Steve Berkowitz

USA TODAY Sports

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken on Monday reiterated that in an upcoming anti-trust trial, the NCAA will not be able to say that its limits on what athletes can receive for playing college sports are justifiable because they enable schools to provide increased financial support for women's sports and less prominent men's sports.

Her ruling means the NCAA is being rebuffed in one of the four motions it filed in an effort to redefine and/or delay the prospective trial in a lawsuit relating to the use of college athletes' names and likenesses, as well as the association's limits on what major-college football and men's basketball players can receive for playing sports.

The NCAA had wanted Wilken to reconsider her position on this issue, which she initially stated as part of her ruling April 11 on the sides' respective requests for summary judgment — or, rulings in their favor without trial.

The NCAA's other motions that could alter the complexion and/or timing of the case, brought on behalf of a group of former college athletes headed by UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon, are still pending. The trial, for now, is still scheduled to begin June 9.

And the NCAA's chief legal officer, Donald Remy, issued a statement in reaction to Wilken's latest ruling that indicates the association is no mood to settle as long as the case remains unchanged.

"We disagree with the Court's decision not to reconsider its summary judgment order," the NCAA's chief legal officer, Remy said in the statement. "It is core to the NCAA and its member institutions that schools offer a broad base of sports, for women and men, regardless of whether those sports generate more revenue than they cost to support. The NCAA will continue to fight against any rule that allows schools to pay men's basketball and football players at the expense of providing college opportunities for hundreds of thousands of male and female student-athletes."

At present, in exchange for playing sports, college athletes can receive a scholarship that basically comprises tuition, mandatory fees, room and required books. The plaintiffs contend that under anti-trust law, limiting athletes to this form of a scholarship is an illegal restraint. They are seeking a system of compensation that would allow Bowl Subdivision football players and Division I men's basketball players to receive greater compensation in exchange for playing and for allowing schools to use their names and likenesses in television broadcasts, video games and other marketing.

However, federal law allows the NCAA to limit what athletes receive if it can convince a judge or jury that the positive effect that the limits have on college sports outweighs the limits' harm to football and men's basketball players who might otherwise enjoy greater benefits if the schools were allowed to provide them.

The NCAA had offered five justifications for its compensation limits, but in her summary judgment ruling, Wilken wrote that the NCAA cannot limit competition in the markets for football and men's basketball players in order to promote competition in the markets for women's sports or less prominent men's sports.

She also said "the NCAA could mandate that Division I schools and conferences redirect a greater portion of the … revenue generated by football and basketball to these other sports" and the NCAA "has not explained why it could not adopt more stringent revenue-sharing rules" regarding money generated by the Division I men's basketball tournament.

In seeking her reconsideration of this ruling, the NCAA wanted to convince Wilken that she had erred.

It was not persuasive.

On Monday, Wilken rejected various college administrators' contentions, submitted by the NCAA, that Title IX — the federal law that includes a requirement of equal opportunity for men and women playing sports — requires the markets for football and men's basketball players to be the same as the markets for athletes in other sports.

The administrators' contention "articulates a questionable understanding of Title IX — one that the NCAA itself has not endorsed in this case."

She also said the NCAA's rules requiring schools to provide a minimum amount of financial aid for athletes in sports other than football and men's basketball could not be used as a reason for the compensation limits because the association cannot "justify the challenged restraint in this case simply by asserting that it must follow other rules of its own creation."

Wilken reiterated her point about the NCAA's ability to require schools to provide more financial support for sports other than football and men's basketball by citing from a deposition one of the NCAA's economic experts in the case, Daniel Rubinfeld, gave in October 2013.

"I think there are changes in the rules that could be made that would still achieve the pro-competitive purposes that the NCAA has set out," Rubinfeld is quoted as having said, "but I have not seen my charge by the NCAA as advising them as to how to change their regulations."