Beware Kentucky, You’re Next
Miz pointed out in TMA this morning that Memphis may be forced to forfeit the greatest season in school history, which included a Conference-USA Championship, 38 wins, a Final Four appearance, and a National Title Game appearance. There are a few allegations that have been under investigations in recent months, the most heinous being that someone else took Derrick Rose’s SAT. Kinda a big deal when the best player on your team is not supposed to be playing. There are other infractions that are included as to why such a stiff penalty would be issued. It remains to be seen if any other infractions would be imposed, such as a postseason ban. If the NCAA would really like to send a message that they aren’t a joke, they would do that as well. Vacating a season where a team didn’t win a title is not that big of a deal, and the program doesn’t truly suffer from it. Yes, they do lose the revenue they received from the Final Four, but that is the extent of it.
Who really gets away with what happened? Well, Derrick Rose and John Calipari.
How many of you look down on Marcus Camby as an individual? He took money from agents while at UMass (AHEM! *COUGH*COUGH*AHEM! Also coached by Calipari), therefore negating the Minutemen’s one and only Final Four appearance. Now Camby actually paid the university back the money they lost due to what happened, and the university has also refused to take down their banner, since the school claims it was not involved in the infraction. Will Rose pay money back? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, nobody will care. He won’t really hurt an NBA franchise, so whatever legacy he sets for himself on the court in Chicago is how he will be remembered.
The other person, former coach John Calipari once again avoids suffering any kind of penalty. Like we subtlety hinted above, he was the coach at UMass when Camby was caught taking money from the agents, but got out of town before that came to light. Just months before the NCAA openly announced their investigation on Memphis, he accepted a job a the University of Kentucky. Hmmmmm. Bloggers, readers, fans, people with a heart and a lick of morals don’t trust Calipari. They see a snake when he is interviewed. They see a man who cannot be trusted. So even though Kentucky is excited about the hire of Calipari – because his teams do win - and because he brought big time recruits with him, they also know that dirtiness usually comes with it. Kentucky can only hope that nobody gets caught with their pants down while Calipari is there. Of course, if he suddenly jumps ship in 2-3 years, don’t be surprised to see Kentucky facing the death penalty that they skirted just before they hired the second biggest snake in the state of Kentucky.
UPDATE: Memphis has also been hit with a 3 year probation to go along with vacating all 38 wins.
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death penalty?
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Kentucky fans are jonesin for a championship so much they’re willing to take this guy on…mch like Kelvin Sampson at IU, it’s hedging on borrowed time.
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Trey, if Billyball leaves, would Cal interest you?
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death penalty
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It made me imagine Calipari walking into a gym with a Pig Pen type dirt cloud around his feet.
/Peanuts’d
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funny, i was thinking of going as Pig Pen for halloween because my son was going as linus. now i can just dress up in a suit and put a bunch of grease in my hair.
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I’d be pissed about this if KU had lost. But coming from the Boston area during that whole UMass mess, I wasn’t surprised when the story first came out.
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i’m pissed, because we got embarrassed!
/not really pissed.
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Kentucky sucks!
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basically, we’re a two-minute choke job and a missed free throw or two from a vacated National Championship. I guess KU would have been retroactively named the ‘08 champ?
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agreed.
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no, there simply would have been no champ. Who knows if some other team Memphis beat would have then proceeded to beat Kansas?
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preach on.
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Isn’t this the second time a Calipari team has had to vacate a Final Four season? UMASS did too right?
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You know the NCAA punished Kelvin Sampson pretty harshly, why wouldn’t they come down on Calipari the same way? Question for trey, could Sampson then sue the NCAA for discrimination?
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Oddly enough, that’s plainly stated in the above post. Will wonders never cease?
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please tell me you are joking.
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i agree
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is this really what would have happened…no champ at all? wow.
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is Pitino an assistant there?
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is there any precedence for a program suing another for lost revenue due to getting beat in a bracket style tourney?
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well I’m not an expert on the NCAA rulebook or anything, but they didn’t give the regional final loser a retroactive final four appearance for the UMASS vacated final four appearance, so it seems logical to me it would be the same way for national champions.
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It would only be right to have no champion too in my opinion. How could you possibly tell which of the 6 teams that lost to the cheating team was the best without going back in time and letting them play eachother.
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Sorry I missed that one whole sentence. Hey Hawkeye, are the Caps going to be ok with Boudreau in goal this year?
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+1…I was trying to come up with a good Pitino joke for that line, but wasn’t having success.
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I guess “vacating” a win is different than “forfeiting”, huh? the NCAA requiring a forfeiture would give the loser the W. vacating is basically pretending the game was never played, right?
now, the stats for Memphis players during that year are deleted from record books, correct? does that mean the stats for their opponents are disregarded for the games they played against Memphis?
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One time? It’s mentioned a couple times.
/getcha eyes checked
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So pretending the game was never played, do we pretend that Kansas never won the championship?
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I guess that’s what I’m getting at here. at what point do you consider that either Memphis lost all the games that season or that the games just never existed?
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not that i know of, but sounds like a good what-if post for someone
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cbh – Boudreau in goal? Considering he’s the coach….
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I know, look back at your hockey playoff preview sometime.
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i believe msu forfeited all their wins from a season in football, i think it was 93? those were a tough 6 wins to give up.
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College basketball sucks. Let’s get back to football.
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Maybe Isiah Thomas can fill us in on all the what-ifs since he seems to think NCAA regulations are easier to figure out than the NBA salary cap.
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FIU will be in the tournament and win 1 game in it at least within 2 years.
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probably, because he already has 1 top 10 recruit. That doesn’t mean I will stop making fun of Isiah.
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No. Not one bit.
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Speaking as a longtime UK basketball fan, I don’t care. All I want is 16-0 in the SEC and a national championship. The 1998 team was the best college basketball team in history (that money could buy) and I want to relive that experience.
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now that rules.
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Ha! Speaking the truth.
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