Kentucky had the most aggregate talent, but their last two games did expose them as being very vulnerable to offenses built around screens, and against defenses that refused to double-team in the post. They ran into consecutive teams with that strategy, and only had enough luck to escape from one. Even if it was a best-of-five series, I’m not sure Kentucky beats Wisconsin. I blame the SEC for not preparing Kentucky better, only Georgia runs anything like Wisconsin’s offense. That shame of it is that Kentucky matches up very well against Duke, but the NCAA clearly wanted a Kentucky-Duke final if they could get it. Oh well.
His team certainly was well-coached, they executed their system very well, and had obviously been carefully prepared to exploit Kentucky’s tendencies and weaknesses. He’s a hell of a coach, that’s clear, and I wish he and his team the best of luck tonight.
All they did was win some games, not slash your tires. Geeze.
I have a feeling the OP was thinking of just the players who were entering the NBA Draft. How many of them - in all of the schools combined - bothered going to class after their seasons ended? (And it’s not just football and men’s basketball; one year, UCLA brought in some, for lack of a better word for it, ringers from the Australian national team to play softball for UCLA for one season; it is highly unlikely that any of them attended spring quarter classes, and the NCAA had no problem with it as they were not going to use their remaining eligibility anyway. However, the NCAA did have a problem with UCLA trying to pass them off as soccer players as well, as the school was out of softball scholarships that year.)
If they’re ditching class and final exams and still got a 3.0, then they must have been incredible students. And again, we don’t have the numbers for the 2015 team; and for all I know Towns, Booker, Cauley-Stein, and Lyles have already moved off campus; but previous Kentucky teams didn’t do that, so I see no reason beyond malice to assume that this one will.
All the U. of K. did was hire a guy with absolutely NO morals to compile, through foul means or fair (mostly foul), the greatest assembly of amateur men’s basketball talent he could in the hopes of winning a few national championships before he gets ridden out of town on a rail. The “accumulation of talent” part he appears to have down, cold. The “winning national championships” part - mmm, not so much. More to the point: the University of Kentucky has TWICE been busted by the NCAA (once in the 1950s, once in the 1980s) for violations with respect to its men’s basketball team and TWICE (once, each, at TWO different schools) John Calipari has brought suspicion upon the men’s basketball program. Maybe that strikes you as a “fair” way of going about things, but that’s not how I see it. I am ALWAYS happy to see CHEATERS fail and few in the NCAA have struck me as being as willing to let CHEATERS prosper as the University of Kentucky when it comes to how many games its men’s basketball team can win. I will NEVER be a fan of the Kentucky Wildcat men’s basketball team. Why? Because I don’t like CHEATERS. 'Nuff said.
Uh huh. Cal’s kids go to class, graduate if they don’t go pro right away, and play team-oriented, sound basketball. If you have evidence of recruiting violations, by all means, present it.
He won in 2012, and made the Final Four in 2011, 2014, and 2015. If that’s failure, I guess we Cats fans will just have to learn to live with failure.
They are in very distinguished company. It happens. If you’re still mad about the 1951 point shaving scandal, I don’t know what to tell you.
No, sir, Calipari didn’t bring suspicion on UMass or Memphis. Marcus Camby accepted $28,000 from two agents trying to convince him to sign with them when he went pro. Derrick Rose had someone else take his SAT for him. By all means, present evidence that Calipari arranged for agents to pay Camby, or arranged for someone to take Rose’s SAT for him. This is where the anti-Calipari rants fall apart, but maybe you’ll be different.
Not trying to bait you, but a serious question from someone who hasn’t followed Calipari’s career all that closely: If he didn’t bring suspicion on those schools, why isn’t he still at either of them? I mean, obviously he has moved up in prestige with each move, but I had been under the impression that there was some sort of scandal associated with both of those moves. Is it really just that he failed to prevent teenagers from exercising poor judgment?
Pretty good game, too bad Wisconsin couldn’t close the door. That foul at half court with ~35 seconds left was terrible. Ah well. Now I’m sure we’ll get a raft of articles complaining about Coach K’s “battallion of mercenaries”, right? I won’t hold my breath.
Well, let’s look at the facts. The NCAA concluded that Calipari and other UMass officials were unaware that Camby had accepted impermissible benefits:
So, did UMass boot him for a scandal which the NCAA stated he had no knowledge of, or did he just take a higher-paying, more prestigious job in the NBA? My money’s on the latter, but it’s certainly possible UMass blamed Calipari for the Camby scandal (though one would have to wonder on what grounds; Cal was the coach, not Camby’s roommate, he was in no position to prevent Camby from meeting with agents on his own time).
After being fired by the Nets, Calipari worked as an assistant for Larry Brown and the 76ers, until being offered the head coaching job at Memphis. The Derrick Rose situation came to light in 2008: Rose, as a high school student in 2007, had allegedly had someone else take his SAT test for him, which Chicago Public Schools Internal Audit division eventually realized; they then notified the NCAA. Rose had taken the ACT three times, and failed to achieve a “qualifying score”. His motive for falsifying his SAT test is rather obvious: getting into a Division 1 school, as the NBA no longer permitted teams to draft high school players. In any event, this falsified test made Rose ineligible to compete in NCAA athletics.
The NCAA did not conclude that Memphis was aware that Rose was ineligible, but since he was, all games Rose played in were vacated, standard procedure for the NCAA, which takes a strict-liability approach. The team was also cited for allowing Rose’s brother to travel with the team for free, which is an NCAA violation and which Calipari was responsible for.
Meanwhile, in Lexington, Billy Gillispie was running the Wildcats into the ground. Calipari had been interested in the job when Tubby Smith had resigned two years prior, but wasn’t given an interview. Gillispie was hired instead, and was a total flop. He was fired in 2009, and Calipari was one of three candidates the school pursued, and the eventual hire. The position was higher paying, at a more prestigious program, with better facilities and such. So again we can ask: did Memphis boot him for a violation he was unaware of (or the lesser one that he was), or did he merely take a better job when it became available? Again, my money’s on the latter.
[QUOTE=Thing Fish]
Is it really just that he failed to prevent teenagers from exercising poor judgment?
[/QUOTE]
In the Rose matter, it’s not even that, as the violation occured while Rose was still in high school, before he came to Memphis.
I didn’t watch a single minute of the game, but it sounded like Bo Ryan had some sour grapes afterwards. I heard he complained about everything from refs to “rent-a-players.”
Having “review” in basketball seems a pain IMHO, just because single calls don’t influence the outcome (anecdotes aside) as much as other games and it really slows the game down a lot when they do review.
There’s always talk about blown calls in all big games. There were definitely a few missed calls, but they were close and the game is fast-pasted, so its hard to get too mad at the refs. On the other hand, Wisconsin only got called for 2 fouls in the entire first half, so I see it as a karmic true-up (I was listening on radio for the first half, so can’t opine on how fair it was or not, but it was enough that the sports commentators and Coach K noted it).
Wisconsin got Duke’s two big guys in foul trouble early and still couldn’t close. Duke trailed a lot of the game, adapted and changed strategy to compensate, and their players executed well.
Duke gets the calls when it matters. Duke nearly always gets to play its first two tournament games in North Carolina. When the skids are greased for you and you’re virtually guaranteed a Sweet 16 spot every year, you’re going to win some titles.
Yup. Exactly. What’s happened in Lexington over the decades and what conTINues to happen in Lexington, KY with respect to its men’s basketball team paints a pretty clear picture of what that community thinks of sports (or at least men’s basketball) vs. people actually getting an education at their school. You defend 'em - you have that right. You won’t see ME doing that any time soon, though.
Which helps explain why I wasn’t pulling for Duke’s team to win this thing, either (although had it come down to Duke vs. KenPHUCHy I would’ve pulled {weakly} for the Blue Devils as the lesser of two evils).
Given the widespread testimony about special classes, tutors, and grading for elite (revenue-generating, anyway) athletes, it’s justified to have some skepticism about whether an elite (revenue-and-prestige generating) athlete’s grades are a true reflection of their academic effort. So, yeah, I wouldn’t bet too heavily on the UK basketball team actually showing up at lectures five days a week.
Not saying I have any reason to think UK is any worse or better than any one else in that regard, but generally, if you’re trying to attract ‘one-and-done’ basketball players, trumpeting and enforcing rigorous academic requirements isn’t a winning strategy.
