Mark Mitchell Re-Enrolls At Missouri

Agent Brandon Mitchell confirmed the news to Jeff Borzello of ESPN (Twitter link).

Mitchell, who reached a tentative Exhibit 10 agreement with the Nuggets after going undrafted in June and played for Denver’s Summer League team last month, committed to Kentucky nine days ago. Evidently he had a change of heart, and instead will attempt to return to the Tigers for a fifth college season.

Mitchell is one of many four-year college players who had been on track to sign a training camp contract with an NBA team before a Colorado district ruling created a path for those players to return to school for another year. That ruling, issued by U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney in Denver, granted four-year college athletes from the high school class of 2022 a fifth year of eligibility for 2026/27, as long as they haven’t yet signed a professional contract.

It’s not certain that the ruling will hold up, with the NCAA fighting hard to reverse it. While there’s a plan in place to institute a “five-for-five” rule that will grant college players eligibility over five seasons once their clock begins, the NCAA wants to have that rule apply to players who enroll in college in the fall of 2027 rather than retroactively to athletes who had already exhausted their eligibility.

The NCAA has said it won’t give a blanket waiver to the class of 2022 and has asked the Tenth Circuit to reverse the preliminary injunction granted by Judge Sweeney (Twitter link).

That preliminary injunction was placed on hold earlier this month, but several players — including Mitchell when he was seeking to play for the Wildcats — have been granted temporary orders in individual states.

Mitchell spent two seasons at Duke prior to transferring to Missouri ahead of his junior year. The 6’8″ forward was a second-team All-SEC selection as a senior in 2025/26 after averaging 18.3 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists on .547/.388/.669 shooting splits in 33 games (33.8 minutes per contest).