LAS VEGAS — Eight days after AJ Storr committed to UNLV and less than a week after the school officially announced him as one of the biggest additions to Josh Pastner’s second roster, the court order that made his fifth season possible has been put on hold.
The Tennessee Court of Appeals granted the NCAA’s request Wednesday to stay a temporary injunction that had required the association to recognize Storr and 18 other plaintiffs as eligible for the 2026-27 basketball season. Storr is among the players affected by the ruling and is now considered ineligible while the NCAA’s appeal proceeds unless another court order separately protects him or the appellate process produces a favorable result.
For Storr, the immediate result is straightforward. The fifth season that unexpectedly opened for him in late July is no longer protected by the Tennessee injunction that allowed him to enter the transfer portal and ultimately sign with UNLV. The appeals court did not issue a final ruling saying Storr can never play another college season, but the lower court’s order requiring the NCAA to recognize him as eligible is no longer controlling while the appeal moves forward.
That distinction matters because Storr’s eligibility has already changed several times in less than a month. Under the NCAA rules in effect when he completed the 2025-26 season at Ole Miss, Storr had exhausted his eligibility after playing four college seasons at St. John’s, Wisconsin, Kansas and Ole Miss. His status changed July 31 when a Tennessee court granted temporary relief to Storr and 18 other basketball players seeking another season.
The Tennessee order did more than temporarily recognize the players as eligible. It prevented the NCAA from enforcing the challenged eligibility rule against the plaintiffs and created an opportunity for players whose college careers had appeared finished to return to the transfer market. That opened an unusual August recruiting window at a point when most programs had already completed their rosters.
Storr used that opening quickly. He entered the portal and committed to UNLV on Aug. 18, giving Pastner a proven high-major scorer at a point in the offseason when players with his level of production almost never become available. UNLV officially announced him two days later as a fifth-year transfer.
His commitment immediately changed how the Rebels’ roster could be viewed. Storr led Ole Miss in scoring last season at 15.5 points per game while adding 3.1 rebounds and 1.9 assists. He made 41 3-pointers, averaged 17.5 points during SEC play and scored at least 20 points 10 times, giving UNLV another perimeter player with proven offensive production against high-major competition.
“AJ has produced at a high level against some of the best competition in college basketball,” Pastner said when UNLV announced him. “He has good positional size, can score in a variety of ways and gives us another experienced playmaker on the perimeter.”
The risk attached to Storr’s addition was always the same thing that made him available. He did not enter the portal because the NCAA independently granted him another season. His fifth year existed because a court temporarily prevented the NCAA from enforcing its eligibility rules against him.
There initially appeared to be another layer of protection for players in Storr’s situation. A federal court in Colorado issued a broader injunction affecting qualifying athletes who began Division I competition in 2022-23 and exhausted four seasons by the end of 2025-26. That ruling created a wider path to fifth-year eligibility beyond the individually named plaintiffs in Tennessee.
That protection did not last. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the broader Colorado injunction Aug. 21, removing it while the NCAA’s appeal continued. Storr still had the separate Tennessee injunction covering him individually, which made his situation different from athletes relying only on the Colorado case. Wednesday’s ruling removed that protection as well.
The Tennessee decision follows other recent appellate victories for the NCAA in challenges to the eligibility structure. An Ohio appeals court stayed an injunction covering 24 basketball players Aug. 17, and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the broader Colorado injunction four days later. The Tennessee stay continues a recent pattern in which athletes have initially received lower-court relief only for the NCAA to obtain a stay during the appellate process.
The legal fight stems from the NCAA’s transition to its new age-based eligibility model. The system can allow athletes to compete throughout a five-year eligibility period, but the transition rules did not automatically give another season to players such as Storr who used their final season under the previous rules during 2025-26.
That left Storr and others in an unusual gap. They completed four seasons under the previous structure immediately before younger athletes could benefit from the new model, leading players around the country to challenge the NCAA’s transition rules in state and federal court.
The plaintiffs have argued that excluding their group during the transition unfairly deprives them of another season of competition and the educational and NIL opportunities that can come with it. The NCAA has maintained that athletes who exhausted their eligibility in 2025-26 received the competition available under the rules in effect at the time and that retroactively expanding eligibility could affect roster spots and opportunities for other athletes.
Wednesday’s stay does not settle that argument. It determines what happens while the Tennessee appeal is pending, and for UNLV, the practical problem exists now.
Storr was not an end-of-bench addition. He immediately became one of the most accomplished offensive players on Pastner’s roster, bringing four seasons of high-major experience and two different seasons averaging more than 15 points per game.
His best season before Ole Miss came at Wisconsin in 2023-24, when Storr averaged 16.8 points and 3.9 rebounds and earned second-team All-Big Ten recognition. His role decreased after transferring to Kansas, where he averaged 6.1 points, before he rebuilt his value during a strong season at Ole Miss.
That history was part of what made his late addition significant for UNLV. Pastner was not adding a player whose potential had to be projected from limited minutes. Storr had already shown he could carry a significant offensive role in the Big Ten and SEC, and he joined a team that had largely been assembled before his unexpected availability.
UNLV therefore is not back to the beginning without him. Pastner constructed the majority of his roster before Storr entered the August portal, so the Rebels are not losing a player around whom the entire offseason had been planned. They are losing, at least for now, the player who changed what that completed roster might be capable of becoming.
There is still time for the situation to change again. College basketball’s regular season remains months away, the Tennessee appeal has not reached a final decision and eligibility litigation continues around the country. Another ruling could change Storr’s status before UNLV plays a game, but that possibility should not be confused with where the situation stands today.
As of Wednesday’s stay, the Tennessee injunction no longer requires the NCAA to recognize Storr as eligible for the 2026-27 season. He is currently ineligible unless another court order or the appellate process changes that result.
The sequence moved remarkably quickly. Storr finished the season at Ole Miss believing his fourth year had ended his college career. A Tennessee judge temporarily opened a fifth season, Storr entered the portal, chose UNLV and became one of the most important additions to Pastner’s roster. Eight days after that commitment, the legal protection behind it disappeared.
Storr still has a place at UNLV if the courts ultimately allow him to play. What he no longer has, at least for now, is the eligibility that made the move possible in the first place.
