re: Calipari's Reputation?

Dirty. He's everything that's wrong with college basketball. Plus, he has no Final Four appearances on his resume.

So you are as clueless as xiv

Is there a record for vacated Final Fours? Two at two different institutions is pretty impressive.
I have no doubt Calipari will get UK to a Final Four.
I also have no doubt that said Final Four will end up vacated as well.

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its pretty common knowledge that cal is dirty

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Agreed. But with that said if you are winning in basketball you are cheating, I don't care who or what program you are.

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Is there a record for vacated Final Fours?

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Yes, two is the record. Calipari is sole possession of that one.

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Agreed. But with that said if you are winning in basketball you are cheating, I don't care who or what program you are.

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I honestly don't think Izzo cheats.

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False, last year is we lost because we couldn't hit a 3 against WVU's zone. Stay hot, douche!!

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I'm not a fan of litmus tests, but when your team goes 16-29 (55%) from the line and you blame outside shooting for the loss, you're probably not that sharp when it comes to basketball.

Any idea why they were shooting all those 3's? They had missed so many FT's that they were behind by 10+ most of the way, and they got desperate. Had they been solid at the line, they would have tried to penetrate more. Why? Because penetrating a zone puts you at the free throw line.

Well, when you're shooting 55% from the line, you don't want to go to the line, so you jack up 3's all night.

Free throws killed Kentucky; the 3 just couldn't save them.

Calipari has no Final Fours.


ETA:

Just checked the box score. UK's three starting guards were 7-18 from the line and 1-14 from downtown. Those guards should have combined for 30 free throw attempts, but they didn't...because they didn't penetrate...because they weren't making free throws...and that's why they jacked up threes all night.

Glad I could straighten this out for you.

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Was watching the MLK special on ESPN with Calipari and was extremely impressed with how open he was and didn't use much coach speak.

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well i already thought he was a sleezeball (so I'm sure that colors my thinking)

but I was impressed by how everything he said was self serving... he was only there to self promote himself and his own program

I also doubt that Steve Donahue cheated during his tenure at Cornell.

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I didn't miss those, but the NCAA did. Those Final Fours are rescinded. Google works wonders for that sort of thing

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I really hope you aren't holding up the NCAA as some paragon of virtue in all this. If so, you know NOTHING about college basketball. Allow me to educate you.

I am a Memphis fan, and I liked that Cal was winning, but I never liked him as a person and head of the program. He was a used-car salesman right from the start, and stayed one even when the team started winning. I wasn't really shocked that the NCAA started nosing around when all the stories about World Wide Wes, and how he steered several players to Cal, started leaking out. In Calipari's book, I would have been a "miserable."

However, the fact that the NCAA took Memphis out of their little black book means absolutely nothing to me, and really shouldn't to anyone else. I'm not blind, and I refuse to be lead by the organization with the plank in their eye (for those that know the Bible). That Memphis Championship Game appearance still happened, just like Auburn won a title this year and Cam Newton got a Heisman. Like Newton, the NCAA cleared Derrick Rose to play. They decided he was eligible, but then took the time to warn everyone that looked at him that they would be taking a risk, and that they might revisit his eligibility later. Why do you think that is?

In basketball, unlike football, the NCAA directly profits from the postseason championship. How much money do you think Derrick Rose (you can also insert the name of any big-time one and done player here), and the buzz he and that Memphis team generated, made for the NCAA that March? How convenient for them to take the cash, and THEN revisit Rose and his probable cheating on the SAT. If the NCAA had been so damned concerned about cheating, and making sure the sport was above board, they would have declared him ineligible from the start. What they did was no different than what Rose, his family, and his AAU coach did. They all did what they did to GET PAID.

The NCAA has a very convenient approach now. They say they have no control over AAU, which they don't. However, they take a completely laissez-faire approach to them. They say that they can't review everything on every player because of the rampant cheating and agent dabbling in AAU, and they KNOWINGLY clear players that are taking shoe company money and working with agents. The Clearinghouse is always conveniently shorthanded, despite the mega-millions the NCAA rakes in thanks to those very players in question. Then the NCAA puts the problem off on the individual school and their compliance office, as if they have the capacity to thoroughly investigate every player on their recruiting board.

Am I saying that Cal is clean? No, absolutely not. I think he is only a little better than coaches like Jim Harrick, who were actively involved with the cheating and covering up at their programs. However, is anything he is doing any worse than the organization you are holding up as the authority on what is acceptable?

For all of the folks later on in the thread throwing out other coaches names and wondering if they are clean or dirty, here is the thing. It doesn't really matter if THEY are clean. The players aren't. You can take ANY top 200 player in high school basketball, and other than some very rare cases, they would all be considered ineligible if the facts were known and the letter of the law applied. AAU is a cesspool. This isn't disputed. It's a well-known fact in college basketball recruiting circles. Just Google and read. It's like SMU in the 80's, for those who watched Pony Excess. Cheating, money, agents, and shoe companies run the show, and right now, there is nothing that can stop them. You would be hard pressed to find a single, major recruit that hasn't done something that the NCAA could hit them or their school with. In most cases, the NCAA simply chooses not to.

So what makes the NCAA step in? They will eventually take aim at any coach who they think is blatantly cheating, or is critical or thumbing their nose at them. Guys who flaunt their cheating (Tarkanian, Harrick, Pete Carroll), are surrounded by (and fostering)cheating, and are in the media eye (Neuheisel, Tim Floyd, Calipari), are critical of the NCAA and their policies (Dale Brown, anyone), or guys that other coaches hate and blow the whistle on (Bruce Pearl comes to mind) get looked at. Everybody else can cheat all they want or turn a blind eye, as long as they keep their head down and don't cross other coaches. That's the NCAA's system.

To sum it up, college football recruiting is like a kindergarten playground compared to basketball. Anybody who thinks their program is completely clean is very naive and absolutely fooling themselves, especially if that program is any good, or is actively recruiting highly rated players. The coaches of these programs may not know anything directly, but they know where the players come from. What defines a "clean" coach in this environment? Those are the guys that steer clear of the known problems and issues, and don't take risky players. Calipari is well-know for taking risky players everywhere he has been, and that can't be disputed. He is a dirty coach.

Whether the sport of college basketball is clean or dirty, however, don't insult me by holding the NCAA up as a measure of anything good. We're talking about an organization that, according to more recent information, coerced Lester Earl into pointing the finger at Dale Brown by threatening his career. In return for this, he magically got a free pass to Kansas, and nothing done to his eligibility while LSU got the freakin hammer brought down on them. I am a fan of both LSU, and Memphis, and I loathe the NCAA because they decided to point their guns at my two favorite programs for no other reason, than they had it in for their respective coaches, and felt like they could make something stick. Other programs are doing the same things and getting a free pass.

Letting the NCAA define the rules and enforce them is like letting the Chicago mob write the vice laws for the State of Illinois. Anybody who thinks otherwise either hasn't done the research and is ignorant, or is a fool.

Are you ignorant, or a fool xiv? Probably both. Why don't you climb down off that crumbling high horse for a second and do some real Google research, rather than Internet drive-bys? You might learn something.