guncurug

Rise of American Football in the Holy Land (Post Game)

 Reality TV comes to Liverpool (NYT)

 Conference rouletter rolls on; this time around it's the conferences other than the Big Six.(CBSSports)

 Perhaps baseball's best closer ever career may be coming to an end due to freakish accident (NYT)

Sacramento's continuing arena problems put Kings closer and closer to moving to Seattle (Seattle Times)via (SBN)

 X Games expanding to six cities on three continents for 2013 (Sports Business)

 Tanking, Incentives and the NBA (Sports Law Blog)

 Allegations against Billy Hunter of the NBPA and what it tells us about US labor law and player unions (Concurring Opinions)

 Minnesota governoralleges secret deal between Vikings and Republican legislators over new stadium for Vikings, paranoia? (Forbes )

Historic Calumet Farm, breeder of nine Kentucky Derby winners is sold for $35 million (C-J)

Another rivalry bites the dust; this time Kentucky-Indiana basketball game won't be played in dispute over location. Louisville would like to take Kentucky's place (abc11)

Should the US and Canada follow the rest ofthe world and ban race day medication? (C-J)

A classic long form look at the Derby from Louisvillian Hunter Thompson (Grantland)

Rosie Napravnik becomes first female jockey to win Kentucky Oaks aboard former Ky Governor's filly (DRF)

From the father of speed figures, it's Bodemeister in the Derby (DRF)

Well, at least you can say Calipari gets a decent return on his money.  Kentucky coach John Calipari has brought a team from a third school to the Final Four, joining former Kentucky and current Louisville coach Rick Pitino as the only men to coach three different schools to the Final Four.  Pitino's Final Fours are still recognized by the NCAA, however, which, of course, Calipari's first two, Massachusetts and Memphis, are not.

What did I mean by a decent return on his money?  It turns out that the UK recruiting budget is the highest in the country, at least among public schools in the Big Six BCS conferences.  His budget edged Kansas $434,095 to $419,228, but the gulf between UK and fellow Final Four member UConn is wide.  Jim Calhoun struggles by on a mere $175,740, the 18th largest in the country and the 3rd largest in the Big East.  As a private school, Butler doesn't have to release information.  VCU, a member of the Colonial Athletic Association, wasn't included in the study but it's safe to assume that its budget is significantly smaller than either UK or UConn.

There are many reasons that the New York Knicks have been as bad as they were before Mike D'Antoni showed up last season, but surely Isiah Thomas was one of the main reasons, so that makes the recent announcement that Thomas is being hired by the Knicks as a consultant all the more curious.  Adding to the intrigue, it appears that D'Antoni was not consulted on the decision.  Moreover, Knicks vice president and general manager Donnie Walsh opposed the hiring and was said to be livid that Knicks Chairman James Dolan went ahead and hired Thomas over Walsh's objections.


Aside from the questions that the hiring raises for the Knicks, the fact that Thomas will keep his day job as head coach at Florida International raises conflict of interest issues for both the NCAA and the NBA.  The NBA has not yet approved the contract and there is a chance that David Stern may reject it.  Several owners are said to be very upset and very much opposed to the hiring of Thomas, which must clearly be a stand they are taking on the potential conflict of interest issue and not on the effect Thomas will have on the immediate on court prospects of the Knicks. 


The NCAA should step in and put a stop to this arrangement and if there is no current rule that prohibits a coach from moonlighting for a professional team (hard to believe that one doesn't exist in that 500 page rule book, but who knows) then the NCAA Executive Committee ought to quickly pass one.  The opportunities for recruiting abuse that this example may afford are too numerous to mention and just because Thomas happens to be at FIU and not Florida or Kentucky doesn't make it any less of a conflict of interest or make the potential for abuse any less a real. 

The coaches who regularly put kids in the NBA are now selling their ability to get kids ready to be drafted, and academics and education be damned.  Imagine how much more powerful that message is if those same coaches are now employed as consultants to individual NBA teams.  Think Calipari at Kentucky would ever lose out on a top 5 recruit if he was also a consultant to the Nets?  How about Coach K and the Bulls?  Think this situation would be a good one for the other teams in their conference whose coaches don't have consulting agreements?  Think the gulf between the high majors and mid-majors would widen much in that scenario?

Brandon Knight is the consensus nunber one high school basketball player of this year's senior class and was perhaps the most sought after recruit this season.  He announced the other day that he would attend Kentucky, following the path to Calipari trod by Derrick Rose, Tyreke Evans and John Wall.  That path, of course, includes playing point guard for Calipari for one year, leading the team fairly deep into the NCAA tournament but ultimately losing and then leaving for the NBA after one year as a high draft pick.