against his two years of eligibility."

In Washington, it is unlawful for any person or institution operating a place of public accommodation — including public and private colleges — to discriminate based on the presence of any sensory, mental or physical disability.

It was relevant in the case of former Washington State football player Anthony Matthews, who sought a waiver to the NCAA's "75/25" rule, requiring student-athletes to complete at least 75% of their coursework in the regular academic year and no more than 25% in the summer, because he had a diagnosed learning disability. The US. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington didn't side with Matthews after he took the NCAA to court, though it was noted how the definition of “place of public accommodation”— which covers “educational institution” and “recreation or place of sports” — could apply to college athletics.

JUCO eligibility

The real "meat and potatoes" of the argument Grant-Foster's legal team conveyed to the judge centered around the NCAA's blanket waiver allowing all former JUCO student-athletes an extra year if their eligibility was originally set to expire at the end of the 2024-25 season. The governing body passed the waiver after a district court in Tennessee granted Vanderbilt quarterback and former JUCO standout Diego Pavia a preliminary injunction that allowed him to play a sixth season of college football in 2025, reasoning that his two seasons at New Mexico Military Institute didn't count against his eligibility.

After the NCAA's attorney made his case to Polin, Oreskovich was quick to point out how the counter-argument didn't mention the relevance of Pavia's case to Grant-Foster's.

"Judge, if you want to know where the discrimination lies, their argument did not address the Pavia waiver," Oreskovich said. "That's what we're arguing about, because what the Pavia waiver did is it gave — instead of counting two years of JUCO or one year of JUCO — it gave you an additional year of JUCO, right? If you played four seasons and junior college was counted, it would give a fifth season if you met the five years of eligibility. That's what the waiver provides."

"The years that [Grant-Foster] was medically unable to to to compete, judge, they're charging him with years of eligibility, four and five, right? And if you conceptualize this ... let's look at religious missions. Let's look at military service. Let's look at foreign service. Let's look at pregnancy. Let's look at study abroad, right? All things within somebody's control. You make a choice to go to foreign service, you make a choice for a religious mission. Do those seasons count? No, they're defined out of the eligibility rules. So if you look at the count of the years that they're placing against our client, and you put zeros in there, right? Doesn't count."

Antitrust violation

Tying in bits from each of the aforementioned arguments, Abrams claimed the NCAA was committing a violation of antitrust laws by curbing the labor market through its eligibility rules, specifically with regard to how student-athletes are swayed into picking an NCAA school over a JUCO because the years will count the same against their eligibility clock.

Gonzaga Bulldogs forward Tyon Grant-Foster (7). | Photo by Myk Crawford

"What's at stake here is the choice of what college is best for a young person — that's the choice [the NCAA's] distorting," Abrams said. "If it's a student-athlete who's not yet academically ready to go to a four year university, and they need some help academically, to where junior college is better, they have to weigh, 'Well, should I go to the place that's best for me now? But if I do that, I'm going to have less time to play in the NCAA labor market, where I'm going to be able to go have a professional career.'"

Abrams cited the Sherman Antitrust Act in his defense of Grant-Foster, saying the act was to "enhance competition," and that the NCAA was justifying an "anti-competitive" rule by restricting the pool of players allowed to compete.

Counter-arguments made against Grant-Foster's eligibility

JUCO years counted against five-year clock

In his counterargument to the claims that the NCAA discriminated against Grant-Foster, Ralph explained there was "no evidence" of that because Grant-Foster was allowed to play four seasons of college basketball.

"The NCAA allows student-athletes to play four seasons of competition in any one sport," Ralph said. "How many seasons of competition has plaintiff been allowed to play? Four; two at Indian Hills Community College, two at Grand Canyon University. He got all four, and there is not a basis for getting an extra season of competition."

What about the "Pavia waiver" that Grant-Foster's team argued should be applied in this case?

"It's got various requirements," Ralph said, referring to the NCAA's blanket waiver for former JUCO athletes. "But one of the requirements was that the player have a year of eligibility for this year, and the plaintiff doesn't have that, so therefore it doesn't fit within the Pavia waiver as it applied to him."

Actually, the waiver was intended for former JUCO athletes whose eligibility was going to expire after the 2024-25 season — thus, creating another year of eligibility, not using one that already existed, like Ralph implied.

Unless, he and the NCAA were already factoring the two seasons Grant-Foster missed because of his heart condition into their count.

To recap: Grant-Foster spent two seasons at the JUCO level; the COVID-shortened 2020-21 campaign at Kansas (the NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility for all athletes impacted); missed the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons due to his medical hardship; played two seasons (2023-24 and 2024-25) at Grand Canyon before transferring to Gonzaga for the 2025-26 season.

Now, compare Grant-Foster's timeline with Pavia's: two seasons at the JUCO level (2020 and 2021), two more at New Mexico State (2022 and 2023), then another at Vanderbilt (2024) before being awarded one final season in 2025. Prior to his win in court, though, he had already played three seasons of Division I football after two in the JUCO ranks.

Eligibility standards maintain integrity of the game

Ralph defended the NCAA's enforcement of its eligibility rules in order to preserve competitive "integrity."

"The bottom line is, you can't eliminate eligibility overall and maintain the integrity of a type of competition being offered," Ralph said. "For example, the WNBA would not be the same if men were allowed to play; the Paralympics would not be the same [if] able-bodied people were allowed to compete."

The "integrity" of the competition the NCAA puts forth has been put into question recently with the inclusion of former NBA G-League players in the college ranks. London Johnson, a former four-star recruit who decided to forgo the NCAA route in 2022 and instead play with the G-League Ignite program, committed to play for Louisville in the 2025-26 season on Oct. 20, causing some confusion among fans and even some backlash from the likes of Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo, who called the move "ridiculous" and "embarrassing."

Johnson and other former G-League players, like Kok Yat and TJ Clark, have been able to weigh college options recently because the NCAA determined that G-League players aren’t real professional athletes, deeming their salary low enough to just cover “actual and necessary expenses," according to a report from On3's Joe Tipton. Most G-League players earn an average of $40,000 per year.

Lawsuit "should've" been made sooner

One of the more perplexing arguments of the afternoon came shortly after Ralph took the podium for the first time, when he argued that a preliminary injunction should be denied because Grant-Foster could've sued the NCAA sooner than he did.

"The plaintiff had a cardiac incident last February, which should have triggered an awareness that he was going to need to try to get another season of NCAA eligibility," Ralph said. "And instead of filing this lawsuit sooner, he waited till the eve of the season."

Gonzaga submitted the initial waiver request for Grant-Foster's eligibility in June — only to have it denied less than three weeks later. A request for reconsideration was made on July 17 and was rejected in September. The most recent appeal, made on Sept. 25, was denied in October prior to Monday's hearing. Grant-Foster filed his lawsuit on Oct. 14 — two weeks before the deadline for Gonzaga to honor its winter scholarships and nearly three full weeks before the Zags' season opener against Texas Southern set for Nov. 3.

Meanwhile, the NCAA denied his waiver requests and motioned for his case to be heard in federal court instead of in Spokane, delaying the legal process further.

Final verdict

In the end, Polin weighed the potential harm of allowing Grant-Foster to play against the possible damages he might suffer from if he was prevented from playing another season. She also enjoined the injunction with one that prevents the NCAA from using its restitution rule against Grant-Foster in the future, prohibiting the governing body from stripping Gonzaga and Grant-Foster of any awards or championships if Monday's court-ordered injunction is later overturned with an appeal from the NCAA. However, an appeal would most likely take a year to be heard, long after Grant-Foster's college career had ended.

"The harm to the plaintiff (Grant-Foster) vs. the potential harm to the defendant (NCAA), really weighing those equities, certainly considering that as well; if we do weigh those equities, it comes out more in favor of the plaintiff," Polin said. "Having balanced those equities and having examined the preliminary injunction requirements, we did find that the equitable factors waived in favor of issuing that preliminary injunction."