An unprecedented NCAA violation, about a month following an unprecedented snub to add insult to injustice, was passed down to Florida State last December for an unprecedented transfer recruitment.

The run of unprecedented occurrences to happen to FSU these last few years has been nothing short of uncanny. And, of course, unprecedented. 

FSU received an NCAA violation – a Level II infraction – in January of 2024. It marked the first time the NCAA has severed the relationship between a school and its NIL collective as part of an infractions case per ESPN…a move that is unlikely to happen again as the NCAA has received legal pushback and halted NIL enforcement while the country’s president has explored creating a commission (currently paused) to oversee college sports and NIL in place of the NCAA .

At the heart of this violation: Amarius Mims. 

Mims, a former five-star recruit from central Georgia who stayed in-state to attend UGA and eventually went on to be a first-round draft pick in 2024, had a brief second recruitment when he entered the NCAA’s Transfer Portal in April of 2022. That short-lived time back on the open market led to a frenzy of Florida schools making a run at the rarest of Portal commodities: A star offensive tackle. 

In that pursuit of Mims, FSU found itself on the wrong side of history as the first and only football program to date to receive such strict punishments; offensive coordinator Alex Atkins was suspended for three games, the program was placed on two years of probation, scholarship reduction, the Rising Spear collective and booster Matthew Quigley were dissociated from the program for certain periods. FSU asked the NCAA to rescind some of these penalties last May. The NCAA has removed several penalties associated with the violation, including the dissociation penalties for Quigley (most of the severe recruiting-related penalties already were served by FSU) and acknowledged this April that the penalties on NIL-related compensation were no longer considered impermissible and were thus struck.

And as FSU fans well-versed in the frenzy that was the Mims recruitment…the Seminoles did not even land Mims as the skilled big man returned to Georgia for one final season before going pro.

We now know what that whirlwind ended up leading to in terms of the NCAA violation.

At the time, it was recruiting chaos at its finest. The Mims ‘arrival at a Tallahassee hotel as FSU got the first visit over Miami and UCF received the – as Cooper Petagna put it –  “LeBron James treatment” in terms of coverage. There was a stakeout of his arrival by Noles247, a report elsewhere of a commitment, a rare public denial of that commitment from the player himself, and ultimately an abrupt ending as Mims returned home. Behind the scenes, it was even more unique with cheating and tragedy at the center of these few days. 

Much of what occurred, publicly and privately, has been reported on to some extent or another over the last few years.

But in a FOIA request that was submitted by Noles247 in January of 2024, resubmitted about a year later after a submission mishap, and fulfilled by FSU in May, we’ve received a unique perspective into the recruitment: 80+ pages of transcripts from Alex Atkins’ two interviews with the NCAA.

In the interviews, conducted in late November of 2022 and again – this time with personal legal counsel representing Atkins – in February of 2023, Atkins discussed some never-before public details of the recruitment. 

In addition to seeing how the NCAA interviews went, the story below sheds light on some of the antics that went on as the Portal Era started to heat up. And not just from FSU’s end. On financial figures that were being thrown around at a time by various in-state schools when this stuff was supposed to be cloak and dagger, a call from Kirby Smart , and how an untimely tragedy changed this recruitment…

It appears that an exciting home-and-home matchup has been added to this and next season’s men’s college basketball schedules.

UConn and Kansas will play each other twice over the course of the next two regular seasons, according to a Wednesday morning report from Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports.

The first game will reportedly take place on Dec. 2 in Lawrence, Kans., while a return game will be played in Connecticut in 2027. Barring any unforeseen meetings, the games will constitute the fifth- and sixth all-time matchups between the schools.

The Jayhawks have won all four to date. Kansas swept a quasi-home-and-home between the two teams in the 1990s (the first meeting was in Kansas City), and topped UConn in the 2016 NCAA tournament and 2024 season’s Big East-Big 12 Battle.

From 2022 to ’24, the two teams won every national title; the Jayhawks took the first and Huskies the last two. Both programs slipped slightly in 2025, earning No. 7 and No. 8 seeds in the NCAA tournament.

More College Basketball on Sports Illustrated

Two teams remain in the 2025 Women’s College World Series, as a former in-state rivalry between Texas and Texas Tech will decide the NCAA softball tournament national champion.

The No. 6 Longhorns and No. 12 Red Raiders are each undefeated at the WCWS so far, as the Longhorns took down No. 7 Tennessee 2-0 in the semifinals and Texas Tech beat four-time reigning champion Oklahoma 3-2.

REQUIRED READING: What are differences between college softball, baseball? Rules to know ahead of CWS, WCWS

Texas Tech pitcher NiJaree Canady, who transferred from Stanford in the offseason and signed a $1 million name, image and likeness (NIL) deal, has been worth every penny in the NCAA tournament. She has allowed only four runs in her five starts (35 innings) since the Tallahassee Super Regional, which Texas Tech won over Florida State, 2-0.

Texas, meanwhile, looks to finally add its first national championship in program history, despite making its third appearance in the WCWS final in the last four years.

For those tuning in to the sport for the first time this season, here are some of most-asked rules in college softball:

How many innings are softball games?

There are seven innings in college softball games, which is almost always the same number of innings across all levels of softball. That is, unless there are extra innings, which — like baseball — keeps adding innings until one team leads upon the completion of the frame.

NCAA SOFTBALL RUN RULE: Why tournament, Women’s College World Series games can end early

College softball run-rule

College softball has a mercy rule, which is enforced even in the WCWS and national championship series. If a team leads by eight or more runs after five complete innings, the game is called early due to run rule.

The NCAA decided to extend the run rule to the finals for the 2023 WCWS after Oklahoma defeated Texas 16-1 in Game 1 of the three-game series the year prior. The Sooners, who were the home team, led 12-1 in the middle of the fifth inning and would have been eligible for a run-rule win under current rules. Patty Gasso’s team two more runs in each of the fifth and sixth innings.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – The lawsuit between Tennessee point guard Zakai Zeigler and the NCAA has entered a phase of back-and-forth, showcasing the changing world of college athletics as more money becomes available to players. Zeigler’s latest filing, made in answer to the NCAA’s response to his original suit, came Tuesday.

It’s a transition that began with the full implementation of Name, Image and Likeness deals. NIL programs haven’t just raised money for student athletes, they’ve raised questions about what kind of commercial rights those players have.

Zeigler specifically is suing over play eligibility. He, like all NCAA athletes, has spent his college career under the umbrella of the “four-seasons rule,” which limits a student to four Division One seasons, even if they’re in school for more than four years.

In Zeigler’s eyes, the rule is subject to federal antitrust laws. His argument claims that the NCAA has no right to limit a player’s eligibility, since that illegally regulates the market of college athletes.

In legal terms, Zeigler‘s latest response said “The rule operates as a horizontal restraint among competing buyers of labor that artificially suppresses compensation by systematically excluding the most experienced and valuable participants from the market.”

In more basic terms, the suit is saying that by booting the most experienced players from play, the NCAA is limiting the “products” — NIL opportunities — available to both players and businesses who want to enter into NIL agreements with them. That fact puts the rule under the purview of antitrust laws.

For the NCAA, the argument is completely different. The people in charge of college sports don’t see student athletics as a business, but rather an extracurricular while earning a degree. It’s a more traditional view, common before NIL started taking off after the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in NCAA v. Alston.

“College athletics is a means to a better end for student-athletes — not the end itself,” the NCAA’s response, filed Monday, said.

The back-and-forth between Zeigler and the NCAA is an appropriate metaphor for college athletics today. It showcases college sports’ slip into a professional sports landscape, where playing for UT means more than just being a Volunteer, it means earning a living at the same time.

Court records show a motion hearing is scheduled for Friday.

Copyright 2025 WVLT. All rights reserved.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Memphis softball head coach Trena Prater has added another piece to the 2025-26 roster in Paris Brienesse, a member of the Swedish National Softball Team.  
 
Brienesse most recently featured for Angelo State, with prior stops at UT Arlington and Seward County Community College.
 
“I am excited that Paris has been blessed with an extra year to play due to the NCAA junior college ruling changing,” said Prater. “I believe that her leadership and energy will be something that our young team will thrive off of. She is going to bring speed on the base paths and experience to our outfield. Her relentless grit and love for the game will be fun to coach.”
 
In her senior season at Angelo State, Brienesse appeared in 49 games while logging 30 starts. She hit .253 on the season with 22 hits, 22 runs scored and 22 stolen bases. Her 22 stolen bases ranked 88 at the Division II level as she helped the Rambelles to a 47-14 record, including a 34-10 mark in Lone Star Conference play.
 
Brienesse spent the 2023 and 2024 seasons at UT Arlington, appearing in 69 games and holding a .273 batting average while stealing 15 bases as a Maverick.
 
Prior to joining the Mavericks, Brienesse spent her freshman season at Seward County Community College. She held a .311 batting average in her lone season as a Saint, logging 37 hits and 20 stolen bases. She was named a second team Academic All-American in 2022.
 
Brienesse has also competed for the Swedish Softball National Team at the U18 and U22 levels, securing a gold medal in the 2019 U18 Swedish Softball Championships while also earning a bronze in 2020.
 
She joins Ellen Roberts as just the second international athlete in Memphis softball history. Roberts featured in four seasons for the Tigers, finishing with the second most wins (41) in program history in the circle.
 
The Stockholm native will be competing for the Swedish Senior National Team this summer in the 2025 Women’s Softball European Championship held in Prague, Czech Republic.
 
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