Two guards won in court this week, and Michigan's roster still says fifteen

Kenny Noland won in court on Wednesday, September 23. Roddy Gayle Jr. won in court on Thursday, September 24. On Saturday morning Michigan's official roster listed fifteen players, the same fifteen it has listed since September 4, and neither guard was one of them.

Fifteen is the roster limit. Two orders now say two more guards may play for Michigan this season, and the page that would have to make room for them has not moved.

Michigan plays Eastern Michigan in an exhibition at Crisler in 15 days. It opens the season against Oakland on November 2, in 37. Between those two dates sits a third one that nobody in Ann Arbor chose: October 24, the deadline for Gayle's written order.

What Gayle actually has#

Justice Frank A. Sedita III granted Gayle's motion for a preliminary injunction from the bench on Thursday, at a hearing moved from its original September 17 date. The College Sports Litigation Tracker, which follows these cases, reports that he gave Gayle thirty days to submit a proposed order for signature and lists the deadline as October 24.

The docket says the same thing by what it does not contain. Gayle v. NCAA, Index No. E192685/2026, carried 45 entries on Saturday morning. The newest is dated September 21, a letter from Gayle's lawyers to the judge. There is no signed order on the injunction motion and there is no notice of appeal.

He has not won the lawsuit. A preliminary injunction keeps the NCAA from treating him as ineligible while the case goes on, and it can still be undone at trial or on appeal. It is a season, if it holds, and not a verdict.

The written order matters for two reasons. The first is the appeal. In New York the time to take one runs from service of the written order with notice that it has been entered, so the NCAA, which the Detroit News reports is expected to appeal, does not yet have an order to appeal from. The second is the scope. Sedita's September 2 restraining order barred the NCAA from penalizing Gayle or any school that plays him under that order. Whether the injunction carries the same protection for Michigan will be in a document that has not been written.

October 24 is after the Eastern Michigan exhibition and after the October 16 exhibition against Oregon State. It is the day before Michigan plays Houston in Grand Rapids.

I called this motion denied on September 12. It was granted. I gave weight to the three New York obstacles the NCAA raised in its September 9 opposition, and they did not carry with a judge who had already restrained the NCAA on Gayle's behalf once.

Noland's order is already under appeal#

Noland is one of 97 plaintiffs in Tatum v. NCAA, a single suit filed September 4 in Monroe Circuit Court in Bloomington, Indiana. Judge Kara E. Krothe heard testimony on September 14 and issued findings of fact and conclusions of law on September 23. Per the Detroit Free Press, the court found that "under the plain, unambiguous text of the [NCAA] Manual, Plaintiffs are eligible."

The NCAA moved faster in Indiana than anyone has had occasion to in New York. Its emergency motion to stay the injunction carries a file stamp of September 23, the day the order issued. Its notice of appeal is stamped September 24 and was entered on September 25 under appeal number 26A-PL-02703. On September 25 Krothe set a deadline for the plaintiffs to answer the stay motion. As of Saturday the Monroe County record showed no ruling on it.

That reverses the order in which the headlines arrived. Noland's win came first and in writing, and it is the one with a stay motion pending against it. Gayle's came a day later and from the bench, and for now there is nothing on paper for the NCAA to attack.

Fifteen names and two guards#

Michigan's roster page listed fifteen on September 19 and fifteen on Saturday, and they are the same fifteen men on Michigan's statistics sheet from the European tour in August. Adding Gayle and Noland takes seventeen places.

One of the fifteen is Brandon McCoy Jr., the freshman guard Michigan announced on September 1 will miss the season after tearing his ACL. Whether his place can be moved off the limit is the one route to a sixteenth name that does not require anybody to leave. It makes room for one guard. The second guard needs a second place, and on a page at the limit that means a name comes off it.

Michigan has not said which of those it intends to do, or whether it intends to do either. Its men's basketball news page has added one item since Noland's ruling, dated September 24, and it announces that single-game tickets go on sale September 29. The program has published nothing about Gayle or Noland.

Mike Boynton Jr. has said what he wants. On the program's "Defend the Block" podcast this month, per the Detroit News, he said of Gayle, "we'd love to have him back." The page has said fifteen for 22 days.

What the minutes are for#

The reason the page matters is the backcourt. Elliot Cadeau played 1,085 minutes last season and had 234 of Michigan's 745 assists, just under a third of them. Trey McKenney played 885 minutes and had 35. Fourteen players appeared for Michigan last season and four of them are on this roster, and those four played 2,068 of the team's 8,025 minutes, a little over a quarter. The freshman guard who led the European tour in steals is the one who tore his knee.

Gayle played 823 minutes across 39 games for last season's national champion, sixth on the team. Noland played 927 minutes in 28 games at Columbia, all 28 of them starts, and had 101 assists against 69 turnovers. Twenty-eight games at Columbia do not carry over at the same rate against Michigan's schedule. The job does. He brought the ball up every night Columbia played.

Either man is a second ball handler for a team that has one. Neither is part of a rotation until his name is on the page. Noland's order has an emergency stay motion waiting on a response in Indiana. Gayle's is not on paper yet, and the deadline to put it there is October 24.

Michigan plays Eastern Michigan on October 11 with whatever the page says that morning.

Sources: New York State Courts Electronic Filing, Niagara County Supreme Court, Index No. E192685/2026, read September 26; Indiana MyCase, Monroe Circuit Court 6, No. 53C06-2609-PL-002418, read September 26; the College Sports Litigation Tracker on Gayle v. NCAA; mgoblue.com 2026-27 roster, men's basketball news page, 2025-26 statistics and September 1, 4 and 16 releases; James Hawkins, Detroit News, September 24; Tony Garcia, Detroit Free Press, September 23; UM Hoops, September 24; Columbia athletics 2025-26 statistics.