Good Versus Evil?

Does the Cornell/Kentucky match up cause anxiety for the powers that be in the NCAA sports business?

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/36024019/ns/sports-college_basketball/


The contrast between the two programs could not be more complete. Cornell does not offer athletic scholarships. Kentucky offers scholarships (and maybe a lot more?). Kentucky graduates 31% of its players. True, a few of UK's players will make millions playing in the NBA and some others will make a decent living playing overseas. So, maybe they are not all being exploited by the school, but that only emphasizes the differences in the programs.

http://www.globe-democrat.com/news/2010/mar/18/reid-ncaa-graduation-rates-offer-real-score/

Cornell represents the ideal image of college sports. UK epitomizes the underbelly of the business of big time college sports. Both are somewhat atypical, but Cornell is a dinosaur - the Ivy League is the only D-1 conference that does not allow athletic scholarships.

UK hired Calapari, whose previous two schools (UMass and Memphis) ended up on probation for the cheating that occurred while he was coach. (I was going to say 'shenanigans', but that it is just a euphemism, like saying "parallel ancestry" when you mean "in-breeding").

Pat Forde of ESPN called UK's approach 'hear-no-evil, see-no-evil'. They not only hired Calapari, but they got most of his Memphis recruiting class to follow him up to Lexington. 


http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the_dagger/post/Should-Kentucky-worry-about-Calipari-s-recruitin?urn=ncaab,151749





I don't understand UK hiring Calapari. Can't a program like UK can win without cheating? Maybe I'm wearing blinders, but does North Carolina cheat? Kansas? Indiana? (Well, IU caught Kelvin Sampson cheating and dropped the atomic bomb on their own program. Think UK would ever do that?). But doesn't UK see what's coming?

Yes, Calapari is one of only four coaches to take two different teams to the Final Four, but he is the only coach to ever have two teams forfeit those Final Four appearances.

UMass made a metric crap-load of money when Calapari was there - enough to get a new arena built. They got to the Final Four - even if they had to forfeit it, it still happened. Sort of like the now-we-know-it-was-phony home run battle between Sosa and McGwire. Maybe UMass figured it was worth it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/sports/baseball/05homers.html

Memphis just lost its appeal of the NCAA's ruling that the Tigers had to forfeit their 38 wins in 2008 and give back all the dough from their Final Four run. Memphis had their most recent previous Final Four appearance in 1985 vacated for cheating too and they hadn't won in a long time, so maybe they too figured it was worth the risk.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/mar/22/university-memphis-appeal-turned-down-ncaa-committ/

But Kentucky? Kentucky can't get good enough players to compete for a national title without hiring the guy whose last two teams forfeited their Final Fours? Is it that hard to predict the end of this story?

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/367962-memphis-smacked-by-ncaa-should-john-caliparis-kentucky-be-worried