Does Anthony Leal Have A Waiver Case For An Additional Season?

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – On Saturday, Peegs.com reported that Anthony Leal would be applying for another year of eligibility to play college basketball.

The report seemed hard to believe. Leal, an Indiana high school Mr. Basketball winner at Bloomington (Ind.) South in 2020 – has played five seasons at Indiana. Included was the extra COVID-19 amnesty season for being an active player during the pandemic.

Until very recently, Leal – who played from 2020-25 – would not have had a prayer to have another season of eligibility approved. But these are different times for the NCAA and its waiver process.

The long-established norm was that players in all sports got five years to complete four years of eligibility. A player could get an extra year of eligibility if they got hurt in a season without having participated in one-third of the contests in that season.

In college basketball, that usually meant a cut-off of around 11 games, depending on how many games a team played. Waivers usually had to be applied for after the season that would trigger the waiver. Players couldn’t wait until the end of their eligibility to apply for a waiver that applied to an early portion of their careers.

That’s how it was. How is it now? No one really knows.

The NCAA waiver process, like so many other things related to NCAA jurisprudence, has been under attack in the courts.

The most notable case was when Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia had his eligibility extended when a court ruled his junior college seasons should not count against his eligibility. That decision upended the eligibility calendars for myriad athletes across many NCAA-sponsored sports.

In December, the NCAA extended a blanket waiver to give athletes who competed at a non-Division I school an extra year of eligibility.

The perception is that to avoid court cases, the NCAA might be more inclined to approve waivers it might not have in the past.

That might be the reason why players are testing the system to get waivers approved they would not have had approved previously. Indiana guard Luke Goode has spoken about his desire to get a waiver for the 2022-23 season at Illinois, a year in which he played just 10 games for the Fighting Illini.

One difference between Goode and Leal is that Leal has played five seasons. So where might Leal have a case?

His case would likely be based on the 2022-23 season. Leal only played 11 games in 2023, which would put him below the one-third threshold of games played. Indiana played 35 games that season.

Where it gets murky is why Leal didn’t play. He injured his ankle in a Nov. 20 game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse against Miami of Ohio. Leal did not play again until Dec. 20.

The Big Ten availability report did not exist yet in the 2022-23 season, but Indiana’s official biography on the iuhoosiers.com website indicated that Leal missed five games specifically due to injury.

Once Leal returned, it’s hard to know whether he was out injured or whether coach Mike Woodson just elected not to play Leal. Unlike the NBA, there is no official Did Not Play reason listed in official box scores.

Leal was not in the regular rotation that season. His highest minutes total in any game in the 2022-23 season was five minutes. How much his health had to do with that is a matter of conjecture.

Given that, it would be a matter for the NCAA to figure out whether Leal would get another year based on injury or whether he wouldn’t based on a coaches decision.

The NCAA does seem to be fighting back against some waivers. Ex-Minnesota center Dawson Garcia had a waiver for an extra year of eligibility denied on April 22. Like Leal, Garcia played five years of college basketball. His request was based on the fact he left North Carolina early in the 2021-22 to tend to family concerns.

Predictably, Garcia’s legal representatives said they might sue to overrule the NCAA’s decision.

If Leal got a waiver approved, it is unknown how he would fit into new men’s basketball coach Darian DeVries plans, or if Leal fits in at all. Among the 11 scholarship players confirmed to be coming to Indiana, eight of them are guards, though not all of them replicate Leal’s defensive-oriented skill set.

Certainly, Leal was a popular Hoosier and his presence would be welcomed by the many fans who gave him some of the loudest cheers any Indiana player got in 2025.

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