APPEALS COURT LETS NCAA BUY SOME TIEM

PHILADELPHIA -- A federal appeals court Tuesday temporarily restored an NCAA regulation allowing its member schools to use minimum test scores to determine whether freshmen are eligible to participate in athletics.

In issuing the stay requested by the NCAA, a three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals put on hold a lower-court ruling that struck down Proposition 16, the NCAA bylaw that dictated freshman eligibility requirements.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Buckwalter struck down Prop 16 on March 8, ruling that minimum test score requirements have an "unjustified disparate impact on African-Americans."

The ruling Tuesday put the requirements back in place, at least temporarily, but does not overturn Buckwalter's original ruling. The NCAA said they needed a stay to gain more time to write replacement eligibility rules and file appeals.

NCAA attorney David Bruton argued in court Tuesday that there was "considerable confusion" among the NCAA's 302 Division I schools, which the ruling affects.

"There has been no alternative proposed that would achieve the level of success" that Prop 16 had achieved in setting academic requirements, Bruton said.

Attorneys for the four black athletes who filed the suit said the NCAA should adopt a nondiscriminatory eligibility policy rather than fight to delay or overturn the court's decision.