Jun. 11—MORGANTOWN — The WVU men’s basketball team came out on the positive end from a NCAA eligibility ruling Wednesday, as senior guard Chance Moore was ruled eligible for the 2025-26 season.
Moore, a transfer from St. Bonaventure, who also played at Arkansas and Missouri State, will have to sit out the first five games this season before he can play. The 6-foot-6 guard is eligible to practice and work out with the team prior to the season.
“We are pleased that the NCAA approved the waiver for Chance to have his fifth season of eligibility, ” WVU head coach Ross Hodge said in a statement. “As I said when he signed, Chance has the ability, size and physicality to impact both sides of the ball and impact winning at a high level. We are thrilled with the ruling and look forward to Chance being a Mountaineer this season.”
NCAA eligibility rulings have not gone the Mountaineers’ way in recent seasons. In 2023, guard Jose Perez was denied a waiver and was forced to sit out a season. Perez later transferred to Arizona State to finish his college career. A year later, the NCAA denied RaeQuan Battle a waiver. It was only after Battle won a federal court decision against the NCAA midway through that season was he granted eligibility.
Moore averaged 13.0 points and 6.5 rebounds last season at St. Bonaventure and started 31 games. He started 23 games over two seasons at Missouri State and averaged 10.8 points per game over those two seasons. He began his second season at Missouri State by scoring 24 points in 37 minutes against WVU, during Josh Eilert’s season as the Mountaineers’ interim head coach.
His career began at Arkansas as a four-star recruit out of McEachern High in Powder Springs, Ga., but he saw action in only five games as a freshman and began his trek into the transfer portal.
WVU’s applied for the waiver on the grounds that those five games at Arkansas — Moore played a total of eight minutes in those five games — did not constitute a full season of eligibility. The NCAA agreed, but ruled Moore must sit out the first five games of the regular season in 2025. He would be eligible to participate in an exhibition game or closed scrimmages during the preseason.