At Long Last, Have You No Sense Of Decency?

I remember, back during the basketball coaching search, when a commenter really got his sanctimony on in defending Calipari. "I'm tired of people acting like he's dirty just because he's got greasy hair and an Italian name - he's never done anything wrong" or some such bullshit.

I don't think it had anything to do with the Italian name. There is some correlation between people who look like smug douchebags and those who actually are smug douchebags.

Oh, and Calipari actually cheats everywhere he goes, too. So there's that.

agreed, calipari is really, really dirty.

I imagine losing all these players won't help their APR.

Maybe UK will be the first college team to become a NBDL franchise.

So since Bama bloggers blamed last year's oversigning story on some long held grudge against Saban since he was a former Sparty coach, what movtivation is Brian going to be accused of this time? Still upset about losing Joe Crawford?

While Calipari's dirty tendencies are obvious, shouldn't the WIN NOW OR DIE fanbases take some heat for encouraging this behavior? Oh, no, they won't come out and say to do it - but running off Tubby Smith because he wasn't winning enough titles, running Gillespie out, etc. etc. doesn't encourage Calipari to WIN NOW.

And I don't mean that just as a dig against UK - how many M fans were ready to declare the transition dead and failed by week 5 last year? How many 'Bama fans lost their shit when Saban lost to UL Monroe? It happens everywhere.

Essentially, I think the fans who continually declare losing, at any time, UNACCEPTABLE!!! are a part of this problem.

I knew that Calipari was dirty (hello, Worldwide Wes), but I had no idea how sleazy this move to Kentucky was going to be. Think for one second about how Tom Crean is handling Indiana and tell me which of those two you would want to affiliate yourself with as a fan.

This is disgusting.

i'm sure are very thankful for the opportunity to be in lexington for 16 months and then be asked to find a school where they can get some PT.

If UK was interested in anything other than an immediate return to prominence they would have hired a coach with a record of building programs. If UK was interested in building a foundation for a program that would be relevant in 10 years, then maybe Gilespie still has his job. I think the assupmtion that Calipari has the luxury of time is incorrect. As Brian stated, the AD and his cronies are not stupid, they bet the farm and are hoping it pays off. Besides, the NCAA has the teeth of a baby deer these days, so I'm sure they weighed the risk/rewards of hiring a guy whose past says he's not above doing what it takes to win. Win it all costs is a dangerous mantra and while I don't particularly like seasons like we have in football last year, but it is a hell of a lot less embarassing than being considered a cheater.

Wolv54, easy on the mouse clicking there, bud.

The concept of student-athlete died out a long time ago. Most schools could care less about a student's long term future and only care about now. God forbid if a kid gets hurt and doesn't make much of an impact; hey, he's doing great in school and on track to get a degree, but let's dump the kid for someone else who can contribute better on the field. No decency anymore...

I forgot to point this out in the post, but to forestall any accusations of hypocrisy: yes, basically this exact same mercenary stuff happened at M during the Taylor/Traylor years and it killed my interest in college basketball for a long while.

Academics are meaningless and overrated. cheat to win.

These are the times when we pine for the old school coaches, who will tell you to get your butt to bed early, 'cause after classes you'd better be working out, practicing, and doing your schoolwork. There was a time when you were expected to leave it all on the field and still have enough left to become something great besides a sports pro.

Most folks down in the Bluegrass could less about this. UK Hoops has never been a Beacon of Morality.

Sea of Blue, I like....but most of the Billy Bobs down there are sporty big chubbies at the prospect of being preseason #1 or something like that.

Watching their fall will be fun.

And I'm not sure it's totally consistent with Brian's earlier posts that sympathize with college athletes looking to get paid. At the very least there's a definite tension between Brian's feelings with regards to the UK exodus and the consequences for his general sympathy towards college athletes who would like to be compensated beyond a scholarship.

I can't tell exactly what Brian's argument that what Calipari is doing is not merely undesirable, but morally wrong, depends on. In my mind there are two justifications he gives for this, first, a vaguely personalist argument that these kids shouldn't be treated by academic institutions like an input for a business. Brian's second, related, justification seems to be that this is all eroding the student part of student-athlete still further.

The potential problem here is that this reasoning could also be used to undermine the idea, that I believe I've seen Brian argue for, that college athletes shouldn't have restrictions on where they can market their labor.

This is why I am so ecstatic at Coach Beilein being Michigan's coach. I believe our future is bright. I am willing to see solid improvement, and to live with not contending annually, if it is the cost of doing things the right way. There is too mcuh slime in bball recruiting.

Brian's generally right that the practice of pulling kids' scholarships in a new coaching regime is ethically dubious.

However, these player departures don't yet prove that UK is committing this practice - Cal will probably force his own hand in the near future because of the size of his incoming class, but I know that at least two of these players are 'special cases' where they aren't being booted in quite the way Brian characterizes.

AJ Stewart quit the team last year for a brief time in the middle of the season and was only allowed back on after a team vote. If one of UM's role players quit the team in the middle of a season, was dealt with during the season, and then was politely given a list of options that didn't include returning in the off-season, I think many UM fans would probably be okay with that.

Jared Carter is merely not applying for a 5th year of eligibility from a medical situation from his junior season. This seemed to be the plan all along as he went through Senior Day last year at Rupp when Gillispie was still the coach.

Donald Williams is the only suspect departure. Frankly, I know very little about his case, only that he certainly wasn't on the same talent level as Cal's incoming class. Perhaps this a 'dirty cut', but given that the others in this round of departures are special cases, it wouldn't surprise me if Williams' departure is a similar case.

All in all, I think Brian's right about the practice of cutting players - just not totally sure it's happened yet at UK, though it probably will in the very near future.

Calipari cut scholarships from players who probably need those college degrees to hand them to players who are going to make millions by next year and could easily have afforded student loans for a year before paying them off in one shot after the draft.

Oversigning by a half dozen when there are 85 scholarships is bad enough. Oversigning by five when you have 13 scholarships ... that's utterly indefensible.

How about this simple NCAA rule change: no oversigning. At no point during the calendar year should a football team have more than 85 scholarship players, and at no point should a basketball team have more than 13 scholarship players. No more loopholes for the offseason. It makes no sense for the NCAA to allow a guy like Saban to get his roster up to 95-100 players on signing day, and then have the whole spring/summer to "figure out" how to trim it down to 85. If a team can't have more than 85 scholarship guys in September, it shouldn't have more than 85 in May, either.

I like the College Hoops 2K8 ideal: For every scholarship offered, there must be a spot open, and the scholarship of a player who transfers/leaves the team/goes pro won't be open until the year after he leaves.

In addition to cutting down the practices that Calipari has been doing, it will provide more of a risk to take a potential one-and-done.