College basketball rankings: Missouri climbs back into early Top 25 And 1 as Mark Mitchell returns

To highlight just how goofy the eligibility cases are across college athletics right now, consider that the following statement is true: A former Missouri standout who gained a fifth year of eligibility two weeks ago and quickly committed to Kentucky is now headed back to Missouri out of fear of being ruled ineligible.

If you're confused, how could you not be?

The player in question is Mark Mitchell, the All-SEC forward who averaged 18.3 points and 5.2 rebounds last season while helping Mizzou make the NCAA Tournament in what was his fourth year of college basketball. Earlier this month, Mitchell received a temporary restraining order to pursue a fifth season of college basketball via a Jefferson Circuit Court ruling in Kentucky, and he subsequently pledged to Mark Pope's UK Wildcats.

The answer is more or less that fifth-year players like Mitchell are facing increased scrutiny and legal hurdles to actually play a fifth year — and Mitchell's camp reportedly concluded that the path to competing this season is less complicated at Missouri than it would've been at Kentucky because of the SEC's intra-conference rules that state an athlete can only transfer within the league "within the sport's regular NCAA transfer…

Original source: https://www.cbssports.com/