What do recent transfer waivers mean for UK basketball’s Olivier Sarr?
Five things of interest, to me anyway:
D.J. Carton gets a transfer waiver. You may remember Carton. He was a freshman guard on the Ohio State basketball team that beat Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic last December. Not long after, he left the Buckeyes to focus on his mental health. After averaging 20.4 points and three assists per game in 20 games, he decided to transfer. Thursday he received a transfer waiver to play immediately at Marquette.
What does this mean for Olivier Sarr, a new and talented Wildcat who transferred to UK from Wake Forest? Sarr is also seeking a waiver to play in 2020-21. If he doesn’t get it, he’ll probably move on to pro basketball instead of returning to Lexington for his senior season. Sarr departed Wake after head coach Danny Manning was fired. That wasn’t the case with Carton.
What’s interesting is the swiftness of the ruling. Johnny Juzang left UK on March 27 and received a waiver May 27 to play at UCLA. Carton left Ohio State on April 15. His case was decided in two months. Sarr entered the transfer portal on May 5. Kentucky reportedly submitted the paperwork late last week. I still think the 7-footer from France will get the waiver. Either way, we should know soon.
Kentucky’s 2020-21 athletic budget. As expected, the budget Mitch Barnhart submitted to the university’s Board of Trustees for approval on Friday is smaller. The proposal calls for a 17 percent decrease in department spending. Team travel will be reduced. Same for recruiting travel. Coaches’ salaries will be kept flat. Blame the pandemic.
Other schools have achieved cuts by other measures. Louisville furloughed staff and cut coach pay to achieve a 15 percent reduction. South Carolina’s head coaches have taken a 10 percent pay cut. Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota and Houston are among schools that have cut coaches’ pay. UK hasn’t gone that route. Not yet anyway.
Dr. Fauci says there may not be football. This was a little jarring. After all, Dr. Anthony Fauci has been nothing if not the voice of reason through this pandemic. He’s the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. And Thursday he said “football may not happen this year’ unless NFL athletes live in a bubble.”
What does that mean for college football? After all, Texas reported Thursday that 13 of its athletes have tested positive for COVID-19. Last week, Houston shut down workouts after six athletes tested positive. It’s going to be a tough road between now and that Labor Day opening weekend, but I still think the powers-that-be in college athletics will try to navigate that road. There’s too much money involved not to try. Bottom line. Masks on. Fingers crossed.
SEC puts the pressure on Mississippi. Commissioner Greg Sankey released a statement Thursday night saying that if the state did not remove the Confederate flag symbol from its state flag, the conference would reconsider having Mississippi host any of its athletic championships. Mississippi State University President Mark Keenum issued a statement saying he understood Sankey’s stance. Ole Miss Chancellor Glenn Boyce issued a similar statement saying the school “concluded years ago the Confederate battle flag did not represent many of our values.”
This comes on the heels of Florida announcing Thursday it would drop the “Gator Bait” chant because of racial imagery. I posted the particulars on the blog. I admit to having no idea that the phrase had an ugly backstory. But then I’m not from Florida.
What’s amazing is how quickly things have changed since the repulsive killing of George Floyd sparked widespread global condemnation and Black Live Matters protests. I wrote about some of that with regard to players’ power in my Thursday column.
Side note: Former Florida safety Lawrence Wright once said, “If you ain’t a Gator, ya Gator bait, baby.” So he’s not happy. “Me and the president need to sit down and talk about this,” Wright told the Gainesville Sun.
Independent record stores. My old friend Walter Tunis — we go all the way back to our Kentucky Kernel days — has a story about how CD Central has fared during the time of pandemic and quarantine. I was in the store just the other day to pick up the new Jason Isbell, which Walter references in the story.
I know, I know, we live in the time of streaming. Just recently I was surprised to hear from a longtime music lover that he was all in on streaming and hadn’t been to a record store in forever. So much for the days of Sound 2000, Cut Corner Records and Spy Records. All long gone. Here’s hoping CD Central survives.
This story was originally published June 19, 2020 at 9:22 AM.
