Outside the Lines on Calipari forcing out players
Didn't see this mentioned elsewhere. ESPN OTL has a piece on the shady practice of forcing out scholarship players to make room for new ones. It focuses on Kentucky, but also mentions Michigan basketball (Yeah, Beilein forced everyone out so he could go something like 7-20 his first year).
Anyway, it's a good piece and speaks to a topic that comes up frequently around these parts.
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4782616&categoryid=3286128C
January 6th, 2010 at 11:38 PM ^
Check the comments on that story...the UK apologists are out firing with extreme prejudice. I enjoy any sentence that begins with "...to all the [insert school here] haters..."
January 7th, 2010 at 3:16 AM ^
They've been in hibernating for a long time, but Kentucky basketball fans are some of the most obnoxious, irrational, homerish fans in all of sports. If you don't worship the ground that the Squid (Calipari) walks on, you're just a hater who's jealous of the Final Four/National Championship banners Kentucky's going to be hanging soon (until they have to be pulled down in shame, that is).
January 7th, 2010 at 10:18 AM ^
i once ran into a UK fan in a yahoo college basketball chat room, it was either 98 or 99... since my handle is GOBLUE4EVR i got a instant message from someone saying "UK bball rules!!!" thinking i was a UK fan... i told the person that i was a michigan fan, and away it went... the person just starting going off how lucky michigan was in the final 4, the fab 5 was shit, and so on and so forth... i finally said it happened in 1993 so get over it and move on with life...
January 6th, 2010 at 11:48 PM ^
That practice isn't uncommon anywhere. It's just more public/prevelant in certain cases--I'm looking at you title game participant Alabama. For shame, I'm sure your guilt is punishment enough (according to Bama fans).
January 6th, 2010 at 11:49 PM ^
UK players are pros; they should know it's just business as usual.
January 7th, 2010 at 3:08 AM ^
it really disturbed me that espn lumped beilein's situation with calipari and saban. those two guys force scholarship athletes out of the program.
convince me that beilein forced out 3* and 4* players like udoh, price and morris to play two walk-ons and a 1* and 2* frosh.
espn journalism at its finest.
January 7th, 2010 at 8:35 AM ^
I know who some are - Udoh for example was wanted and left on his own. I would be interested in a list of the six players referred to if anyone has it. To lump Beilein in with what Calipari did is simplistic, lazy reporting.
January 7th, 2010 at 8:51 AM ^
e udoh, k price, k morris, r baker, j smith, k grady. except for maybe baker and smith (off court issues), i think beilein would have tried to talk the others into staying.
January 7th, 2010 at 10:27 AM ^
is one of the kids that ESPN is referring to, then its complete horse shit... how many schools did that kid commit and decommit from before he decided to go to michigan??? and then he leaves because JB was going challenge him to be a better player....umm wasn't his speciality shooting 3's??? i think he would have worked out just fine...
January 8th, 2010 at 10:46 AM ^
JB told him that he's not going to honor his scholarship. Reed Baker promptly transferred after that.
January 8th, 2010 at 11:29 AM ^
gave him the chance to come back as a walk-on(which would suck so i understand his issues with that)....there is an article out there that makes it seem like baker didn't want to put in the work to stay at michigan, something alongs the lines that JB told him that he was to short to play in the 1-3-1... i find that funny because grady, merrit, and lee were all 6' and under and baker was a better shooter than all 3 of them... he just came off like he had some sour grapes over the whole thing...
January 7th, 2010 at 9:33 AM ^
Nothing but the best from the Rock of Journalistic Integrity that is ESPN.
January 7th, 2010 at 1:33 PM ^
I think that this might be the final straw for boycotting non-sporting events on ESPN.