A Blog devoted entirely to news about the University of Kentucky's Men's Basketball Team. Any e-mails and/or advertising inquiries should be sent to ukbasketball23@gmail.com.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
John Clay says there is more than enough information in the Eric Bledsoe New York Times story to make you believe that alarms should have been going off somewhere over on the Avenue of Champions
20 comments:
Anonymous
said...
And on this, John Clay shows that he leaps to conclusions before all information is known. Glad Mr. Clay is following in Jerry Tipton's path of writing about UK with a negative slant.
How long will the NCAA continue to clear players and then *question* themselves later for doing so?
What about the student-athlete's image which is often destroyed in the wake of such allegations? What about the colleges, universities, and coaches which have their names drug through the mudd all becuase the NCAA continues to engage in a policy of second-guessing their VERY OWN clearance process. But wait....is the NCAA questioning anything or are the Coach Cal and UK haters just stirring the proverbial pot?
I think all of this is BS. I thought it was BS when it happened to Memphis and it will be more of the same if it happens at UK. In my opinion, this makes the NCAA *clearing* house look bad, but the media will be sure to focus on Coach Cal and Kentucky. Why? Because its both easy AND expected. Responsible journalism is dead!!!
The media should be questioning why the NCAA isn't investigating its own clearing house protocol. However, to do so would require GENUINE investigative journalism and a lot more work and a lot less innuendo.
Sadly, it appears that Clay has decided to march in this week's Anti-UK pissy parade....unfortunate, but predictable.
Does John Clay not read anything? The bells did go off and everybody took another very close look at his academic eligibility and found his record clean. The NCAA looked twice, Sandy Bell scrutinized his record and his HS provided the grades!!!!!! What in the world else would one do to verify a player's eligibility? Give him a lie detector test? Use enhanced interrogation techniques on his teachers?
In the summer of 2008, Eric went to summer school and began the process of getting his grades to the point he would be college eligible. Thus he knew of the importance to his future of getting his grades up. No school at that point was ready to offer until he looked to become eligible. So he understood what needed to be done and was willing to do the work.
The NCAA asked questions in February, most likely because they received at tip from someone. I wonder who? We will never know. it would be nice to know if the NCAA has actually decided to continue the investigation but of course the NCAA might not get around to saying anything about this for another year, if ever. Meanwhile the only potential immediate harm comes from the release of Eric's private information (transcripts) and a very public question of his character which could have an impact on his draft position (I do believe that a player's character is important to some NBA teams)and that could be a financial detriment to Eric.
Until someone can actually implicate Eric, Cal, UK or any other school with any evidence at all. This is just nothing but innuendo.
I don't have a problem questioning the coaches involvement but I also think the landlady (who says she let Eric's mom stay in the apt for 8 months without getting any rent so she is now owed $3,200) sounds less than credible to me too. That may or may not end up being a violation in the eyes of the NCAA but it strikes me as ironic that thousands upon thousands of dollars in salaries and travel expenses have already been spent and will continue to be spent to find out the truth behind this $1,200 violation in order to protect the amateur purity of NCAA basketball. Does anyone else see the absurdity here?
Clay's premise is that Calipari can't say no to a good prospect (Camby, Rose, Bledsoe) when "red flags" are popping up all over the place.
But what exactly should cause Calipari to say no when everyone involved in reviewing the kid's academic and amateur status - the home state's public school system, the NCAA's Initial Eligibility Clearinghouse, the university's compliance office, which is perhaps the strongest in the country - declares and certifies, sometimes more than once, that the kid is eligible to play Division I basketball?
Is he never supposed to sign a kid who comes from a poor family?
Is he never supposed to sign a kid who improves his grades at a private school?
Clay is comfortable criticizing in the abstract, but he falls down rather badly when it comes to articulating a policy that can be implemented in the real world.
Let's run with that, Wheatgerm. Maybe Calipari should make an announcement that because of the NCAA's impotency in reviewing a kid's amateur status, UK is now forced to protect itself against the NCAA by no longer accepting recruits who come from poor families.
The 2009 poverty guideline for a family of four (such as Bledsoe's) is $22,050. To be safe, because he is under so much scrutiny, Calipari should extend the ban to "low income" families, those earning 150 percent of the poverty level.
"If your family income was less than $33,075 last year, we're not interested," John Calipari announced today. "It is a regrettable fact of life that poor people are more susceptible to accepting impermissible benefits, either because they are ignorant or because they have lower ethical standards than those who have even slightly higher annual incomes. And we can't take that chance."
Gentlemen, My congratulations on each of your posts. I've read more thoughtful, reasoned judgments with logical questions raised here than on all other related 'major' media articles combined. - I tip my hat.
Calipari continued to address a stunned audience. "Likewise, we can no longer accept students who show academic progress. Maybe you were the victim of a failed public school system. A regrettable and all too common problem. But if you transfer to a private school that cares enough to finally give you the attention you need to succeed in the classroom, we don't want you.
"To protect ourselves against the NCAA, we must presume that you cheated. Or that someone cheated on your behalf. It makes no difference how many organizations review your academic record and certify it as trustworthy. Once the victim of a failed public school system, always a victim.
Haha, the sad part is, that is not far off the truth. I guess it comes down to the fact that both UK and Cal need to dig up every recruits record since pre-school and make sure they have the grades. Then, plant a spy in that recruits life to make sure he is not accepting illegal benefits from his high school coaches or boosters. Finally, they need to make sure the kid takes his own SAT by walking him into the classroom where he is to take the test, standing in that room the whole time while he is taking the test and make sure he finishes. Then we can worry about whether or not he actually wants to commit to UK...
This is the point. What is a coach supposed to do to avoid this kind of thing? Everyone's quick to point a finger, but no one wants to solve the problem.
Either the NCAA allows member institutions to rely on its review and final certification (that's what they call it, "final") of academic and amateur status, or colleges are going to have to protect themselves against the NCAA by closing their doors to a certain segment of society, the vast majority of whom are in fact eligible and innocent of any wrongdoing.
The sad thing is, the NCAA appears to want to make sure that everything is fair, balanced, and on the up and up. However, it seems that the NCAA (based on certain articles and past instances) is willing to compromise the character of some players, coaches, and schools as it strives to maintain justice in college athletics. But what is just about a system that oozes with bias and favoritism? Many universities seldom contend with these kind of accusations. Why? Because they are not UK. In addition, the witch hunt that has followed Coach Cal throughout his coaching career has become tiring. Either provide solid proof that he has conducted himself improperly or shut up.
I really wish Coach Cal would go after some the media figures that continue to assassinate his character. Whatever happened to defamation of character? Coach K's undies got all bunched up when he was depicted as a devil. Hello, you are the coach of the Blue Devils......deal with it.
Is anyone accusing him of cheating in high school? Of having someone else take his ACT? Of forging his transcript? Of taking money from his high school coach? Of taking money from anyone?
Lost in all this is the fact that Bledsoe himself appears to be a completely innocent bystander.
This may be off topic, but if the landlord received the rental payments from someone else, let's say from a drug dealer, would that be okay with the NCAA?
I kinda think so.
And we're talking about rental payments. An ordinary and necessary living expense. Kanter's professional team may properly cover his ordinary and necessary expenses to play basketball, so what's the NCAA's concern in the Bledsoe case?
True, it's not like Eric received any cash or car or merchandise or prostitutes.
Question. If the NCAA determines that Eric's mother got $1200, could the NCAA vacate a limited number of games, instead of the entire season? Didn't Wall have to sit out 2 or 3 games for receiving some kind of benefit, something to do with traveling with his AAU coach? Maybe that's the extent of the danger from the rental payments. And maybe restitution would help, but who would you repay? The high school coach who denies it?
It's the academic side that threatens all the games Eric played in last year.
whoa whoa whoa, hold on, you all have missed the point. This is about Bledsoe's academics. I know the rent money is an issue, but it isn't the leading character of this story. How can a kid have a 1.9 D average through his jr year and then average a 4.3 his sr year to qualify. I know you guys bleed blue through and through, but this really begs several questions. Is it suspicious? Yes it is. If it is then there should also be a quustion about his college ACT or SAT scores. And for God's sake , please don't tell me he turned it around in one year. These are legit quustions. I don't know the answer, but I know they are suspicious. No one ever proved D.Rose cheated, but it was highly suspicious, and the NCAA, followed the lead of the Clearing House, when they disqualified Rose's eligibility. I hate how the NCAA does things as most do, but they have the right to change their postion if new evidence or suspicions cause them to investigate and then discover not so good things. The NCAA clearinghouse! I think their ability to correctly assess situations really needs to be looked into though.
Easy Does It, 1.9 is not a D average, it's a C average. Let's not overstate things to make a point. It's unnecessary. Not sure where you got your 4.3 figure from - ((1.9 x 3) + 4.3)/4 =? 2.475 - but the NYT article says Bledsoe would have to have made mostly As in his core courses, so that much is clear.
As for how, you might have read this, from the principal of the private school Bledsoe attended after this failed public school closed:
Martin said Bledsoe’s grade turnaround at Parker “isn’t hard to do anywhere in Birmingham, Ala., if you make somebody put their feet to the fire.”
“I’m not saying it wasn’t a challenge,” he said. “He knew what he had to do at Parker.”
Martin said he never saw Bledsoe’s final transcript and said his grades were not altered or inflated while he was principal.
Martin, in an interview outside his house, praised the teachers at Parker and said that if a student needed help, “he was going to be with one of these teachers over here who was going to get him what he needed.”
So there's your answer, Easy Does It. Yes, it's worth looking into, but the point is it was looked into. Very carefully. Twice. By the NCAA. And they certified Bledsoe's eligibility. So what new information justifies the reexamination? We haven't a clue.
As you say Easy Does It, "you just don't get it".... Bledsoe re-took some core classes that replaced lower scores he had previously received thus he did not need to have a 4.0 his senior year to have "magical" raise his GPA.
Plus, factor in that he went from a defunct public school to a private school it's easy to see how a young kid could improve himself with the individual help he would get at a much better institution of learning. To any educated mind this is much ado about nothing, to the jaundiced eye there is nothing but conspiracy.
20 comments:
And on this, John Clay shows that he leaps to conclusions before all information is known. Glad Mr. Clay is following in Jerry Tipton's path of writing about UK with a negative slant.
Perhaps a better question would be:
How long will the NCAA continue to clear players and then *question* themselves later for doing so?
What about the student-athlete's image which is often destroyed in the wake of such allegations? What about the colleges, universities, and coaches which have their names drug through the mudd all becuase the NCAA continues to engage in a policy of second-guessing their VERY OWN clearance process. But wait....is the NCAA questioning anything or are the Coach Cal and UK haters just stirring the proverbial pot?
I think all of this is BS. I thought it was BS when it happened to Memphis and it will be more of the same if it happens at UK. In my opinion, this makes the NCAA *clearing* house look bad, but the media will be sure to focus on Coach Cal and Kentucky. Why? Because its both easy AND expected. Responsible journalism is dead!!!
The media should be questioning why the NCAA isn't investigating its own clearing house protocol. However, to do so would require GENUINE investigative journalism and a lot more work and a lot less innuendo.
Sadly, it appears that Clay has decided to march in this week's Anti-UK pissy parade....unfortunate, but predictable.
Does John Clay not read anything? The bells did go off and everybody took another very close look at his academic eligibility and found his record clean. The NCAA looked twice, Sandy Bell scrutinized his record and his HS provided the grades!!!!!! What in the world else would one do to verify a player's eligibility? Give him a lie detector test? Use enhanced interrogation techniques on his teachers?
In the summer of 2008, Eric went to summer school and began the process of getting his grades to the point he would be college eligible. Thus he knew of the importance to his future of getting his grades up. No school at that point was ready to offer until he looked to become eligible. So he understood what needed to be done and was willing to do the work.
The NCAA asked questions in February, most likely because they received at tip from someone. I wonder who? We will never know. it would be nice to know if the NCAA has actually decided to continue the investigation but of course the NCAA might not get around to saying anything about this for another year, if ever. Meanwhile the only potential immediate harm comes from the release of Eric's private information (transcripts) and a very public question of his character which could have an impact on his draft position (I do believe that a player's character is important to some NBA teams)and that could be a financial detriment to Eric.
Until someone can actually implicate Eric, Cal, UK or any other school with any evidence at all. This is just nothing but innuendo.
I don't have a problem questioning the coaches involvement but I also think the landlady (who says she let Eric's mom stay in the apt for 8 months without getting any rent so she is now owed $3,200) sounds less than credible to me too. That may or may not end up being a violation in the eyes of the NCAA but it strikes me as ironic that thousands upon thousands of dollars in salaries and travel expenses have already been spent and will continue to be spent to find out the truth behind this $1,200 violation in order to protect the amateur purity of NCAA basketball. Does anyone else see the absurdity here?
You are 100% correct, the NCAA clearinghouse is a complete sham.
Sports "news" is not news at all, more akin to conjecture and innuendo.
Someone should tell John that they don't hand out Pulitzers for piling on.
Clay's premise is that Calipari can't say no to a good prospect (Camby, Rose, Bledsoe) when "red flags" are popping up all over the place.
But what exactly should cause Calipari to say no when everyone involved in reviewing the kid's academic and amateur status - the home state's public school system, the NCAA's Initial Eligibility Clearinghouse, the university's compliance office, which is perhaps the strongest in the country - declares and certifies, sometimes more than once, that the kid is eligible to play Division I basketball?
Is he never supposed to sign a kid who comes from a poor family?
Is he never supposed to sign a kid who improves his grades at a private school?
Clay is comfortable criticizing in the abstract, but he falls down rather badly when it comes to articulating a policy that can be implemented in the real world.
Let's run with that, Wheatgerm. Maybe Calipari should make an announcement that because of the NCAA's impotency in reviewing a kid's amateur status, UK is now forced to protect itself against the NCAA by no longer accepting recruits who come from poor families.
The 2009 poverty guideline for a family of four (such as Bledsoe's) is $22,050. To be safe, because he is under so much scrutiny, Calipari should extend the ban to "low income" families, those earning 150 percent of the poverty level.
"If your family income was less than $33,075 last year, we're not interested," John Calipari announced today. "It is a regrettable fact of life that poor people are more susceptible to accepting impermissible benefits, either because they are ignorant or because they have lower ethical standards than those who have even slightly higher annual incomes. And we can't take that chance."
Gentlemen,
My congratulations on each of your posts. I've read more thoughtful, reasoned judgments with logical questions raised here than on all other related 'major' media articles combined. - I tip my hat.
Calipari continued to address a stunned audience. "Likewise, we can no longer accept students who show academic progress. Maybe you were the victim of a failed public school system. A regrettable and all too common problem. But if you transfer to a private school that cares enough to finally give you the attention you need to succeed in the classroom, we don't want you.
"To protect ourselves against the NCAA, we must presume that you cheated. Or that someone cheated on your behalf. It makes no difference how many organizations review your academic record and certify it as trustworthy. Once the victim of a failed public school system, always a victim.
"We wish you luck in finding a job."
Haha, the sad part is, that is not far off the truth. I guess it comes down to the fact that both UK and Cal need to dig up every recruits record since pre-school and make sure they have the grades. Then, plant a spy in that recruits life to make sure he is not accepting illegal benefits from his high school coaches or boosters. Finally, they need to make sure the kid takes his own SAT by walking him into the classroom where he is to take the test, standing in that room the whole time while he is taking the test and make sure he finishes. Then we can worry about whether or not he actually wants to commit to UK...
This is the point. What is a coach supposed to do to avoid this kind of thing? Everyone's quick to point a finger, but no one wants to solve the problem.
Either the NCAA allows member institutions to rely on its review and final certification (that's what they call it, "final") of academic and amateur status, or colleges are going to have to protect themselves against the NCAA by closing their doors to a certain segment of society, the vast majority of whom are in fact eligible and innocent of any wrongdoing.
The sad thing is, the NCAA appears to want to make sure that everything is fair, balanced, and on the up and up. However, it seems that the NCAA (based on certain articles and past instances) is willing to compromise the character of some players, coaches, and schools as it strives to maintain justice in college athletics. But what is just about a system that oozes with bias and favoritism? Many universities seldom contend with these kind of accusations. Why? Because they are not UK. In addition, the witch hunt that has followed Coach Cal throughout his coaching career has become tiring. Either provide solid proof that he has conducted himself improperly or shut up.
I really wish Coach Cal would go after some the media figures that continue to assassinate his character. Whatever happened to defamation of character? Coach K's undies got all bunched up when he was depicted as a devil. Hello, you are the coach of the Blue Devils......deal with it.
Signed,
Disgusted UK fan in the Mountain West.
Remind me again what Bledsoe did wrong here.
Is anyone accusing him of cheating in high school? Of having someone else take his ACT? Of forging his transcript? Of taking money from his high school coach? Of taking money from anyone?
Lost in all this is the fact that Bledsoe himself appears to be a completely innocent bystander.
This may be off topic, but if the landlord received the rental payments from someone else, let's say from a drug dealer, would that be okay with the NCAA?
I kinda think so.
And we're talking about rental payments. An ordinary and necessary living expense. Kanter's professional team may properly cover his ordinary and necessary expenses to play basketball, so what's the NCAA's concern in the Bledsoe case?
True, it's not like Eric received any cash or car or merchandise or prostitutes.
Question. If the NCAA determines that Eric's mother got $1200, could the NCAA vacate a limited number of games, instead of the entire season? Didn't Wall have to sit out 2 or 3 games for receiving some kind of benefit, something to do with traveling with his AAU coach? Maybe that's the extent of the danger from the rental payments. And maybe restitution would help, but who would you repay? The high school coach who denies it?
It's the academic side that threatens all the games Eric played in last year.
whoa whoa whoa, hold on, you all have missed the point.
This is about Bledsoe's academics. I know the rent money is an issue, but it isn't the leading character of this story.
How can a kid have a 1.9 D average through his jr year and then average a 4.3 his sr year to qualify. I know you guys bleed blue through and through, but this really begs several questions. Is it suspicious? Yes it is.
If it is then there should also be a quustion about his college ACT or SAT scores. And for God's sake , please don't tell me he turned it around in one year.
These are legit quustions. I don't know the answer, but I know they are suspicious.
No one ever proved D.Rose cheated, but it was highly suspicious, and the NCAA, followed the lead of the Clearing House, when they disqualified Rose's eligibility.
I hate how the NCAA does things as most do, but they have the right to change their postion if new evidence or suspicions cause them to investigate and then discover not so good things.
The NCAA clearinghouse! I think their ability to correctly assess situations really needs to be looked into though.
"The NCAA clearinghouse! I think their ability to correctly assess situations really needs to be looked into though."
Ummmm, that's obvious. If they are unable to stand by their "final" decisions, then perhaps they shouldn't be making any decisions in the first place.
Easy Does It, 1.9 is not a D average, it's a C average. Let's not overstate things to make a point. It's unnecessary. Not sure where you got your 4.3 figure from - ((1.9 x 3) + 4.3)/4 =? 2.475 - but the NYT article says Bledsoe would have to have made mostly As in his core courses, so that much is clear.
As for how, you might have read this, from the principal of the private school Bledsoe attended after this failed public school closed:
Martin said Bledsoe’s grade turnaround at Parker “isn’t hard to do anywhere in Birmingham, Ala., if you make somebody put their feet to the fire.”
“I’m not saying it wasn’t a challenge,” he said. “He knew what he had to do at Parker.”
Martin said he never saw Bledsoe’s final transcript and said his grades were not altered or inflated while he was principal.
Martin, in an interview outside his house, praised the teachers at Parker and said that if a student needed help, “he was going to be with one of these teachers over here who was going to get him what he needed.”
So there's your answer, Easy Does It. Yes, it's worth looking into, but the point is it was looked into. Very carefully. Twice. By the NCAA. And they certified Bledsoe's eligibility. So what new information justifies the reexamination? We haven't a clue.
2.0 C
3.0 B
4.0 A
1.9 D
As you say Easy Does It, "you just don't get it".... Bledsoe re-took some core classes that replaced lower scores he had previously received thus he did not need to have a 4.0 his senior year to have "magical" raise his GPA.
Plus, factor in that he went from a defunct public school to a private school it's easy to see how a young kid could improve himself with the individual help he would get at a much better institution of learning. To any educated mind this is much ado about nothing, to the jaundiced eye there is nothing but conspiracy.
Post a Comment