Last week, Tuscaloosa County circuit judge Jim Roberts granted Alabama center Charles Bediako a temporary restraining order that let the former pro return to college basketball.
Now, the NCAA wants Roberts removed from the case over his close ties to Alabama’s athletic department.
Roberts and his wife, Mary Turner, are listed as active donors on the Crimson Tide Foundation’s website with lifetime contributions between $100,000 and $249,000. Additionally, Mary Turner is representing Bediako’s former teammate Darius Miles in a capital murder trial.
The NCAA filed a motion for recusal Monday.
“The NCAA contends that proceeding in this Court has created an impermissible appearance of impropriety because of the intense media scrutiny and public speculation surrounding the Court’s relationship with the University of Alabama and its athletics programs and student-athletes,” the motion said.
Bediako played for Alabama from 2021 to 2023, and sued the NCAA after the governing body wouldn’t grant him eligibility for another season.
He declared for the NBA draft in 2023 and went unselected, signing a two-way contract with the Spurs the same year. The 7-foot center never played in an NBA game, but his case has the potential to change college basketball because it could pave the way for players who signed NBA contracts to go back to school; it could also render the draft deadline meaningless and lead to a two-way flow of players between college and pro basketball.
Bediako had 13 points and three rebounds in 25 minutes in Alabama’s loss to Tennessee on Saturday. Alabama plays Missouri on Tuesday night.
A hearing was set for Tuesday to decide whether to grant Bediako a preliminary injunction against the NCAA, which would allow him to play the rest of the season. It was delayed after an NCAA lawyer couldn’t make it to court due to “weather issues,” and Roberts extended his initial restraining order by another 10 days. That means Bediako will be eligible to play at least three more games for the Tide.
The NCAA cites extensive media coverage around Roberts’s ties to Alabama—including from Front Office Sports.
The motion also acknowledges the judge who recused himself in Duke’s case against quarterback Darian Mensah. (Duke and Mensah settled Tuesday morning.) The original judge in that case removed himself because he is a Duke men’s basketball season-ticket holder and married to a university employee.
The NCAA also argued in its filing that Alabama’s Canons of Judicial Ethics explicitly states a judge should step down from a case “in which his disqualification is required by law or his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The code also says that “recusal is required when ‘facts are shown which make it reasonable for members of the public or a party, or counsel opposed to question the impartiality of the judge.’”
The NCAA said the family’s donations to the athletic department “suggest the potential for a personal rooting interest in the outcome of the case.”
Bediako told reporters on Saturday that he returned to Alabama because of his relationship with coach Nate Oats. On Monday, Oats said he has no regrets on Bediako’s return, even if it winds up being brief.
“One hundred percent,” Oats said. “I want to do right by my players in every situation as long as they did nothing wrong. Charles did nothing wrong.”
