After nearly three hours in the Spokane County Courthouse, Judge Maria Polin (2005 Gonzaga University School of Law graduate) has granted a preliminary injunction for Tyon Grant-Foster. The Grand Canyon transfer will play for the Zags in the 2025-26 season, seven years after his first college basketball season.
Common sense and justice ultimately prevail, thanks to the efforts of Grant-Foster’s attorneys, Carl Oreskovich and Elliot Abrams. It helps that coach Mark Few, along with student-athletes Steele Venters, Jalen Warley, and Braeden Smith, were there to show their support for Grant-Foster.
“He’s just a remarkable young man that’s just resilient. He just keeps coming. … The times it looked like there’d be obstacles, he was tearful. Today you could see he was tearful again, but tears of happiness.” – Carl Oreskovich
The Vanderbilt Commodores quarterback Diego Pavia/junior college case against the NCAA was involved in Oreskovich’s argument, as well as the fact that Grant-Foster’s COVID-free year was being used against him by the NCAA. Grant-Foster played at Indiana Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa, from 2018-2020. Abrams emphasized that the fundamental question is whether Grant-Foster’s junior college years violate antitrust laws.
“You have young people having their choice of where they should go to school skewed and distorted by an NCAA rule… Essentially argues that counting non-NCAA school years against a player will ‘distort the labor market.“ – Elliot Abrams
The NCAA’s attorney, Matthew Ralph, continued to state that Tyon Grant-Foster has already “got to play the four full seasons of eligibility” throughout the hearing. That was simply not true, as he played only half a game at DePaul (collapsed before halftime in the season opener of the 2021-22 campaign) and had to sit out from 2021-23 after he had two open-heart surgeries.
Ralph also said that Grant-Foster waited until the “last minute” to sue the NCAA. Gonzaga appealed the NCAA’s decision in late September, and the NCAA denied it on October 17th. It was then that Grant-Foster went the legal route.
“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. And instead of filing this lawsuit sooner, he waited till the eve of the season.” – Matthew Ralph
The NCAA should be ashamed of all the wasted time, resources, and money throughout this entire process. In addition to receiving an extra year of eligibility for Grant-Foster, his lawyers prohibited the NCAA’s restitution bylaw if the decision’s appealed, which could strike awards and wins obtained by the Gonzaga program during the 2025-26 season.
The Zags have some serious firepower when playing in transition, adding even more depth out at the wing position with the 2023-24 Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year finally being eligible.
Arden Cravalho is a Gonzaga University graduate from the Bay Area… Follow him on X @a_cravalho
