Projo College Hoops

It's shaping up as a very bad month for big-time basketball coaches in the Blue Grass State. We all know about Rick Pitino, and now, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the team that Kentucky's John Calipari took to the Final Four in 2008 -- the Memphis Tigers -- will have to vacate its 38 victories from that memorable season.

The allegations against Memphis include someone taking an SAT exam on behalf of an unnamed player.

Calipari will be drawing $32 million over the next eight years from the state university because Kentucky feels it must have a winning basketball team. If those wins have to be vacated at some time in the future, well, at least the fans at Rupp will have the memories.

So it's probably not surprising that Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has no concerns whatsoever about the news out of Memphis. Appearing today at the Kentucky State Fair (shown in picture), Beshear had this amazing comment: "I'm not worried about it because they have never said Coach Cal did anything wrong at all. I think he's a very upstanding guy. I think that's his reputation and I think that reputation will be with him here."

An upstanding reputation? This would be the second Final Four team coached by Calipari to have its accomplishment wiped from the record books. UMass, of course, gave up its 1996 Final Four because of Marcus Camby's contact with an agent. Calipari was officially cleared of wrongdoing in that case, and he wasn't a target of this NCAA investigation, but for one relatively young coach to be associated with two scandals of such weight is obviously antithetical to having an upstanding reputation. If we expect professional athletes to pay attention to who they hang out with, and what they put in their bodies, we should expect big-time coaches to know what's going on in their own programs.

Beshear should be embarrassed for saying such a thing.

 Tags  John Calipari Steve Beshear

Comments

Johnny T. Hiker said:

Memories of Jim Harrick.

Link | August 21, 2009 11:54 AM
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Ty said:

The schools are also associated with both scandals, should their admissions and compliance departments be called into question? What about the clearinghouse? They determined Rose eligible; what would you have a head coach do? It's his fault one of his players took money from an agent and another of his players allegedly cheated on his SAT? Terrible blog entry

Link | August 21, 2009 3:16 PM
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