UK basketball notebook: Southern Cal a cautionary tale
Follow the money, that famous phrase from the Watergate political scandal, applies to college athletics. The pursuit of money guides the current seismic shift in college conferences. It can also suggest how much — or how little — schools want to know about potential problems with coveted prospects.
Attorney Michael L. Buckner, who earlier this spring said that Kentucky either knew or should have known about questions involving then prospect Eric Bledsoe, sees thorough research as preventative medicine. Learn all you can about a prospect in order to make an informed decision about whether to recruit the player. Or to be armed with answers should the NCAA come forward later with questions.
For fees ranging from $1,500 to $10,000 (tip money for an athletics program like Kentucky's), Buckner will give a school a thick file of information.
So how many schools have hired Buckner to look into a prospect's past before a program decides to recruit a questionable player?
"None have used me," he said.
Only after the NCAA starts sniffing do schools hire Buckner and the handful of firms around the country that do similar work.
Buckner saw the NCAA penalizing Southern California last week as a cautionary tale.
"Kentucky fans should look at the SC case as what not to do," he said. "The NCAA called out SC for not doing their due diligence in monitoring a prospect (O.J. Mayo) and an enrolled athlete (Reggie Bush)."
Southern Cal said it did not know about Bush and Mayo getting improper benefits. As John Calipari's Memphis program learned, plausible deniability (another famous phrase in political scandals) does not prevent sanctions. Memphis said it did not know about Derrick Rose's fraudulent college entrance exam. Maybe so, but the NCAA still ordered Memphis to vacate 38 victories and its 2008 Final Four appearance, plus return post-season monies.
Now with the conferences realigning to reap more money, does the prospect of fatter coffers make schools even less likely to want to know about potential problems?
"That's exactly what I think," Buckner said.
When Buckner said Kentucky should have known about red flags in Bledsoe's transcript and serious questions about his recruitment, he did not mean to denigrate UK's compliance efforts. Compliance offices are spread thin dealing with hundreds of athletes and an NCAA manual as thick as the IRS tax code, Buckner said.
More than one reader sent e-mail messages wanting to know more about this impertinent person who dared question UK.
Buckner, 39, lived in Louisville seven years, then left after his sophomore year at Male High School.
He graduated from Southern California, then law school at Florida State. Because of his love for sports, he specialized in college athletics when he launched his own Florida-based firm in 2003.
In 2009, Buckner made history in representing Alabama State in an infractions case. The NCAA Division I Infractions Appeals Committee reduced from five years to three years Alabama State's probation. Alabama State became the first (and so far only) NCAA member institution to obtain a penalty reduction since the NCAA made appeals more difficult to win in January 2008. Memphis was one of the schools that failed to win such an appeal.
Buckner worked for the NCAA in 2006. He helped the NCAA investigate prep schools to determine which legitimately educated students and which merely got athletes eligible by any means necessary.
That experience led Buckner to appreciate some prep schools and wonder if the NCAA's effort had flaws. He said the NCAA was "ignoring, intentionally I think, public schools because they don't want to deal with the politics involved."
Some athletes told Buckner that some public schools gave athletes good grades so they could play.
"It's a lot easier to pick on private schools than to pick on a state board of education or state government," he said.
From Buckner's experience, decisions based on a thorough investigation of prospects help a school avoid NCAA problems.
"They'll close the file," he said of NCAA investigators. "There's no further investigation and no media uproar."
But, first, schools must want to know about prospects and be willing to put integrity ahead of athletic prowess.
Oh, Canada
A year ago, the University of Windsor made the first contact with Kentucky about playing an exhibition game. Windsor, a city in a portion of Canada that is due south of the United States, tries to play a U.S. college team each summer.
The Lancers have played such schools as Ohio State, Virginia Tech and Syracuse in recent years.
Kentucky passed on the chance to play last summer. But when an NCAA rules change made incoming freshmen eligible to play such games before the start of the fall semester, UK's interest grew.
Did Windsor contact UK because it could benefit from a foreign trip because of its dependence on freshmen?
"More so because it's a marquee program," Windsor Coach Chris Oliver said last week. "We're trying to bring an event to our community. It was an amazing opportunity."
UK will play Windsor on Aug. 15 and 17. The Cats will play the University of Western Ontario on Aug. 16.
All three games will be in Windsor's St. Denis Centre, which is across the Ambassador Bridge from Detroit. (Take I-75 to Detroit, turn right onto the Ambassador Bridge. Then turn left at the first light onto the University of Windsor campus. You can't miss it.)
Tickets are not expected to last long once they go on sale Monday. By the way, tickets are $10 per person and $5 for children 12 and under.
Windsor officials wanted it known that only 2,500 tickets will be available. And fans should come early to the games. There are no reserved seats. It's festival seating.
The tickets are available by calling Windsor's sports information office at (519) 253-3000, Ext. 2447. There are also walk-up sales in Windsor at Nantais Source for Sports (2020 Tecumseh Road West).
Windsor, a school with 12,000 undergrads, has been rated in Canada's top 10 the past three seasons and won its conference championship three of the last four seasons, Oliver said.
The coach likened his team to a "low Division I" team in the United States. Size is a problem, with the team not expected to have anyone taller than 6-foot-8. Matchups with big guards are especially problematic, Oliver said.
He acknowledged that Ohio State "drilled us pretty good," in a game that the coach said had a final margin of more than 40 points. The Lancers played Virginia Tech within 25 points.
"We're under no illusions," Oliver said. "We're not expected to win. We're expected to, hopefully, compete."
Best coach
John Wooden's death led many to proclaim him anew as the best coach in college basketball history. Who could argue such a claim?
Ten national championships, four unbeaten seasons, an 88-game winning streak and an additional 38-game win streak in the NCAA Tournament blow away any objection.
But it did make me recall a telephone conversation, circa 1990, in which I asked Wooden who he thought was the greatest coach. I expected him to say Dean Smith or Bob Knight or another of the familiar luminaries.
Instead, Wooden noted that the coach at, say, Butler, who had a 14-14 record that season, may have done the best coaching job in the country.
UK-UT rivalry
John Adams, a columnist with the Knoxville News Sentinel, suggested last week that Kentucky-Tennessee is the Southeastern Conference's best basketball rivalry. If the league gives CBS a UK-UT game the final weekend of the regular season, then Adams is correct. For many years, the network has gotten a Kentucky-Florida game in that spot, which suggests what the powers that be consider the best game.
Anyway, here's what Adams wrote:
"UT football has slipped to the point that it has more in common with Kentucky than it does with either Florida or Alabama. In coach Derek Dooley's first season, the Vols are in no position to contend for a conference championship. Like Kentucky, they will be trying to become bowl eligible.
"However, football isn't the only reason Kentucky will be UT's biggest rival in the 2010-11 school year. Basketball will further bolster the rivalry.
"Coach Bruce Pearl has elevated UT basketball to the point that it can regularly challenge the conference's marquee basketball program for supremacy. Because of that, Kentucky-Tennessee has become the best basketball rivalry in the SEC.
"In Pearl's first four seasons at UT, the Vols finished ahead of the Wildcats in the SEC East standings; this past season, Kentucky won the SEC championship and 33 (actually 35) games, but the Vols were still playing in the NCAA Tournament after the Wildcats had gone home.
"Coach John Calipari might have recruited another super class to help compensate for the Wildcats' freshman migration to the NBA. But Pearl has recruited a big-time class as well,
"So you can expect more of the same next season."
2.18
The UK men's basketball team grade-point average for the spring semester was 2.18, which represented improvement from the fall.
For comparison's sake, here's some spring semester grade-point averages for other basketball teams: Louisville 3.02, Florida 2.96, South Carolina 2.656, Georgia 2.54, Mississippi 2.50 and Auburn 2.25.
Sunny side up
If you prefer the sunnier side of the street, here's a note:
In the revenue-generating sports of football and men's basketball, Kentucky fared well compared to its SEC brethren in the latest NCAA Academic Progress Rates report.
In men's basketball, UK had the fourth-best APR, according to figures released by the NCAA on Wednesday. UK had a 954 rating. Only Vanderbilt (980), Alabama (966) and Florida (956) did better.
In football, UK ranked sixth among the 12 SEC schools.
Here are the standings in men's basketball: Vanderbilt (980), Alabama (966), Florida (956), Kentucky (954), Georgia (944), Tennessee (935), Mississippi State (932), Mississippi (922), LSU (918), Auburn (916), South Carolina (908) and Arkansas (886).
Here are the standings in football: Vanderbilt (975), Georgia (973), Florida (971), LSU (965), Alabama (957), Kentucky (951), Tennessee (944), Mississippi State (939), South Carolina (938), Auburn (935), Arkansas (930) and Mississippi (921).
Landry Fields
UK fans might remember Landry Fields, the forward for Stanford. He filled up the box score when UK beat Stanford in overtime in the Cancun Challenge last November. So why isn't Fields mentioned in any of those mock NBA Drafts?
He was the nation's eighth-leading scorer (22.0 ppg). He was an All-Pacific-10 first-team player. He even made the league's all-academic team.
Against Kentucky, Fields recorded his third consecutive double-double by scoring 23 points and grabbing 13 rebounds. He also had three assists, four steals and a career-high 45 minutes. (On the negative side, he made only six of 20 shots, including misses on all seven three-point attempts, and committed six turnovers.)
NBA consultant Chris Ekstrand saw Fields in the Portsmouth (Va.) Invitational Tournament in April. In his report on the PIT, Ekstrand called Fields a "clever scorer" who lacked "outstanding quickness."
Fields got credit for a "soft touch" and "smarts." But as a prospect, Fields was more a "top scorer in Europe than a 'blend' player in the NBA," Ekstrand wrote.
Tubby Time
A colt named Tubby Time broke his maiden by 12½ lengths in a maiden special weight race at Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minn., on Thursday.
Tubby Time, owned by Jeff Larson, was trained by Canterbury Park's leading trainer, Mac Robertson.
Yes, Tubby Time was named in honor of Tubby Smith when he became the basketball coach for the University of Minnesota.
The horse's sire, Devil His Due, stands at Margaux Farm in Midway.
Happy birthday
To Eddie Fogler. The former coach at Vanderbilt and South Carolina turned 62 on Saturday.
This story was originally published June 13, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "UK basketball notebook: Southern Cal a cautionary tale."