Dan Dickau: NCAA considering 5th year of eligibility is 'one of the worst things I’ve heard'

‘I get where [the NCAA is] coming from, they’re trying to promote loyalty. But that’s not the NCAA’s job,’ said the former Gonzaga All-American

Gonzaga Nation's Dan Dickau / Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford

The 2024-25 college basketball season will be the last season for players who competed during the 2020-21 COVID-affected season to take advantage of an extra year of eligibility. 

With rare exceptions, NCAA student-athletes have five years to complete four years of eligibility. Given the amount of game cancellations and COVID-related pauses during the 2020-21 campaign, players who played that season had the opportunity to play an extra year. All-Americans Hunter Dickinson, Mark Sears and RJ Davis are among the notable names who exercised the right to another year of eligibility for the 2024-25 season.

In August, an anonymous coaches poll from CBS Sports asked over 100 Division-I coaches if they think players should get an extra year of eligibility under the condition that they stayed at one school for four years. The question was based in part on the overwhelming amount of player movement in the transfer portal that has stemmed from the extra year of eligibility. On average, college basketball is also older across the board than it has been for decades. 

The results of the poll: 53% of coaches said yes to a fifth-year.

Just a few weeks later, news came out that the NCAA is considering adding a fifth year of eligibility for all sports in a model similar to what football and wrestling already follow. The governing body and its member schools plan to seriously think about granting student-athletes the ability to play a certain percentage of games in a fifth season without burning a redshirt year.

“It’s one of the worst things I’ve heard,” former Gonzaga All-American Dan Dickau said of the NCAA’s idea to add a fifth year. “I get where [the NCAA is] coming from, they’re trying to promote loyalty. But that’s not the NCAA’s job. It’s a coach’s job to promote loyalty within their program, as far as helping the players get to be where they potentially could be if they maximize their potential.

“I get what they’re trying to do and they’re trying to award players by staying with their current programs — which is great — but you had four years of eligibility to play within a five-year timeframe, barring the occasional medical redshirt. They ended up really loosening the strings on the grad transfer stuff, then they really loosened the strings on the transfers where you don’t have to sit out; this to me is just ridiculous.” 

Dickau shared his thoughts on the NCAA, as well as his early Final Four picks for the 2024-25 season, and much more on a new Gonzaga Nation episode.

WATCH THE FULL EPISODE BELOW:

Produced by Christian Pedersen.

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