This is the kind of ruling that can change a season before it even begins. RJ Godfrey’s push for a fifth year of eligibility has hit a major roadblock, and the immediate consequence is brutally simple: he is ineligible for Arizona’s season-opener against UCLA.
On Thursday, a Texas judge tentatively denied a temporary restraining order for Godfrey and other plaintiffs involved in the five-for-five case. That is not the same as a final resolution, but it is still a significant setback. When the question is whether a player can get on the floor right away, tentative or not, a denial carries real weight.
A ruling that narrows the path
The broader issue here is not just one game. Godfrey and the other plaintiffs withdrew their five-for-five case in Georgia this week and joined a separate lawsuit in Texas, clearly looking for a legal route that could keep the fifth-year argument alive. Instead, the Texas court has now made the path narrower, not wider.
Judge Ryan Luna was blunt about the category of players he was prepared to deny relief to, referencing those who had already gone through the process on the same merits and had sought injunctive relief from another state court or been granted it. He specifically pointed to Tennessee and Georgia in that discussion, which tells you exactly how tightly the court is treating these cases.
That matters because this was never just an abstract eligibility fight. For Arizona, it is about whether a forward available on paper can actually suit up when the season starts. For Godfrey, it is about whether this Texas route remains viable or whether the legal options to play this season are starting to run out.
The caution here is that this was a tentative denial, not the final word. But in a dispute built around urgency, uncertainty is its own kind of punishment. The clock is already ticking toward Arizona’s season-opener against UCLA, and right now the clearest reading is the least encouraging one for Godfrey.
So the answer to the most important questions is straightforward. Was RJ Godfrey granted a temporary restraining order? No. Will RJ Godfrey be eligible for Arizona’s season-opener against UCLA? Not on the basis of this ruling.
