OT: Calipari laying down the law

Submitted by The Impaler on

Apparently Calipari is not all about winning at all costs.  He has suspended Dodson, a junior, indefinitely for undisclosed reasons, even though he is still academically eligible.  He even disallowed him from traveling with the team to Canada for a team exhibition tour.  My question is: what exactly are Kentucky's standards?

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=5430024

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ihartbraylon

August 2nd, 2010 at 11:55 PM ^

I think Calipari is just confused, he's not used to having juniors on the roster, probably just assumed Dodson had 2 years worth of class to make up. Don't worry, he'll be back on the court as soon as he's caught up in 2 weeks.

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Zone Read Left

August 2nd, 2010 at 11:57 PM ^

It states Dodson is academically eligible, but Calipari kicked him off for "undisclosed reasons", aka violation of team rules. More then likely Calipari is kicking him off for something small to be able to fit in another 5* to the next recruiting class.

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MGoDC

August 2nd, 2010 at 11:58 PM ^

IIRC, the entire Kentucky team as a whole had a GPA of 2.035 first semester last year. I believe the minimum GPA is 2.0 to be eligible but I may be wrong on this. Some things to keep in mind:

1. This is Kentucky, not Harvard. Is it really that hard to skate by with a B- (2.7) average at Kentucky with minimum effort?

2. This is the ENTIRE team, not just one or two star players that are headed to the NBA. What exactly is the 12th man on the bench planning to do with a 2.0 GPA from Kentucky in terms of a career? He's not good enough to make money off of basketball, not famous enough to endorse anything, and frankly being the bottom of your class from a marginal academic university won't put you on the top of any job lists.

3. Since the entire team was 2.035 and everybody remained eligible, that pretty much means nobody was higher than around a 2.2 gpa. Not a single person on the whole team remotely tried at anything academically.

4. In fairness, John Wall's 2nd semester he had a 3.5 GPA, so his overall GPA must've been roughly 2.7-2.8 (or a B- average). Wanted to give him his props for trying hard for one semester at least even though it was obvious he was already going at the top of the NBA draft. But the fact that he could get a 3.5 really makes me question points 1-3 even further.

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brandanomano

August 3rd, 2010 at 12:25 AM ^

Apparently It isn't hard to get maintain a decent GPA at Kentucky. I just graduated from a high school in Raleigh this year. John Wall was pretty good friends with a few of the basketball players, who I talked to on occaision. It wasn't really a secret that he hated school and was going to leave after his freshman year. Maybe it's just me, but if I knew that I was going to be making millions in a couple months, my concerns wouldn't be school-related.

This post is probably irrelevant because I'm not a star basketball player, nor am I in college yet. John was also probably getting special treatment from his professors (I'm not saying this only happens at Kentucky, because it happens with every major college athlete. Hell, it even happened at my high school)

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Tim Waymen

August 3rd, 2010 at 12:12 AM ^

I don't blame Calipari at all.  You spend all that time finding someone to take the kid's exams and do his homework, and he still doesn't pass?  Hopefully punishing him will teach him to show some goddamn appreciation.

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