MADISON – The Wisconsin Badgers are “prepared for the new world” of college athletics, as interim athletic director Marcus Sedberry described it.
That new world has a lot of uncertainty. Possible NCAA rule changes and Congressional action are among the variables that the Badgers – and their peers across the country – have needed to reckon with roughly a year after the House vs. NCAA settlement and five years into the NIL era.
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Sedberry – in his interim role following Chris McIntosh’s abrupt departure in April until a permanent hire happens sometime in the summer – appears to be embracing the NCAA’s possible changes.
“I try not to harp on some of the uncertainty and the challenges because I think all of those really present themselves as opportunities,” Sedberry said at the UW Athletic Board’s June meeting. “Opportunities for us to solidify who we want to be in the future, to ensure that we’re all aligned around what is going to be required for us to be successful in the future.”
Here is how some of the possible changes could impact the Badgers:
Greg Gard thinks NCAA’s proposed five-for-five eligibility rules ‘will be a good thing’
The NCAA’s proposed five-year eligibility rule tops the list of changes that could impact the Badgers across all sports.
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The model would give athletes five seasons of eligibility during a five-year window. It would replace the current system of four seasons of eligibility and eliminate redshirts and waivers that would extend an athlete’s eligibility, with exceptions for pregnancy, religious missions and military service.
The five-year window would begin either when an athlete enrolls full-time in college or in the academic year following their 19th birthday, whichever happens first.
It was initially going to be the academic year following an athlete’s high school graduation or their 19th birthday, but the change followed “recommendations from stakeholders in men’s ice hockey, men’s basketball and the U.S. national service academies,” per an NCAA press release.
It is an especially notable change to the proposal for men’s hockey due to how many players begin their college careers at a relatively later age after playing at the junior levels. UW goaltender Daniel Hauser, for example, was 20 years old when he began his Badger career in 2025-26.
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The NCAA has said the Division I Cabinet will consider the model at its June 23-24 meeting.
“That’s been speeding down the tracks pretty quickly here this spring,” said Dan Rohrer, UW’s associate athletic director for governance and regulatory affairs, at the June 3 Athletic Board meeting.
UW men’s basketball coach Greg Gard expressed his support for the proposed five-for-five model for athlete eligibility – along with NCAA basketball tournament expansion – as he talked with reporters in May.
“We’re all trying to find solutions to fix some of the issues and get things under control,” Gard said. “I think the five-for-five will be a good thing. I think tournament expansion will be good.”
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UW volleyball coach Kelly Sheffield supported the idea of five years of eligibility back in 2025 at Big Ten’s volleyball media days while noting the inequity of football players getting to play four out of 12 games while still maintaining their ability to redshirt.
“You see all these lawsuits that are happening,” Sheffield said. “The lawsuit that I think would be the most winnable from a Title IX standpoint is how are football players able to have basically a third of their season where they’re able to play and then still redshirt. Where if our players play one match, they’ve lost their year.”
The NCAA’s expected implementation process would not impact any athletes who exhausted their eligibility in 2025-26. To use men’s basketball as an example, Braeden Carrington and Andrew Rohde would not get any extra eligibility.
Athletes who competed in 2025-26 and have remaining eligibility could follow either the new model or the old model, whichever is most beneficial. That theoretically could mean three more years of eligibility for volleyball’s Charlie Fuerbringer instead of two, for example.
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Prospects graduating high school in 2026, 2027 and beyond would follow the new, five-year model, according to the framework released by the NCAA in May. The NCAA will individually evaluate the cases of prospects who already graduated but have not yet enrolled to see which model would be more beneficial.
Wisconsin goaltender Daniel Hauser (31) gets knocked into the net in a collision between Wisconsin defenseman Joe Palodichuk (14) and Michigan State forward Porter Martone (22) a game Thursday, January 15, 2026, at the Kohl Center in Madison, Wisconsin.
NCAA’s handling of players with professional experience may be something to watch
Sports Illustrated reported in May that the NCAA distributed updated guidance that does not provide eligibility to athletes who “entered an agreement with, competed on or received compensation from a team that participates in a league with minimum compensation that exceeds actual and necessary expenses.”
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While the document reportedly uses the NBA as an example, an NCAA spokesperson told Sports Illustrated that the governing body “also identified several international leagues in which participation by a prospect is likely to result in violations of NCAA rules and a loss of eligibility.”
It’s unclear how fervent the NCAA could be in enforcing this, and any enforcement efforts could potentially be challenged in court. But any changes to pre-enrollment requirements would be something to watch for a team like UW men’s basketball that has recently relied on talent that has competed in international leagues.
Incoming guard Owen Foxwell has most notably played in Australia’s National Basketball League for the last five seasons. He will turn 23 before the 2026-27 season. Fellow incoming guard Jackson Ball, 18, has competed with the NBL’s Illawarra Hawks.
Other examples of players the Badgers have relied on (and/or will rely on) with international experience have included current forward Austin Rapp, current guard Hayden Jones, incoming forward Victory Onueutu and ex-UW forward Aleksas Bieliauskas.
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“You’re reading about G-League players coming back in the sport of basketball, a variety of different pro aspects in individual sports,” Rohrer said. “And that’s one of the unanswered questions at this point is, to put it really bluntly, do we care about what happened before they got here? … That’ll be a question that needs to get answered as part of this process.”
Iowa guard Bennett Stirtz (14) hits a three-point basket over Wisconsin forward Austin Rapp (22) during the second half of the game Sunday, February 22, 2026 at the Kohl Center in Madison, Wisconsin. Wisconsin beat Iowa 84-71.
Wisconsin, Big Ten monitoring Protect College Sports Act activity
Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) introduced the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act that could potentially provide a legal framework for college athletics. Aspects of the bill include codifying parts of the House vs. NCAA settlement, providing narrow antitrust protections and regulating agent representation.
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“This is something that we’re very much monitoring – both with our government relations staff on campus and those that work at the Big Ten – to truly understand what this looks like at the national level, also at the conference level, but certainly for us here at Wisconsin,” Rohrer said.
The Big Ten and SEC put out a joint statement on June 2 saying that the two heavyweight conferences “do not support the Protect College Sports Act as drafted,” noting that the proposed legislation “leaves critical issues unresolved.”
“It’s clear people want a sustainable national framework,” Sedberry said at the June 3 meeting. “The Big Ten is very aligned on that. The piece I would draw attention to in their quote would be ‘as drafted.’”
The Big Ten and SEC commissioners released another statement via ESPN on June 4 after meeting with Cruz and presenting “concrete solutions to key unresolved challenges.” The statement reiterates the conferences’ lack of support for the bill “in its current form.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How possible NCAA changes, legal action could impact Wisconsin Badgers
