Calipari, Memphis And Kentucky — Morning Update

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I wanted to start out the day by getting you up to speed on what’s being written and said about the allegations that have been leveled against Memphis’ basketball program… and how those allegations might affect Kentucky’s John Calipari.

First of all, less than an hour after I posted a “no word yet from his Twitter page,” the coach posted the following:

“I appreciate your passion.  More importantly, I appreciate the faith you have in me.  No one said this would be easy, but we will get there.”

Calipari also put out a statement late last night that said:  “Even though I’m not at risk, I will fully cooperate with the NCAA hearing.  He also said that he would have “no further comment” on the matter.

A Kentucky spokesman told ESPN.com that Calipari DID tell UK about the allegations ahead of time.  (Then how did members of the school’s board of trustees not know about this?  I think Mitch Barnhart might have some ’splainin’ to do.)

Calipari is expected to speak with the NCAA prior to Tuesday, when he’s leaving for a trip to China.

Kentucky’s official statement on the matter is as follows: “It is normal procedure for the NCAA to ask a former coach to participate in a hearing.  Therefore, Coach Calipari will participate as requested.  Coach John Calipari has received a letter from the NCAA stating that he is not at risk of being charged with any NCAA violations in this case.  This is a University of Memphis issue and the University of Kentucky will not comment any further.”

Meanwhile, Memphis says that it’s not a certainty that the SAT score of Derrick Rose was fraudulent and they will investigate the matter.

Rick Bozich of The Louisville Courier-Journal writes that while this isn’t on par with “Kentucky’s Shame,” this incident with Calipari will force Barnhart to ask some questions… and answer some questions.

For example, two years ago, Calipari wasn’t on UK’s list of job candidates because he had a reputation “of a guy who will push, push, and push it to the limit of NCAA rules.”  Two years later, after a weekend’s background check, Calipari looked a lot cleaner to Kentucky’s athletic director.  Why?

Geoff Calkins of The Memphis Commercial-Appeal writes that this is par for Calipari’s course.  “He just happened to be in charge when the bad stuff happened at UMass.  He just happened to be in charge when the bad stuff may have happened at Memphis.”  Mr. Calkins also points out that these are the types of issues that crop up when you deal with one-and-done college mercenaries like Derrick Rose.

Mr. Calkins also writes that it might be tough for the NCAA to prove that someone else took Rose’s SAT… and even tougher to prove that Calipari KNEW about his test plans.  But it’s the type of thing that seems to follow Calipari from program to program.

In addition to the major allegation against Memphis for Rose’s test score, there were also some smaller allegations.

Oddly enough, Ron Higgins of The Memphis Commercial-Appeal is attending the SEC Meetings this week and had planned a column on Calipari prior to this latest firestorm.  So for those of you wanting to by-pass the Memphis allegations story (“The NCAA can’t PROVE anything!”), here’s a good piece on how Calipari has won over the UK fanbase.

It includes Calipari’s plans of talking to coaches like Jimmy Johnson, Lou Houltz and Joe Torre who have all overseen dynasties.

Finally, the folks at KentuckySportsRadio.com say that the more they “hear about the Calipari situation,” the less they are concerned.



Conclusions:

1.  This appears to be good news for Kentucky, in that it doesn’t look like the NCAA can prove that Calipari knew about what might have been a falsified SAT score for one of his one-and-done stars.  That means Calipari is in the clear in terms of possible penalties, and in turn, UK is in the clear as well.

2.  This is great news for fans of SEC basketball.  While the other 11 schools’ fans don’t want to see UK succeed, the league desperately needs a flagship program… and that program is Kentucky.  Any type of dark cloud hanging over UK would be bad for the league in terms of media coverage.

3.  But this is still ominous news for UK fans.  Publicly, they will say that their coach has never been caught doing anything wrong.  Privately, they know that these types of issues have always surrounded Calipari.  It’s part of the total package.  Coach Cal brings star recruits, one-and-done players, lots of wins, and a trail of NCAA near-misses.

4.  Kentucky fans should probably get used to that little queasy feeling of worry in their stomachs.  It’s the result of the Calipari Cocktail.

5.  UK says that Calipari told them that these allegations were coming.  So who dropped the ball and failed to alert the UK board of trustees?  Was that an intentional move, knowing that any kind of red flag might slow down the hiring process?  Or maybe it simply slipped Barnhart’s mind (doubtful).

6.  If Kentucky knew this day was coming, why were they not more buttoned-up and quick in their response?  If I’d been told in March that this story would at some point become public, for PR purposes I’d have had the press release written and ready to go.  Instead, there was silence for about 4 hours before Calipari and Kentucky sent out dual releases.  A quicker, more strongly-worded release would have been nice to tack on to ESPN’s crawl last night, don’t you think?  I Wonder why they didn’t have one ready if they knew this was coming?

7.  Kentucky fans — and all fans would do the same thing if this was connected to their coach — are convincing themselves that just because there’s a lot of smoke around Calipari, that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s fire.  Common sense tells them otherwise and if Calipari were coaching at Florida, Tennessee or LSU they’d be throwing stones just like fans of those schools will be lobbing them toward Lexington this morning.

8.  Thinking of Calipari being connected once again to a serious problem that once again occurred under his watch, but that he might once again escape unscathed from… I am reminded of the opening scene from the 2000s version of “Ocean’s Eleven.”

George Clooney (“Danny Ocean”) sits down before a parole board. 

A female officer says, “While this was your first conviction, you have been implicated, though never charged, in over a dozen other confidence schemes and frauds.  What can you tell us about this?”

“As you say, ma’am, I was never charged.”