Trinidad Chambliss eligibility hearing: NCAA lawyer cited Charles Bediako, Diego Pavia court rulings in court

After multiple rejections by the NCAA in his quest for a sixth season of collegiate eligibility, Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss finally got his day in court Thursday.

And while there were several interesting moments in the five-hour injunction hearing, including Rebels assistant Joe Judge using a wild parallel to describe the day-to-day pressure on student-athletes, the NCAA’s case boiled down to the potential precedent-setting nature of the decision at hand.

During closing arguments inside the Pitssboro (Miss.) Municipal Courthouse, NCAA lawyer Doug Minor vehemently rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that the NCAA wouldn’t suffer any harm should judge Robert Whitwell ultimately grant Chambliss’ injunction request. Minor even cited several cases that have gone in the NCAA’s favor and another that didn’t, specifically the recent Charles Bediako case in Tuscaloosa County, and the Diego Pavia case December 2024, when a Tennessee judge granted the Vanderbilt QB an injunction, which led to more than 40 other legal challenges against the NCAA.

“Anytime a student athlete gets a judge to rule contrary to the NCAA’s rules, that’s going to encourage other student athletes to challenge other rules,” Minor said, via On3‘s Ole Miss Spirit YouTube channel. “… Every single time a judge says ‘Yes,’ your honor, that’s going to encourage additional people to come in here and do it. And that is significant harm, not just to college football, but that’s a significant harm to collegiate athletics.

“Every time a judge makes a decision to reject the eligibility determination of the NCAA, … it erodes the NCAA’s ability to manage eligibility determinations and make sure everybody plays by the same rules,” Minor continued later. “This all started in my law firm with our involvement in the Pavia decision back in 2024, … but that federal decision spurred over 40 lawsuits in state and federal court. My colleagues and I have been in West Virginia, in Texas, in South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, all over the place.”

When Minor specifically mentioned the Bediako case, in which a Tuscaloosa County judge denied the Alabama center’s request for an injunction on Monday due to a failure to prove irreparable harm, Judge Whitwell cut him off to point out the clear distinction between the two cases. Specifically that Bediako previously played three years of professional basketball in the NBA G-League before attempting to return to college basketball this January, while Chambliss is fighting to remain in college.

“Is that the guy that played pro (basketball) … came back to Alabama, and they put him on the team?” Whitwell asked. “That’s totally and factually a different case from what we’re talking about right here.”

For his part, Chambliss attorney William Liston explicitly pointed to the significant difference between this case and Bediako’s during his closing rebuttal.

“Trinidad is not a professional athlete trying to come back to college,” Liston countered, via Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger. “It’s absurd to me that a professional athlete would try to come back to college.”

Chambliss initially sued the NCAA in January, filing a lawsuit in the Chancery Court of Lafayette County (Miss), and is seeking preliminary and permanent injunctive relief that would allow him to play in 2026. A preliminary injunction, if granted, would inhibit the NCAA from enforcing its eligibility rules against him until his eligibility case is fully litigated, which would undoubtedly drag on and thus allow him to play out the 2026 season.