By JOHN BOHNENKAMP
Western Illinois women’s basketball coach JD Gravina is going to practice Wednesday afternoon knowing his roster is going to look a lot different.
Mia Nicastro, who was the Ohio Valley Conference’s player of the year last season after helping to lead the Leathernecks to the NCAA Tournament, is back with the team after an Indiana state court on Wednesday granted a preliminary injunction that allows Nicastro and more than 90 other athletes to be granted a fifth year of eligibility.
The athletes, including Iowa State guard Tamin Lipsey, were part of a lawsuit against the NCAA, saying the organization’s new “5-to-play-5” rule, which grants athletes five years of eligibility beginning with those who entered school in 2023, unfairly excluded players who were in the 2022 class that had used up their eligibility at the end of last season. Nicastro started her career with two seasons at Saint Louis before playing the last two seasons with the Leathernecks.
“My reaction was immediate,” Gravina said. “I teared up a little bit. This has been a deal with Mia, and her family. This has been very emotional.
The NCAA reportedly is planning to appeal the injunction, but for now, Nicastro can be on the Leathernecks’ roster.
“It’s been a really emotional journey for her, for her family, for me,” Gravina said. “When you get really good news like this, you can get emotional about it.”
Nicastro was fourth in the nation in scoring last season at 24.1 points per game, but was planning on playing professionally in Greece this season before joining the lawsuit in Indiana.
Gravina said Nicastro has been enrolled in classes since the beginning of the fall semester, and she has been able to buy out her contract in Greece.
“She really committed to her enrollment,” Gravina said. “A lot of players have probably been like, ‘What’s the bare minimum I need to do in case I get eligible?’ She was really all in from the get-go of coming back 100 percent like a college athlete would. She’s going to get her MBA, this isn’t like she’s just taking classes to play basketball.”
Gravina said Nicastro has been able to do some workouts with the Leathernecks since classes began.
“As an alum of the program, the rule is she can participate occasionally,” Gravina said. “She would hop in for some live work, and she was at practice watching a lot, as our practices are open. Now that technically as of today she’s eligible, she can hop in full time.
“It’s been an awkward time, because she’s part of the team but not part of the team. It’s been hard on her, hard on the players, and hard on me as a coach. I’m excited that now we can treat her as a full-time member of the team.”
The Leathernecks were lacking depth at the post position. Katelyn Eggena, a 6-2 third-year player, is expected to miss all of this season while coming off a knee injury suffered in the NCAA Tournament first-round loss to North Carolina. Maria Messling, a 6-0 junior, likely was going to play the post, but can now move out the ‘4’ with Nicastro’s return.
“It kind of changes everything,” Gravina said. “And that’s not a slight to our current team. Maria is going to have a great year, and I’m really excited for her, but she’s more like a stretch ‘4.’ I don’t think she was excited about having to battle another team’s ‘5’ for the whole game, and if she got into foul trouble we really didn’t have a true post player.
“And then experience, we were low on that. Experience, I used that word a million times last year, because of how much that factored into our success. So obviously, Mia brings a ton of experience with her.”
Having Nicastro back will also open the court for the rest of the players, Gravina said.
“She’s going to draw double-teams,” he said. “She’s going to draw a lot of attention. So a player like (guard) Shelby Bowman, who’s really had a good few weeks here in the preseason, she can be even better when Mia is drawing attention off her.”
Photo: Western Illinois University forward Mia Nicastro has been granted a fifth year of eligibility under a preliminary injunction issued by an Indiana court on Wednesday. (Photo by John Lovretta)
