Missouri forward Mark Mitchell is ineligible for the 2026-27 season after the Kentucky Court of Appeals on Friday dissolved the temporary injunction that had kept the high school Class of 2022 in uniform, and the next move for the All-SEC forward is expected to be a filing in Missouri.
A three-judge panel — Sara Walter Combs, Christopher McNeill and Will Moynahan — granted the NCAA’s motion for interlocutory relief and dissolved the Jefferson Circuit Court’s Aug. 21 order. The appeals court held that the lower-court order was a temporary injunction, not a narrower restraining order, and that it had improperly altered the status quo.
“There was no loss of an opportunity for them because nothing changed, and the new rule did not, as the circuit court surmised, ‘bar’ them from doing anything they previously had a right to do,” the judges wrote. “Permitting the high school Class of 2022 to play a fifth season — the very relief the respondents were requesting — would disrupt the status quo.”
The order leaves Mitchell, Louisville’s Seth Trimble and L.J. Wells, Kentucky linebacker Alex Afari Jr., and dozens of other Class of 2022 athletes without the protection that had allowed them to compete. The panel was explicit that the ruling does not close the courthouse door: athletes may still seek a temporary injunction under Kentucky Civil Rule 65.04, and a hearing in the underlying case is set for Oct. 9. For Mitchell, the more practical path is closer to home.
Legal observers tracking the NCAA’s fifth-year cases have identified two options. One is a fresh injunction motion in Kentucky, which is expected to be difficult after Friday’s order. The other is to dismiss and refile in Missouri, where similar eligibility suits are already moving and have not produced a single result. A source told PowerMizzou that an individual case for Mitchell is a strong possibility, and that is the course now taking shape around the Tigers’ leading returning scorer.
Mitchell, a 6-foot-9 forward from Kansas City, Kan., who began his career at Duke, is the player Missouri can least afford to lose. In 2025-26 he started all 33 games, earned All-SEC second-team honors, and led the Tigers in scoring (18.3), rebounding (5.2) and assists (3.6). He shot 54.7 percent from the field and 38.8 percent from three, and became only the second player in program history to lead Missouri in points, rebounds and assists in the same season. He was also the second Tiger to earn All-SEC recognition twice since the school joined the league in 2012.
His route back to Columbia was already uneven. After the August order opened a one-week portal window, Mitchell committed to Kentucky. He reversed course and returned to Missouri after the SEC made clear it would still enforce its rule against intra-conference transfers outside the normal portal window. Friday’s ruling undoes the eligibility that made either destination possible.
The underlying dispute is the NCAA’s five-for-five rule. Athletes in the high school classes of 2023, 2024 and 2025 received five seasons of competition inside a five-year clock. The Class of 2022, still inside the age and enrollment windows the association uses elsewhere, was left under the old cap of four seasons in five years. Plaintiffs argued the cutoff was arbitrary. The appeals court disagreed, at least on the injunction standard, and sided with the NCAA’s claim of irreparable harm.
Football programs feel the ruling immediately. Afari, who had played in all four of Kentucky’s games, is out for Saturday’s game against South Carolina. Texas Tech quarterback Thomas Castellanos is among the athletes whose status is now a compliance decision rather than a court order. Basketball programs, Missouri included, have a narrower window before the season. Louisville, Kentucky and Missouri must build rosters without assuming the injunction returns.
Nothing in Friday’s order ends the litigation. Cases remain active in multiple states, and Missouri’s docket has already produced mixed results on Class of 2022 claims. A successful filing in a Missouri court could restore Mitchell before the Tigers open. A loss, or a delay past the start of the season, would strip Dennis Gates of the player who carried the offense a year ago.
For now, Mitchell is sidelined. The injunction that put him back on the floor is gone. The fight, if it continues, is headed for a Missouri courtroom.
