The Final Four again has multiple 5th-year starters. This time, it's a farewell to an uncommon era

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Alijah Martin still cringes at the memory of his freshman season at Florida Atlantic, played amid empty arenas, nose-swab testing and bubble protocols as the sporting world tried to operate in a COVID-19 world.

“You do all this practice the week of the game, you get to the game and that team is sick,” Martin said. “So now you don't have a game, you’re not playing, you’re not getting better, you're not getting film.”

Yet Martin could look back with appreciation, too. After all, he was standing Friday in Florida's busy Alamodome locker room as a fifth-year guard for a Gators team in the Final Four. The NCAA granted that year for Martin and others across the country who competed during those most unusual of times in the 2020-21 season, which proved to be landscape-altering change to the core structure of college athletics with players competing just four years.

But those “COVID years” have largely cycled out of men's and women's college basketball this season, so the semifinals Saturday and title game Monday night will mark a farewell of sorts for a time that has kept players like Martin, Auburn star Johni Broome, Baylor's LJ Cryer, and Duke's graduate-transfer duo of Sion James and Mason Gillis around the college game longer than usual.

“It's definitely a different era,” said Broome, the unanimous Associated Press first-team All-America selection who played his first two seasons at Morehead State before transferring for three years with Auburn. "A lot of guys who have been around a long time, their time is up.

“A couple of more guys, it will be in a week. I think it's going to be a different era in basketball now that all the fifth-year guys will be gone.”

Broome understands the journey well. His first year at Morehead State ended with a first-round loss to West Virginia in the bubbled 2021 NCAA Tournament. That game came in Lucas Oil Stadium, home to the NFL's Indianapolis Colts, with a giant curtain hanging in the center of the massive venue to allow for two courts on the stadium's floor.

And social-distancing rules meant it came in a largely empty setting.

Yet on the other side of that curtain that night, Gillis was a first-year player experiencing that altered form of March Madness. He lost, too, with North Texas upsetting Gillis' Purdue team.

In fact, there are eight fifth-year players at the Final Four in San Antonio when looking at the top-10 scorers for each of the Auburn, Florida, Duke and Houston rosters. Gillis and Broome were among four who played in that decidedly odd tournament four years ago, with Houston's LJ Cryer briefly appearing in Baylor's title-game victory over Gonzaga while teammate J'Wan Roberts has spent all five of his years with the Cougars and played briefly in Houston's loss to Cryer and Baylor in the national semifinals.

They're all elder statesmen now, their college careers down to two games at best depending on the outcomes of Saturday's games.

“I think it's good having guys stay,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “I think there's a limit to it, though. I think we're getting to a place here were now four or five years is enough. For us, we have been able to take advantage of it, too. Having Mason Gillis has been an awesome thing for us.”

The availability of veteran talent through the transfer portal has offered an enticing pipeline to veteran talent for coaches, who have seen the value of getting older rather than developing freshmen who might opt to transfer out anyway.

According to NCAA data, the average experience level for Division I men’s players stood at 2.41 years for 2018-19, the last full season untouched by the pandemic. It had risen to 2.62 years for 2024-25. Yet that data is based on a four-year scale, meaning it doesn’t tell the full story on how players in fifth years or beyond would drive that figure even higher.

“I do know this time was unique because of how old players are and how much movement there is,” said James, who played four years at Tulane before transferring to play for the Blue Devils this season. “In a sense, players have more experience during this period of time than they may ever have in college basketball. For me, it’s been great as a competitor.”

It certainly seems to have played a role in the fact that this year marks only the second all-chalk set of 1-seeds at the Final Four, the other coming in 2008. And for the second straight year, each of the Final Four teams will have at least one fifth-year starter.

By Monday night, though, those journeys will be over. So, too, will the fifth-year era. And it's difficult to imagine a time when anything like it — an en masse granting of extra eligibility — could happen again.

“Going forward, you won’t see many more graduate students because of the COVID year,” Martin said. "We all got that year because of COVID. Unless another global sickness or illness comes back around, you won’t see too much of this happening.

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Duke's Sion James (14) walks past the team's locker room during media day at the Final Four of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Thursday, April 3, 2025, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Duke forward Mason Gillis is interviewed in the locker room during media day at the Final Four of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Thursday, April 3, 2025, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson )

Houston's L.J. Cryer (4) and Ja'Vier Francis sit on the back of a cart as J'Wan Roberts, left, joins them during media day at the Final Four of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Thursday, April 3, 2025, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Florida guard Alijah Martin sits on the court after defeating Texas Tech in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Saturday, March 29, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Auburn forward Johni Broome is interviewed in the locker room during media day at the Final Four of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Thursday, April 3, 2025, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson )

Auburn forward Johni Broome and guard Miles Kelly talks during practice at the Final Four of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, April 4, 2025, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson )

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgium insisted on Thursday that its European Union partners must provide ironclad guarantees that it will be protected from Russian retaliation before it would back a massive loan for Ukraine.

At a high-stakes EU summit in Brussels, the 27-nation bloc’s leaders are set to decide on whether to use tens of billions of euros in frozen Russian assets to underwrite a loan to meet Ukraine’s military and financial needs over the next two years.

The bulk of the assets — some 193 billion euros ($227 billion) as of September — are held in the Brussels-based financial clearing house Euroclear. Russia’s Central Bank sued Euroclear last week.

“Give me a parachute and we’ll all jump together,” Prime Minister Bart De Wever told members of the Belgian parliament just before the summit began. “If we have confidence in the parachute that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Belgium fears that Russia will strike back and would prefer that the bloc borrow the money on international markets. It wants frozen assets held in other European countries to be thrown into the pot as well, and for its partners to guarantee that Euroclear will have the funds it needs should it come under legal attack.

European officials say Russia is waging a campaign of sabotage and disruption across the continent. The Central Bank lawsuit ramped up pressure on Belgium and its European partners ahead of the summit.

The “reparations loan” plan would see the EU give 90 billion euros ($106 billion) to Ukraine. Countries like the U.K., Canada and Norway would make up any shortfall.

Russia's claim to the assets would still stand, but the assets would remain locked away at least until the Kremlin ends its war on Ukraine and pays for the massive damage it's caused.

In mapping out the loan plan, the European Commission set up safeguards to protect Belgium, but De Wever remains unconvinced.

“I have not yet seen a text that could satisfactorily address Belgium’s concerns," he said. "I hope to see one today.”

De Wever insisted that Belgium remains “a faithful ally” of Ukraine and wants to continue to help.

Whatever method they use, the leaders have pledged to meet most of Ukraine's needs in 2026 and 2027. The International Monetary Fund estimates that would amount to 137 billion euros ($160 billion). The war-ravaged country is at risk of bankruptcy and needs the money by spring.

“We have to find a solution today," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters. EU Council President António Costa, who is chairing the meeting, has vowed to keep leaders negotiating until an agreement is reached, even if it takes days.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said: “Now we have a simple choice. Either money today or blood tomorrow." He insisted that "all European leaders have to rise to the occasion.”

EU envoys have worked around the clock in recent weeks to flesh out the details and narrow differences among the 27 member countries. If enough countries object, the plan could be blocked. There is no majority support for a plan B of raising the funds on international markets.

“At this stage, it depends on political will,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Whatsapp chat with reporters while flying to Brussels. “I very much hope that we can obtain a positive decision. Without it, Ukraine will face a major problem.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that he hopes Belgium's concerns can be addressed.

"The reactions of the Russian president in recent hours show how necessary this is. In my view, this is indeed the only option. We are basically faced with the choice of using European debt or Russian assets for Ukraine, and my opinion is clear: we must use the Russian assets.”

Hungary and Slovakia oppose von der Leyen’s plan for a reparations loan. Apart from Belgium, Bulgaria, Italy and Malta are also undecided.

“I would not like a European Union in war," said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who sees himself as a peacemaker. He’s also Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in Europe. “To give money means war.”

Orbán described the loan plan as “a dead end,” and said that “the whole idea is a stupid one.”

The outcome of the summit has significant ramifications for Europe's place in negotiations to end the war. The United States wants assurances that the Europeans are intent on supporting Ukraine financially and backing it militarily, even as the talks drag on with few results so far.

The loan plan in particular also poses important challenges to the way the bloc goes about its business. Should a two-thirds majority of EU leaders decide to impose the scheme on Belgium, which has most to lose, the impact on decision-making in Europe would be profound.

Finding voting majorities and avoiding vetoes in the future could become infinitely more complex if one of the EU's founding members is forced to weather an attack on its interests by its very own partners.

De Wever too must weigh whether the cost of holding out against a majority is worth the hit his government's credibility would take in Europe.

Whatever is decided, the process does not end at this summit. Legal experts would have to convert any political deal into a workable agreement, and some national parliaments may have to weigh in before the loan money could start flowing to Ukraine.

Associated Press Writers Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin and Illia Novikov in Kyiv contributed to this report.

From left, Portugal's Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, European Council President Antonio Costa, French President Emmanuel Macron and Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban during a round table meeting at the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

European Council President Antonio Costa, center right, speaks with Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, center left, during a round table meeting at the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

Belgium's Prime Minister Bart De Wever, center, speaks with from left, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, Netherland's Prime Minister Dick Schoof, Luxembourg's Prime Minister Luc Frieden and Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk during a round table meeting at the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaks with the media as he arrives for the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, right, arrives for the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, center, is greeted as she arrives for a round table meeting on migration at the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Olivier Hoslet, Pool Photo via AP)

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, right, and Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz, left, attend a round table meeting on migration at the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Olivier Hoslet, Pool Photo via AP)

FILE - A view of the headquarters of Euroclear in Brussels, on Oct. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)