New Kentucky head coach John Calipari came to Kentucky this offseason with some clouds over his head from his former school, Memphis. The NCAA was deliberating whether to allow Memphis to retain its Final Four record season after a report was published claiming that one of Memphis’ star players (Derrick Rose) did not academically qualify for college after having someone “help” him on his SATs.
Unfortunately for Memphis - their record season is now ancient history, as the NCAA ruled that their record-setting 38-2 season “never happened.” Kansas was handed the NCAA Championship in a bye, apparently.
Somehow, Calipari emerged unscathed, at least in regards to NCAA restrictions. However, his reputation unquestionably took a huge hit with the NCAA finding him guilty. He now holds the acrimonious record of being the only coach in NCAA history to have a Final Four appearance vacated at two different schools (his Final Four with UMass in 1996 was vacated after news broke that star center Marcus Camby received large cash payments throughout the year).
Monday, August 24, 2009 at 10:51 pm by bryan
Last month, Jordan Crawford of Xavier gained national notoriety when he dunked on LeBron James and Nike officials subsequently confiscated the tape, as CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish first reported. The backlash against James and Nike echoed far and wide across the sports world - especially after the tape finally emerged and it turned out to be a pretty average dunk, considering the hype.
John Wall is the latest to benefit from YouTube glory after laying down a monster jam over Jerry Stackhouse on Saturday night. After breaking the ankles of his perimeter defender with a wicked crossover, Wall jets straight to the rack. Stackhouse, a step behind, can do nothing but watch as Wall wraps the ball around Stack’s body and down into the basket.
Parrish calls Wall’s dunk “the perfect basketball highlight,” saying it has a great crossover, dunk, and sound (with the announcer proclaiming “John Wall’s in the building”).
Parrish goes as far as to predict Wall as the best guard in the country later (after becoming a YouTube sensation now), saying, “I always added that despite that, the comparison of Wall to Rose is fair, and that when fans were able to see Wall enough they would understand that he has natural gifts that will almost certainly make him a star from the moment his college career begins.”
Monday, August 10, 2009 at 10:49 pm by bryan
After the two-year Billy Gillispie experiment came to a sputtering halt on March 27 of this year, fans of Big Blue began clamoring for a big name replacement coach to restore Kentucky to basketball glory.
Four days later, they’d signed former Memphis Coach John Calipari to an eight-year, $31.65 million deal.
With Calipari came a swarm of recruits already-committed to Memphis (including #5 in ESPNU100, C Demarcus Cousins), refilling the Kentucky roster to the brim while leaving the cupboards empty back in Memphis (along with a SAT scandal that Calipari appears to have avoided). Quickly thereafter, the #1 recruit in the class of 2009, PG John Wall, decided to bring his services to Coach Cal and Kentucky. Along with new freshman PG Eric Bledsoe (widely considered the #2 PG in the class of 2009), Kentucky’s point guard problems last year appear to be a thing of the past.
While Jodie Meeks kept his name in the NBA Draft in June, junior forward Patrick Patterson returned to campus, hoping to lead the Wildcats to the NCAA Championship in 2010. With Coach Cal at the helm and a slew of talented freshmen coming into the program… Patterson’s goal quickly became much less farfetched. Now, Kentucky fans simply must sit back and wait with bated breath until October’s Midnight Madness.
Monday, August 3, 2009 at 3:31 pm by bryan
