Calipari's Perfect Timing | From the KOKX Sports Desk at sports.keokukradio.com

If I???m a college basketball fan???I am anxiously watching the Kentucky Wildcats this season. Even if I???m not necessarily a UK fan. Why the sudden interest? Their new head coach is now the only coach to have two teams reach the Final Four???only to have impropriety force his schools to vacate those appearances. That means the records of those teams are stricken from the books and the school has to pay back any money earned from the appearances. John Calipari was the head coach at UMASS in 1996 and saw that Final Four team vacate because of improper benefits to one of his players ??? star Marcus Camby ??? given by an agent. Calipari left immediately after that 1996 season to take a job with the New Jersey Nets of the NBA. Now, word comes that his record-setting team at Memphis that lost the 2007 championship game to Kansas had an ineligible player. The NCAA says that one player on that team was not eligible because someone else had taken that young man???s SAT test, resulting in a fraudulent admission to the university. That player was not named, but all signals point to it being Derek Rose, the dominant freshman who led the Tigers that season and went on to become the number one overall pick of the NBA draft. Calipari left after the 2008 season to become the new head coach at Kentucky. To be fair, Calipari has not been implicated in either of these cases, but once is a trend, twice is a pattern. He may not have been directly involved, but as we???ve seen many times before, whatever happens is ultimately the responsibility of the head coach. Why does this have significance for UK? Several of the nation???s top recruits had committed to Calipari at Memphis. Many have now changed and signed to attend Kentucky. He has one of the most highly touted recruiting classes if many years. My question for the Wildcats and their fans: Which one of these recruits is going to be the one to bring down a season? Calipari has had two teams vacate Final Four Seasons. Calipari has left within a year of those teams ??? before the penalties from the NCAA hit. Talk about good timing. Kentucky wanted the best coach possible to get them back to prominence and the Final Four. Be careful, Wildcats. You may just get what you wish for???and everything else that seems to follow.