Everyone, including Saul Smith needs to calm down….

If Saul Smith keeps this up, Tubby won’t let him blow the whistle to

start practice anymore. Seriously, this Calipari involved in the Memphis

violations talk have gotten WAY out of control. And the worst part is

that UK gets a public rebuke from Saul Smith.

Saul Smith weighed in on the “Cali-versy” today on his Facebook

page. “Bad day for my alma mater. The UK athletic program

will never regain it’s true champion nature with businessmen

running it. Never, no matter how many so called blue chippers

you bring in. You can’t sacrifice your integrity for success. You

just can’t do it. I’m an alum and I deserve a clean-ran program,

plain and simple. Period. And if anyone disagrees, you, my

friend shouldn’t support the program I played 4″

Whaaaaaaa???

I am an alum and I feel that getting a public rebuke from

Saul Smith is akin to the embarassment I felt when the TV

announcers would talk about the local celebrities at a Magic

game and you would see “Urkel” or Carrot Top.

Saul’s rant deserves a prologue. It should be noted that he

interviewed for an assistant coach program with Cal at

Memphis in 2007. Shortly after, UK informed Tubby that Saul

being a coach at UK would be in violation of UK’s nepetism

policy and *poof* Tubby was gone to Minnesota and Saul

was signed as coach a short time later.

The post mysteriously disappeared from Saul’s page

shortly after it appeared. I am sure that Tubby gave him a

call, reminded him he is a COACH now and that

this kind of thing is uncalled for. Donna then made

him comb that godawful hair and promise not to

pose for anymore pictures looking like that.

Now on to the Memphis violations and the

controversy that is following Cal. Seriously, this is

not a big deal. The more you read about it,the

more overblown it is. But let’s look at the charges again.

The travel violations and hotel violations concern

Derrick Rose’s brother. It is not uncommon for friends

or family to travel with the team and they always

reimburse the program. That is pretty common practice.

It looks like Memphis had Reggie Rose’scredit card

number on file in their office and they routinely

charged it for these trips. This seems to be

nothing more than an oversight. Hell, the

Orlando Sentinel has my credit card number on

file and they once went almost 6 months without

charging me for my paper. It happens.

Bottom line is it is not Cal’s position or even

the assistant coaches to go and make sure that

everyone’s credit card info is correct. Cal’s a

coach, not a stewardess.

The SAT is a bit trickier but there is no

indication that Cal or his staff had anything

to do with an improper test. If anything it looks like

the UM Compliance office dropped the ball on this one.

Also it looks like all SAT tests and high school

transcripts are cleared by the NCAA Clearinghouse.

Players register with the Clearinghouse as early as

their junior year in HS and I recall from these tests

that I had to provide proper ID to a school district

employee.

And the bottom line here is that the NCAA

Clearinghouse cleared Rose to play. So

where is the violation in Memphis playing a

kid that the NCAA cleared?

The fact of the matter is that the “major

violations” that were trumpeted in the headlines

belong to the women’s golf team. The basketball thing

got thrown under the same umbrella. And don’t

think for a moment that the NCAA did not take this

opportunity to do a THOROUGH investigation of

Cal’s program at Memphis. And this is all they found?

I actually feel better about Cal as our coach as

a result of this but the real damage is being done to

his reputation.

Consider that the guy has been through two NCAA

investigations. One for a Marcus Camby accepting

money from an agent. Which Calipari turned into

the NCAA himself! And now this.

And so far Coach Cal has NO violations on his NCAA

resume while Rick Pitino in Louisville has 8

violations from his days as a Hawaii assistant

coach PLUS an ugly extortion case in which the

details have yet to be heard.

Seriously, everyone needs to just calm down.

That means you too, Saul.

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