Calipari didn’t notice his star player, a poor kid from the Hartford ghetto, walking around with $7K necklaces and wonder where those came from?
Is that what happened? You tell me…I don’t know.
And I believe Tax evasion was that the only crime Al Capone committed.
Other than an Italian name, I think that’s all John Calipari and the murderous Al Capone have in common. Maybe Capone was a UK fan?
Hmmmm…
I know there’s still 5:49 left in the title game between Butler and Uconn, but I gotta say: this is the worst college basketball game I’ve ever seen. Both teams are playing like shit. Worse than shit. They both look terrible.
You won the worst NCAA title game ever played!
I guess cheaters do prosper.
Horrendous shooting by Butler, though. I guess it’s hard to shoot the three when you’ve got both hands around your neck.
What a remarkable run by uconn. In less than 1 month they beat teams that with rpi rankings of 3,5,8,11,13,14,17,18 and 31. That’s gotta go down as one of the greatest feats in NCAA history, especially considering Uconn was an afterthought and barely in the top 25 On march 1st.
I’d say it beats NOT winning the worst NCAA title game ever played, which is what everyone else did.
Do you know what they call the winner of the worst NCAA title game ever played?
Champions.
Too early to start calling them the Butler Billdogs?
Thank God it’s all over. Now ESPN can once again discover that there are other sports to televise besides college basketball.
It’s a coincidence that this stuff keeps happening on Calipari’s watch. Leave John Calipari alone! On the upside for the NCAA, eventually UK will only get a Final Four spot vacated instead of a championship.
This is the first time in a while that I didn’t pay much attention to the championship game. It was a crazy tournament but I was not compelled by the small school angle on Butler, which is a good team and not some kind of underdog - not when they made the championship game last year, and not when the idea of insider and outsider conferences is increasingly outdated; and they got really good breaks against ODU and Pittsburgh - and I didn’t particularly want to root for UConn, a traditional power school from the bloated Big East that is going through a recruiting scandal. It was an ugly game but you have to credit UConn’s defense for smothering Butler.
Whether or not it’s too soon, it’s dumb.
Hey Butler: The kiln just called, they want their bricks back.
From what I can tell, there were exactly two instances where something was going on, neither of which implicated Calipari directly, as he personally was never punished. Isn’t it possible that at least one of these instances occurred without any direction from or knowledge of on Calipari’s part?
I mean, think about it. Say you’re Calipari. Marcus Camby plays for you and its obvious he’s going to the NBA after this season. Camby leaves campus one night and meets with an agent. This only comes out much later, and was unknown to you prior to it becoming public knowledge. What are you supposed to do about that? Even if Calipari knew about it, it had likely already happened and taking action against a guy that is NBA bound anyway would cripple your team.
At UMass Calipari’s best player was getting money, jewelry, cars and hookers from two agents, and at Memphis it came out that his best player had his grades inflated, that someone had taken the SATs for him, and the team allowed his brother to travel with them for free. The two “instances” were both repeated rules violations, not single incidents.
If you’re as big a college basketball fan as you say you are, you know the punishment system is a joke. The schools get punished because the players and coaches can easily escape to the NBA or other schools. As a coach you have to screw up pretty badly and blatantly to get punished yourself (say by lying to the NCAA and then breaking more rules after you just got caught, like Bruce Pearl, or by breaking the rules personally over and over like Kelvin Sampson).
I think it’s unlikely. I suppose Calipari does the smart thing and looks the other way while this stuff goes on. If he paid attention he’d only have trouble getting the players he wants and winning games. And wouldn’t you think he would know the rules by now? Because now the NBA is looking into Jay-Z’s visit to the UK locker room at the Final Four. Jay-Z is part owner of the Nets, so college players can’t meet with him. Oops.
That’s not what happened.
Seems like you just admitted he doesn’t pay attention to the rules because there’s nothing in it for him. I’m sure there’s a lot of that at the top programs. And I know Calipari is your guy, but this is ridiculous. If a school I liked hired the guy, I’d be embarrassed they just threw any pretense at credibility out the window.
And, that in a nutshell, is why I don’t think you (and many UK fans) will ever get it. The NCAA metaphorically calls it “Institutional Control.”
Coaches suspend players all the time. All the time. As bad as current scandal at Ohio State, even Tressel suspended players (even a Heisman Trophy Candidate) for five games. I could list out many more instances.
Did Tressel do that, or the NCAA? I think it was the NCAA, and the fact that the suspension has yet to be served, allowing these players (especially Pryor) to play in the Sugar Bowl just shows me that it really is all about money to the NCAA (otherwise nobody would have watched the game) and that their hypocrisy is known all the way down to the players, so why should they give a fuck about the rules?
The NCAA.
I agree. I thought that was crap. Which excuses Calipari because, um, yeah. 
Has nothing to do with Calipari. It was an example someone used of a program with institutional control. Much like UCONN, right? Coach suspended for three games…next year. K.
Right. I agree it’s a flawed example since Tressel did not suspend those players.
I said upthread that I couldn’t really pull for UConn because of the recruiting scandal. I guess I did fail to use the word “cheaters.” Fortunately I wasn’t holding up UConn as an example of a clean program. I just said there’s a well documented history of violations at Calipari programs. Here’s a New York Times article about the UMass sanctions from '96. Guess who else was hit with penalties? UConn!
Anyway, to expound on Camby ‘sneaking off campus to see an agent one night,’ here’s SI’s coverage.
By the way, one of the coaches in the coaches poll voted for Ohio State as the #1 team today. In what universe does that make sense? UConn got the other 30 #1 votes in the final poll.