Lost in the Kansas celebration

[Elvado]

was the exquisite beauty of watching that cheap, two-bit, snake oil salesman Calipari lose and then have the gall to invoke the Lord afterward and describe how he prayed. The only thing that hustler is praying is that his Memphis players have a different jeweler than Camby.

[kghoya]

yeah i really wanted to see them win it so i would know what it is like to see a national championship vacated

it would sorta seem like the tournament never happened...and after georgetown's performance, id take it

[BigMike]

What has Calipari done that suggests the season would be invalidated. Never heard of any recruiting violations or any kind of violation. What is the difference between Calipari and most Div. I head coaches.

[Cambridge]

Calipari was the coach of UMass when Camby was discovered to have been paid as a player. UMass was stripped of their wins (especially their win over Gtown in the NCAAs) and the team was docked several scholarships. Calipari left the school. UMass is only now finally recovering from the tarnish. Yet, no one ever seems to mention this when they talk of Calipari's past. Dude is like Tarkanian, dirty to the core, got caught, yet somehow gets a free pass from the press.

[BigMike]

But I don't think Calipari was ever linked to the payments - Camby took them on his own from an agent. Didn't the same thing happen at Duke with Maggette taking illegal payments. It could happen to any coach - you can't prevent a player from choosing to take $$.

[SFHoya99]

As Cambridge said, the 1996 UMass run was taken away because Camby was a pro. Despite being "cleared," there's really no way to tell whether or not he knew of the arrangement or even arranged it. Calipari quit UMass three days after the allegations hit.

He hired Milt Wagner as an assistant coach just to get DeJuan Wagner to Memphis. Rose was steered to Memphis by Worldwide Wes. Calipari's entire team is about 25 years old, and while graduation rates have gone up, you do have to question how that was accomplished. I hope it is legit.

There's also a lot of smoke in regards to Fedex. Family members and former players seem to get jobs there. That's a great feature for Memphis if it is legit; it's awful if they are being paid for jobs they are unqualified for.

That said, coaches like Roy Williams have been caught for things and it seems to slide right off them. Larry Brown -- mentor to both Self and Calipari -- was a pretty dirty guy but it seems to slide off him as well.

I don't know if Calipari is dirtier than others, but I sincerely doubt the man is clean.

[BigMike]

I guess that is my point - why are some coaches considered dirty and others considered clean when most do the same exact stuff. Everytime Calipari is mentioned on the board the same descriptions come up "sleazeball" "dirty" etc... But is there any evidence he is different than 95% of the other Div. I coaches. I bring up Coach K again - Chris Duhon's mom got a job thru a Duke Booster. Seems like all these coaches are the same but for some reason Calipari takes more heat than others.

[moe09]

Big Mike's got a point.

[Filo]

Well, the penalties handed down at UMass aren't really common in 95% of college coaches.

[SFHoya99]

If Chalmer's dad is a competent director of basketball operations (Matt Henry's role at GU), then it's a bit of a sketchy hire, but I don't know if there is something wrong with it.

If Chalmer's dad can't do the job and someone else is doing most of the work and Chalmers is collecting a paycheck he doesn't deserve and didn't earn, then it's basically paying Chalmers and his family for him going to Kansas.

The rules are the rules, and if you think athletes should be paid aside from the scholarships, fine. But institute it. Otherwise it isn't a level playing field. For better or worse, this is amateur athletics, and people should follow the rules.

I think Calipari is worse than plenty of coaches. But there's a lot right there with him.

[balla]

Well if the dookies keep losing recruits to Rutgers, coach dookie will whip-out his booster family relocation/jobs card again. Heck, dookies are becoming as delusional as Kentucky fans. They actually think they have a shot a Derrick Favors. They clearly do not know much about Favors or ATL ballers. Maybe when coach dookie wins the gold metal, recruits will come flocking

As for Calipari, the list is long. But the truth is, he is the same as Eddie Sutton and a bunch of others. All of these guys have PR spin and the media looks the other way. Jim Tressle's sweater-vest shields him from scrutiny, as his boosters hand out pretty envelopes...