The Senate passes the college sports bill 77-22, a Kentucky court rules 38 players ineligible, and Kansas rejoins the top 25

Two decisions five days apart set the terms for the week: who is allowed to play college basketball this season, and whose rules decide it.

The Senate voted 77-22 on Monday night to pass the Protect College Sports Act, the bill that would write the sport's eligibility and transfer limits into federal law. 1 On Friday afternoon, a three-judge panel of the Kentucky Court of Appeals dissolved the injunction that had made 38 players eligible for a fifth season, among them Louisville's Seth Trimble and LJ Wells and Missouri's Mark Mitchell. 23 The regular season opens Nov. 1 in Rome. 4

The bill's core is an antitrust exemption for the NCAA, which the association says it needs to enforce a cap on what schools may pay athletes directly. If it becomes law, athletes would get one transfer without sitting out and a five-year window to compete that starts when they finish high school or turn 19. 1

The money would grow. The cap created by the House settlement allows schools to pay about $21.5 million this year; the bill raises it to roughly $49 million, with $5 million reserved for nonrevenue and Olympic sports. Membership in the Power 4 conferences would be capped at 20 schools, and a school moving between them would spend three years without a conference — a waiting period that ends in 2031, around when the television contracts holding conferences together come up. 1

The Senate worked through seven amendments first. It voted 52-47 against capping coaches' pay at $5 million a year and restricting how often they can change jobs, and it added a requirement that athletic departments disclose investments from foreign governments or sovereign wealth funds. An amendment to double a medical care fund for former athletes, from $100 million to $200 million, lost by one vote. 1

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, the bill's lead sponsor, said the aim was a wide margin rather than a bare 60 votes. "President Trump is eager to sign this legislation," he told reporters Monday night. 1 Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who offered the coaches' salary cap, voted against the bill and called it a sellout of college athletes. 1

The House is the obstacle. Representatives left Washington on Sept. 16 and are not scheduled to vote on bills before the Nov. 3 midterms; their next legislative session begins Nov. 9 and runs about five weeks. If the bill misses that window, the process restarts with the new Congress in January. 15 Cruz told ESPN he would have preferred the bill to declare that college athletes are not employees, and that the provision was "a bridge too far" for Democrats. The bill leaves the employment question open. 1

Conferences are writing their own versions in parallel. The Big Ten adopted a rule Sept. 28 that makes men's and women's basketball players who signed professional contracts with the NBA, the G League or the WNBA ineligible at its schools, along with players who entered a draft and did not withdraw in time. 6 The rule has no effect on a Big Ten roster this season, because none of the conference's fifth-year candidates signed a professional contract. 5 The ACC, Big 12 and SEC approved similar bans in August, and the Big East has not adopted one. 5

The Kentucky ruling turned on procedure as much as on eligibility. Judge Brian Edwards of Jefferson County Circuit Court granted the athletes a temporary restraining order in August. A restraining order keeps things as they are; a temporary injunction, which can order someone to act, requires both sides in court and an evidentiary hearing. The appeals panel wrote that Edwards' order was "unsound" for skipping that step, and that letting the class of 2022 play a fifth season "would disrupt the status quo." 3

The panel also read the NCAA bylaw differently than the lower court. It held that the amended five-for-five rule took effect Aug. 1, and that Kentucky law bars amended statutes from applying retroactively, so the class of 2022 fell outside it. 3

The case is still alive. Edwards has offered Oct. 6 for the evidentiary hearing the appeals panel said was missing, and the athletes' lawyer, Hans Poppe, told the Courier Journal his side is available. Attorneys expect many of the basketball players to file individual suits in their home states. 37

White recommitted to the Jayhawks after the Indiana ruling, joining a roster that already added the top-rated freshman in the country, Tyran Stokes. 8

The swing is largest at Missouri, where EvanMiya's preseason rankings put the Tigers at No. 39 with Mitchell and No. 54 without him. 7

LSU remains the extreme case. Four players are listed on the official roster — Abdi Bashir Jr., Mouhamed Dioubate, Austin Nunez and Divine Ugochukwu — while RJ Luis Jr. holds a temporary injunction from a Louisiana court and the SEC has barred players who signed professional contracts. Coach Will Wade has said he will abide by whatever the SEC tells him to abide by. 5

Three more cases are worth following. Purdue's Trey Kaufman-Renn, drafted 59th by the Minnesota Timberwolves in June, is the first player to seek a sixth year; he argues that he would not have used a redshirt season under the new age-based model, won a temporary restraining order in early September and entered the transfer portal. 5 In Colorado, the class action brought by Brock Wisne goes to oral argument at the Tenth Circuit on Oct. 13, the widest-reaching case on the docket. 5 Arkansas got one international clearance through, for Miikka Muurinen; LSU is still waiting on Saliou Niang, Michael Ruzic, Brice Dessert and Gilad Levy. 5

CBS Sports moved Kansas into its preseason Top 25 And 1 at No. 18 in Version 28, published Sept. 28, with White eligible and Stokes enrolled. North Carolina dropped out. 8

The Big East's coaches voted the same week, and their poll put UConn first with eight of 11 first-place votes. St. John's took two and Marquette one. Villanova was third, Marquette fourth and Providence fifth, ahead of Xavier, Creighton, DePaul, Seton Hall, Georgetown and Butler. 9

UConn swept the individual awards for the first time since 2003. Silas Demary Jr. is the preseason Player of the Year after averaging 10.1 points, 4.5 rebounds and a league-best 5.9 assists. Colben Landrew, a five-star freshman and the No. 27 prospect in 247Sports' composite, is the preseason Freshman of the Year, the fourth straight UConn freshman to take that honor. 9

Braylon Mullins of UConn, Nigel James Jr. of Marquette and Tounde Yessoufou of St. John's were unanimous first-team picks, joined by Ian Jackson of St. John's and Tyler Perkins of Villanova. The second team is Na'jai Hines (UConn), Royce Parham (Marquette), Miles Byrd (Providence), Kwame Evans Jr. (Villanova) and Devin Royal (Villanova). 9 Conference play opens Dec. 19 with Seton Hall against Georgetown, DePaul against St. John's, Xavier against Marquette and Villanova against Creighton. 9

The Big East's women's coaches put UConn first with 10 first-place votes. Sarah Strong, who won the Naismith, Wooden and Wade awards last season, is the unanimous preseason Player of the Year; KK Arnold and Blanca Quiñonez are unanimous first-team picks, and Olivia Vukosa, ESPN's No. 2 recruit in the 2026 class, is the unanimous Freshman of the Year. Ashlynn Shade made honorable mention. 10

UConn has won the Big East's regular-season and tournament titles in every season since rejoining the league in 2020, and went 20-0 in conference play last year on the way to a record 25th Final Four. The Huskies play their first exhibition Oct. 12 against Syracuse at Mohegan Sun. 10

Two programs lost players before the season began. Kansas State announced Sept. 30 that sophomore guard Brandie Harrod will miss the entire season with an injury. Harrod started 33 of 37 games as a freshman, averaged 6.1 points and 4.8 rebounds, and pulled in 78 offensive rebounds, tied for second most by a freshman in program history. 11

"We are devastated for Lena," UCLA coach Cori Close said after her program announced Oct. 4 that sophomore guard and forward Lena Bilić tore an ACL and will miss the season. Bilić, from Zagreb, Croatia, averaged 3.0 points and 1.4 rebounds in 12 minutes a game for the defending national champions. 12

The first game is still a month away. The women's season opens Nov. 1 at noon Eastern, when Villanova and Notre Dame meet at the Palazzetto dello Sport in Rome; the two men's teams play a doubleheader there at 9:30 a.m. Eastern. Domestic play fills in the next day, Nov. 2, with Maryland against South Carolina, Oklahoma against North Carolina in Paris, Arizona against Stanford, Lehigh against UCLA and Cornell against UConn. 4 Both NCAA tournaments expand to 76 teams this season, with the women's Final Four on April 2 and the championship game on April 4 at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. 4

Every ranking above is a projection, and the courts are still moving. The AP poll, the coaches' poll, the NCAA's NET rankings and the KenPom numbers arrive with the season.