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Donovan Dent may not be done with college basketball, after all.
But that doesnt necessarily mean hell be returning to the Lobos, even though he does now live in Albuquerque.
The former three-year UNM Lobo star point guard who played this past season at UCLA, where it was presumed he was playing his fourth and final season of college basketball, will be a party on a multi-player lawsuit against the NCAA expected to be filed in the coming days challenging new eligibility rules that are going into place for the 2026-27 academic/sports year.
The Journal was able to confirm the imminent legal action Tuesday afternoon with Ryan Downton, who is representing Dent and others in the matter and who is the same attorney who represented Albuquerque native Diego Pavia in his landmark antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA just 18 months ago that recovered for the former St.
Pius and Volcano Vista high school student and New Mexico State Aggie star quarterback an extra year of eligibility at Vanderbilt.
That suit was based on the NCAAs bylaw which counted past junior college seasons against an athletes eligibility clock that ruled student athletes could play four seasons of an NCAA varsity sport.
The court win secured for Pavia a million-dollar senior season payday and a Heisman Trophy finalist season for the Commodores.
In Dents case, and that of many other Class of 2022 high school graduates, the matter is different.
The NCAA earlier this summer passed the new "five-for-five" rule, which essentially gives all student athletes five years to play and will cut back significantly, so the rule hopes, on appeals for extra seasons of eligibility for injuries or other matters.
That is for all student athletes moving forward who are part of the Class of 2023 or later.
However, just last week in a case brought by Downton and attorney Darren Heitner, former Lobo and Dent teammate Filip Borovicanin was among a group of 24 basketball players in Ohio who were awarded an injunction by a state judge there to play college basketball for their fifth season.
Borovicanin followed former UNM coach Richard Pitino to Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The judge in that case called the NCAAs rule "arbitrary and capricious" in its application to only the 2022 graduating class considering the classes coming before 2022 were all granted an extra COVID year and the classes after 2022 will all be part of the new blanket five-year eligibility window.
The NCAA has said it will appeal that ruling, and plans to do so with any other similar cases, such as the one Dent plans to be a party to, which could mean these matters are still being decided well into the academic year, maybe even the basketball season.
Just two months ago, Dent, who now lives in Albuquerque with his girlfriend and UNM Medical School student Katelyn Estrada, told the Journal he was not going to pursue professional basketball and was instead going to get a jump start on his next passion, coaching young kids.
Im done with pro basketball, said Dent on May 23.
Thats why I came back here.
I want to give back to the youth and I want to start training.
I want to start working in individual training, group sessions, things like that and I want to get started on that out here (in Albuquerque) young kids, older kids, just help them with their game and I wanted to start it here because Albuquerque gave me so much.
As for where Dent may play next if he is ruled eligible? He has not answered multiple attempts over the past few weeks to talk with the Journal about the new eligibility ruling or his next team.
Monday at a kids camp he is running, he told KRQE the NCAAs new rule made him want to play another year of college basketball.
Of course Lobo fans are hopeful for a return to the Pit.
And while the program would benefit greatly from a player of his caliber, remaining NIL resources for the already constructed 12-man roster make the chances of him putting on a Lobos uniform again unlikely, the Journal has learned from by multiple people close to the situation.
Then again, nobody in college sports says never these days, so the Journal posed the question to second year Lobos coach Eric Olen.
Donovan Dent is a UNM legend and will always be a Lobo, Olen told the Journal.
We continue to monitor the fifth year of eligibility across college basketball.
We will remain open to adding players who can add value to our team, limited only by roster space and available resources.
Many college basketball fans seem to thing Gonzaga is the frontrunner as it lost starting point guard Mario Saint-Suprey last week when he left school and signed with a pro team back home in Spain.
Of course there are several other schools with Dent connections, and deep pockets, who are also in the mix, all waiting patiently, of course, to see if he wins his court case first.
Reach Geoff Grammer at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter (X) @GeoffGrammer.