Kentucky Basketball: Answering Some Understandable Questions About Eric Bledsoe

if grades are changed for a mere basketball player, what might we assume is the grading culture for the Alabama football players? Talk about opening a can of worms ….

Excellent analysis, however, I can’t help but feel saddened by this event for the image it portrays on Kentucky & college basketball as a whole. (Yes — I totally understand that Kentucky was in no way, shape, or form, indicted by this issue. Yes – I understand that it’s business as usual. That said, it doesn’t paint Kentucky or college basketball in a positive light. It won’t take but a handful of eligibility issues like this and Kentucky’s image will be seriously damaged.) Calling this a win for Kentucky is much like saying we had to burn the village down in order to save it.

I debated on whether to even post my thoughts. But here goes.

Yeah, UK compliance did everything right. Yeah, Eric performed the work he was required to do in his only college year. Yeah, a desperately poor kid from an inter-city made it to the big leagues and his family escapes from rags. All of this is good.

But you argue that the end justifies the means.

The facts suggest that the Birmingham school tried to help a good young man escape from his bad situation. But standards are established for a reason. The transcripts posts were made two days before the first college visit. What message does this send to other kids in similar circumstances? “I don’t have to worry about it and do my work as I go through school. They took care of Eric and they’ll have to take care of me.”

Choices have consequences. In this case, the choices of the kid earlier in his school career would seem to make him unqualified for financial aid as a scholarship. Teachers and administrators making it all right just before it matters does not seem like the right thing to do or to send the right message to young people. It happens all the time? Maybe so, but I’m not convinced the end justifies the means.

UK and Cal bring this attention on themselves. The Bledsoe affair, the Kanter affair – these are just the tip of the iceberg. Cal does a good job recruiting players who don’t care about getting an education. His elite recruits arrive with the idea that they will be in the NBA after one year. They’re not committed to Kentucky. For this reason, Kentucky will never win a national championship under Cal and UK will likely end up vacating seasons, just as Memphis and Massachusetts had to vacate seasons under Cal.

NCAA officials have themselves spread thin in this vast arena of compliance in both basketball and football. The staff is in danger of making themselves marginal in their own game by the focus they chose to bring forward. While media may or may not spend time on a hint or charge of wrongdoing…the internet folk certainly do. This means the big names are always at the front of the pack. “The bigger you are…the harder you fall”.

Another point… with the numbers so high in recruits and the system so farcical in oversight there are simply too many students and too many places to adequately monitor or even look at. The entire Alabama school system…at least all Birmingham atheletes would have been fair game and we do no know the outcome of such a witch hunt mentality.

Last …a lesson learned here is the top recruits will get the most scrutiny. Add Kentucky and our coach to that formula and Kentucky recruits will not only get the most scrutiny but it will be ongoing. Before they come. After they come. While they play. After they leave.

We are stuck with this.

I think often that one upgrade on the system is to have a way to close the door. If a student is cleared by the clearning house…cleared twice by the clearing house and cleared by the univeristy that means the student is cleared. Additional historical information could not then be used to cancel his or her performance UNLESS…and all could make one or two catagories that would allow this perpetual review. All other things are finished.

I take issue with the categories of ex-felon often…as an anology. An individual never really walks away from that label. Some should not ever be allowed to avoid their behavioral consequences and yet others should be able to get beyond being punished for a lifetime.

Is this angst of scrutiny a given at Kentucky? Absolutely. Has Kentucky earned it? Maybe in the minds of some.
Can we meet these challenges and be who we are. No doubt.

We dodged a bullet-without doubt, Is there anyone who does not like Eric Bledsoe ? Is there one who is unhappy with him going to the NBA? Of course not. Are we glad he got a chance? Yes, we are. However, as a basketball program that is constantly in the limelight, we just cant afford to recruit kids like Eric anymore. The Alabama school board could have simply changed the grades back from As to a C and B. Eric would have still graduated from HS but would not have been eligible. I thought thats what they might do. Right now recruiting is not our problem, so why take the risk on a marginal student? The media is going to continue to exploit the UK program because of Coach Cal. Its unfortunate because Cal treats his players very well. even the ones who screwed him,e.g., Marcus Camby. What do we loose by being more careful and beefing up our Compliance office and looking at potential recruits like a regulator?

Everyone knows Calipari is a good recruiter. He’s smart, charismatic, sincere, good-looking, and every high school kid who wants to jump straight to the NBA knows he gives them a great platform.

But Cal is an empty suit. Let’s look at it this way. If the NBA returns to letting teams draft ballers straight out of high school, the Kentucky program would fall apart instantly.

Here’s the deal about Cal. He doesn’t recruit kids who want to play 3 or 4 years. For this reason, he has to reload every year. And being a great recruiter does not mean he’s a great coach. He’s a mediocre coach who gets great players.

Cal doesn’t build teams. The dribble-drive is not a system. It is not a framework for taking lots of talented (or not so talented) individuals and creating a team that is greater than the sum of its parts. You need a sophisticated coaching philosophy and players who are willing to commit to the school and the philosophy.

Kentucky will always do well in the regular season, but never make it to the Final Four because true “teams” such as Butler, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Duke (not just a group of talented individuals) will break them down every time.

don’t know what you are talking about – aren’t thinking straight – or are allowing the opposition/enemy to define the argument – so just shut it…

What standard are you referring to? The NCAA standard of a 1.725 gpa in a set of core classes? OK – the NCAA doesn’t say HOW that is to be accomplished. The district, high school and teacher have complete carte blanche to set the curriculum, syllabus and grade standard for any course. Everybody knows there are hard teachers and easy teachers. If you get an easy teacher are you saying you should, in all honor now, decline to accept the ‘A’ or ‘B’ or ‘C’ simply because you didn’t work as hard to ‘earn’ the grade as a student unlucky enough to have landed in the hard teacher’s class? (In my HS, some students actually transferred schools to avoid Mr. Stansbury’s English Literature class.)

Some teachers are lenient on make-up work and some won’t allow it at all, even illness not with standing. Which would you want your children to get? Your kid got sick, or just had a bad day and didn’t do well on a test but was allowed to make it up and thereby qualified for sports participation or a scholarship or, lord help us, your Dad wouldn’t have to take the car keys away because your grades slipped. My sister had a girl friend killed in a car accident and her grades plummeted. One teacher worked with her throughout the ensuing summer to make up the work and get her back on track – changing grades left and right as she turned in make-up assignments. You have a problem with this?

Some kids get to take PE all the way through HS, some HS’s don’t even have gym. In my HS gym class, attendance was all that was required – miss 4 or fewer classes without a prior arrangement and you got an A. (Some guys even slept through the entire hour on a padded weight bench making up for sleep lost working at a part-time job.) Kids at a school without gym might be said to be at a disadvantage if they had to take more academic (harder, perhaps, for less cerebral students) classes in order to earn their HS gpa. Is there a problem with that?

I also took a HS psychology class [Btw, this class would have qualified as an NCAA core course.] where if you agreed to participate in the teacher’s class experiments you got an ‘A.’ I thought it was a great class, not least because I didn’t have to take a test or do homework like the poor guys in the class next door. Is there an issue here?

I’m sure you get my point. Think about it and don’t let the opposition define the question/argument.

Regarding Cal’s chances of taking Kentucky to the Final Four, consider the following facts.

1). Cal’s returning players contributed 16 percent of Kentucky’s points last year. Rick Pitino’s returning players – even with the loss of Samardo Samuels – contributed 42 percent of Louisville’s points last year. Duke returns 62 percent of its points, even with the loss of Jon Scheyer.

2) Put another way, Kentucky is starting from scratch. Just like it will year after year with Cal. Until he gets tired of the grind and jumps to the NBA.

3) You cannot build a Final Four team from scratch with 18 and 19 year old kids. The problem is that Cal isn’t building a program. He’s operating a way station. His eyes are on the NBA, and so he recruits kids whose eyes are on the NBA. His loyalty is not with Kentucky (although he obviously doesn’t mind taking the school’s $4 million each year). Let’s count – how many other professors would that money pay for – 40? Or student scholarships – 200?

4) Let’s look at the incoming freshman. Look at the prep school basketball mills and foreign professional teams three of the top five recruits come from – Stoneridge Prep, Oak Hill Academy, Miami- Dade Community College. Realistically, are Kanter, Lamb, and Vargas at Kentucky to get an education? Let’s throw in Terrence Jones, too. We can concede Brandon Knight is a special, bright kid. But probably none will be at Kentucky — if they can help it – for their sophomore year. And the team’s GPA is not likely to rise with this crew.

5) What amazes me is that in this basketball environment – with players (and a coach) who have no loyalty to Kentucky or any real commitment even to building the program and to winning – that Kentucky fans are so loyal. It is truly touching.

If we do not do a better job on the compliance side in evaluating recruits, the media will have their way with us. The Bledsoe investigation was “media driven”. Someone sent Erics transcripts to the Times. If the media had not had access to the transcripts, no story!! The NCAA already cleared Eric. Unfortunately, reporters will continue to investigate Kentucky recruits. They will find out information on a recruits background as well as his parents and associates . John Wall is a good example. In an interview with a DC area reporter, he was told by the reporter that his father served time in prison. How is that ethical? John,s mother never informed him of that. How would you like to have to put up with that kind of crap?? So any recruit who has questions re his past will be scrutinized by the press. I will bet anyone that the story about Anthony Davis’s father and the $200K payoff will surface again and some boosters names will be mentioned. This will trigger endless speculation and the whole circus will start all over again.maybe even an NCAA looksee. The only way out of this is to recruit squeaky
clean players. Thank God we lost Josh Selby. KU might be the next school to loose a season.

Do I sound paranoid? Maybe a wimp?? I hate all this s_ _t.

Then how come Duke has won 5 national championships over the last 20 years? Close to the same for UNC and Indiana( with Bobby Knight). These schools try not to recruit student athletes with marginal grades. They have better Compliance offices than UK. I agree we can’t know everything about everybody, but are you unhappy we lost Josh Selby? I am not .Pity KU at this point. Even if the NCAA does clear this kid, if I were the KU coach I’d stock up on Zantac and get ready for the roller coaster ride!!

I do not think either Duke or UNC have lost scholarships, had players declared retroactively ineligible or lost full seasons of wins. UK over the years has a bad compliance record, maybe the worst in the history of college basketball. We have been clean since Rick Pitino or about 20 years. And that is great .However, we cant rest on our on that recent history. With Cal, we are a target. So lets recruit kids with a cerebral cortex that exceed NCAA standards. Look at Kyle Wiltjer, a 3.4 grade point and of course Brandon Knight. I dont expect that everyone we recruit to be this good, but it proves we can do it. And I will bet anything no issues will ever be raised by anyone about these 2 super student athletes!

I don’t think UK or Coach Cal did anything wrong other than role the dice on a player that might not be eligible. We can take that risk if we want to, but we have to understand we are taking a risk and accept the consequences that flow out of it. This result is good for Bledsoe. Best to move on.

But I don’t know if it is good for college BB. Maybe the NCAA ought to get out of the eligibility business like Bilas says. Maybe there should be 3 divisions, where Division I is an unlimited, under 24 semi-pro league where colleges recruit anyone they want and pay them want. Division II could have a salary cap of $100,000 and Division III could be the traditional scholarship, gotta make grades, etc, and see what people want to watch and how universities want to participate.

But on the other hand, watching Pete Carrol, Kelvin Sampson, Bruce Pearl, Jim Calhoun and arguing about these stories may be half the fun.