- - James Nnaji booed in collegiate debut at Baylor, 2 years after being selected in 2023 NBA Draft

Jack BaerJanuary 4, 2026 at 7:19 AM

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James Nnaji is a college basketball player unlike any other. (AP Photo/Jessica Tobias) ()

For the first time in decades, an NBA Draft pick played in a college basketball game on Saturday.

The player was James Nnaji, who was selected 31st overall by the Detroit Pistons in the 2023 NBA Draft. After five years playing for FC Barcelona in Europe, he signed with a Baylor program looking for interior help. It is the start of four years of NCAA eligibility, made possible by the increasingly blurred line between the collegiate and professional levels.

Baylor signing the 21-year-old has not been a popular move, to say the least, and that bore out as the Bears faced TCU on the road in Nnaji's first game in college. Wearing a No. 50 jersey that didn't even have his name on it yet, he was greeted with loud boos.

James Nnaji checks in for #Baylor without a name on the back of his jersey. Hearing it didn’t arrive in time 😅 pic.twitter.com/f6xHFIcWFc

— Parker Rehm (@parker_rehm) January 3, 2026

The boos continued every time Nnaji touched the ball, including when the 7-footer scored his first career points on a putback dunk midway through the first half.

NNAJI PUTBACK 😤#SicEm | #CultureofJOY pic.twitter.com/dfK4zMxRNf

— Baylor Men’s Basketball (@BaylorMBB) January 3, 2026

Nnaji finished the game with 5 points on 2-of-3 shooting with 4 rebounds, 1 assist and 2 turnovers in 16 minutes off the bench. Baylor lost 69-63 lowering its record to 10-3.

Nnaji is a Nigerian national who began his organized basketball career in the Hungarian leagues before joining Barcelona in 2020. Since being drafted in the NBA, he has been loaned out twice to teams in Spain and Türkiye, while his NBA rights have been traded to the Charlotte Hornets, then the New York Knicks. He has yet to play in the NBA.

By nearly any definition of the world, Nnaji is a professional basketball player, and yet the NCAA cleared him to play for Baylor. The decision outraged numerous big names in college basketball, both for the line that has been crossed and the confusion about the ever-changing rulebook that let him do it.

TCU head coach Jamie Dixon echoed the latter while speaking with reporters after the game:

“I wish we had rules and they were clarified before the year, but I said the other day, we've gone from the NCAA with all these rules, and now we have money involved, we're a professional league and we have no rules.

"Usually, you get money involved and become professional, there'll more rules. And we have no caps, we have no contracts, we have no rules. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying this is what it is. And every school operates on different rules, different interpretations."

Baylor head coach Scott Drew has defended the move as putting his program "in the best position to be successful." The situation was foreshadowed a few months ago when the NCAA cleared former G League Ignite player Thierry Darlan to play for Santa Clara.

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Sports”