Here’s summer league video of Jerry Stackhouse (in white) getting “LeBron’d” by some dude named John Wall at some tournament called the N.C. Pro-Am, and I’m having a hard time figuring out which dude is the pro and which is the am. Stackhouse, who started all of one game for the Mavericks last year, just got served by an incoming college freshman.. Wall will be playing at Kentucky this winter, probably helping new coach John Calipari restoring that program to national prominence and then doing whatever dudes do in Kentucky, like hunting, fishing and voting Republican. via.
UPDATE: ESPN confirmed it; Calipari is heading to Lexington.
With college basketball’s Final Four finally fortified, attention shifts to the other 343 programs in NCAA Division I, many of which have already begun waiting ’til next year. One program not satisfied with simply waiting was Kentucky, who could barely get Billy Gillispie out the door before putting together a plan to make a home-run hire. Specifically, that plan was a large sack of cash. They called Florida’s Billy Donovan and wafted the smell of old, sweaty money through the phone. Donovan, who already is believed to be the highest-paid coach in the college game, said no.
Memphis’ John Calipari was something of a media darling heading into this tournament–he’s such a great recruiter, he’s really put that program on the map, Memphis would have been a 1-seed had they played in the Big East–such that it almost seemed that ESPN was putting together a pitch for Calipari for anyone who was listening. Kentucky was listening, and their pile of money has seemingly found a home. How much money it actually is depends on who you ask, but it’s assumed that whatever Calipari receives will supplant Donovan as the best earner in his sport.
From CollegeHoopsJournal:
Update, 3:43 p.m. ET: News is now starting to permeate that Memphis has asked permission to speak with Missouri’s Mike Anderson. That’s as much of a surrender outside of a direct quote from anyone that you could ask for right now.
Update: 6:35 p.m. ET: WHAS has reported that Calipari has accepted the job at Kentucky. WLEX has confirmed that report. It’s all over but the press conference.
Press conferences are easier to win, anyway. It’s too bad that you have to blow ass for a few seasons before you can actually have one.
UPDATE: Obviously this went down Friday, but yeah, Gillispie is now gone.
From the outsider’s perspective, the only true qualification that Kentucky basketball coach Billy Gillispie seemed to have was that he was whiter than Tubby Smith. Smith, you’ll remember, was ran out of Lexington in 2007 after fans had to suffer through second round exits in the NCAAs. Gillispie has fared no better, and in fact led his team to a fantastic collapse to end his second season with the team, and Kentucky missed the Big Dance for the first time since they were on probation in 1991. And now a report from Score on the Leo Weekly blog (thanks, flubby) says that Gillispie will be fired when his season ends. It’s credible enough for us to run here, which means absolutely nothing:
The termination, I’m told, will happen soon after UK’s last game.
I’m told that a player mutiny was afoot, that as many as five underclassmen declared their intention not to return if BCG did. And that the school’s administration is disinclined to let that happen. Especially since the coach has been a PR nightmare since he stepped on campus.
I’m told that UK president Lee Todd himself made the decision.
So there. For the record, Kentucky beat UNLV last night to advance to the field of 16 in the NIT last night. And they couldn’t even play the game in their own arena, as the place was rented out for the state high school championships. It was fitting, as the Kats hadn’t played in that gym since 1976; their last NIT appearance before last night came in 1979.
Originally posted March 18, 2009
Wisconsin ousted Michigan from the thrill-a-minute roller coaster that is the Big Ten tournament yesterday. Final score: 51-34. Those 34 points are the lowest total in Big Ten tourney history. Ugh.
So it really is like 2girls1cup. Fans sit down before the game and are like "All right, college hoops!" And at tip-off they're like, "Yes, yes, good…" Then the game gets underway, and it might as well be girls eating shit and vomiting on each other.
In other college hoops news, the SEC tourney is all sorts of fucked because a tornado with Sherman's attitude gave the Georgia Dome the what-for. The Sporting Blog's Spencer Hall has several excellent first-hand reports from the scene, including this photo essay and a recap of events that includes the updated schedule. Kentucky will play three games in 27 hours if they get to the title game, which would be totally insane if the players had classes or tests to take.
Patrick Patterson plays basketball for Kentucky. I'd never heard of him before today. He is now famous, to me, not for playing basketball for one of the most famous college programs in the country, but because he rammed his finger in his nose and put the results in his mouth.
Oh sure, some people will say that it's gross to eat boogers, but they're the same culinary Philistines who don't enjoy the taste of their own semen or the occasional crap sandwich. Hey, you gonna finish that smegma?
As far as I can tell, the college basketball season always begins with tournaments that offer no particular meaning other than some clashes between big-name schools. That's probably what the planners of the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic had in mind when they made Kentucky, Oklahoma, Connecticut, and Memphis the regional hosts of a tourney that would conclude in Madison Square Garden.
Apparently, the Gardner-Webb Bulldogs didn't get the script, because #20 Kentucky got its clock cleaned by a school that was expected to be at the bottom of the Atlantic Sun conference. The Wildcats opened the game by falling behind 14-0, and they never came closer than seven points the rest of the game, as white people with weird names like Grayson Flittner (22 points) and Auryn McMillan shocked the nation's winningest college hoops program at fabled Rupp Arena.
Anyway, even though a mid-major beats a big program early in the season every year (plus a couple more times in the NCAA tourney), this is some kinda big deal because we all like underdogs and it's fun to laugh at the Kentucky fans who are now selling their MSG tickets on Stub Hub.
Man, what a bitch of a morning. I had to research all sorts of things I'd never heard of before, like "2K Sports College Hoops Classic" and "Gardner-Webb College" and "college basketball."
