Alabama judge rules Maori Davenport eligible to play high school basketball after emergency motion and hearing

Alabama high school basketball player Maori Davenport will be able to play again Friday night after being ruled ineligible for her senior season due to USA Basketball mistakenly sending her a paycheck after she competed for the program this past summer. An emergency motion from Pike County (Ala.) County Circuit Judge Sonny Reagan—which came as the result of a lawsuit filed by Davenport’s parents—will allow Davenport to play on Friday after she missed the first 11 games of her season. ESPN analyst Jay Bilas has been extremely vocal about the situation and used his platform to argue against the state athletic association’s ruling.

Davenport is a 6’4 forward who is ranked as the No. 15 player in the country by ESPN. She will play her college ball at Rutgers next season. She is a senior at Charles Henderson High School, but was forced to miss the start of her final season of high school basketball because of a heartless ruling by the head of the Alabama High School Athletic Association.

Davenport was a member of USA Basketball’s gold medal-winning team at the 2018 FIBA Americas U18 Championship. USA Basketball regularly sends a stipend to players who compete for its teams. This is not against NCAA rules for players who are already in college. It can be against the rules of state athletic associations for high school players. USA Basketball is supposed to check with each of them before sending out the payment.

USA Basketball didn’t double check with the AHSAA before sending Davenport a check for $857. Though Davenport has repaid the full amount of the check, the athletic association decided that she was ineligible.

The ruling was made by Steve Savarese, the executive director of the AHSAA. He has the power to overturn the decision, but has refused to do it. In a statement earlier this week, the AHSAA said it wouldn’ make an exception for Davenport because it could open up avenues to “exploit student-athletes” in the future.

All of this is garbage. Fortunately, ESPN’s Jay Bilas has continued to shine a spotlight on the issue to put public pressure on Savarese and the AHSAA.

Anyone who has watched a college basketball game announced by Bilas on ESPN over the last week has heard the veteran commentator talk about the Davenport situation on television. Bilas has no vested interest in this other than he views the ruling that made Davenport ineligible as an injustice.

Bilas published on article on ESPN laying out his case for Davenport’s eligibility after a conversation with Savarese. Bilas writes:

After speaking to the AHSAA, I found Savarese’s ruling to be more than just wrong. I found it to be cruel, heartless and more about the interests of the AHSAA than the interests of a young athlete in its charge. It wasn’t about Maori Davenport. It was about Steve Savarese blindly asserting authority without regard for whom it may hurt, or the reasonable likelihood of a similar issue recurring in the future.

Bilas notes the president of USA Basketball, Jim Tooley, traveled to Alabama for Davenport’s appeal hearing. He writes that there have been exceptions made for other student-athletes in the past by the AHSAA, but Savarese has refused to do so for Davenport to this point.

The ball is back in Savarese’s court.

All Davenport wants to do is play her final season of high school basketball. It was not her fault she received a payment — it was a clerical error on the part of USA Basketball. She paid back the money. If there was any empathy involved in this case at all, Davenport would never have been away her teammates on the hardwood.

Instead, Savarese made himself the story. This is about an old white man valuing his own authority over the well-being of the very students he’s supposed to protect. As Bilas tweeted, everything about Savarese’s ruling was unreasonable.

The ruling from Judge Reagan came after Davenport’s parents filed a lawsuit against the Alabama High School Athletic Association and Savarese.

Says the civil suit:

“The rule that Maori was disqualified under is not only arbitrary in its application to Maori, but arbitrary on its face. It allows for no distinction for an innocent mistake … it further allows only one punishment, whether the dollar amount involved is millions of dollars or $250, a player is disqualified for a year, and if the defendants’ public pronouncement are to be believed, there is no ability to make a distinction.”

In response to the suit, which was filed on January 10th, AHSAA spokesman Ron Ingram said, “We’re aware of the litigation and in discussions to formulate an appropriate response.”

The Davenport family requested an expedited hearing, which was granted by Judge Reagan. His ruling would allow Maori to play Friday (Jan. 11) night against Carroll, but it may not be the end of this mess if the AHSAA decides to fight against the ruling restoring her eligibility.

Since Bilas brought this issue to the mainstream, Maori has gathered support from many notable and persuasive parties, including Dawn Staley, Billie Jean King, and Alabama state representatives.

The AHSAA has not commented yet on Maori’s eligibility being restored, but it seems the appropriate step would be just drop it, acknowledge it was a harmless clerical error, and move on. Until that group makes a decision on whether to contest or accept the court’s ruling, it’s safe to assume the Miss Basketball hopeful will return to the hardwood.