Can Calipari, Pitino co-exist in Kentucky?

Boston Globe reporter Marty Dobrow, who covered John Calipari during his rise to national prominence at UMass, explores the complex relationship between Calipari and Rick Pitino, his mentor and now predecessor as Kentucky coach.

More reaction about Calipari: The lure of Kentucky was too hard to pass up. No, Calipari is nuts to go there because it’s the toughest job in college sports.

Hey, isn’t this some kind of April Fool’s joke? And what if “Worldwide Wes” shows up in Lexington?

This is for certain: Calipari was “born to coach at a place like Kentucky.”

Today’s headlines belong to Kentucky

As the Elite Eight was winding down Sunday in his current hometown, Memphis coach John Calipari was busy entertaining the very likely possibility that before the Final Four tips off in Detroit, he will be the new coach at Kentucky.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal reported Monday that Calipari has already met with his current Memphis players about the matter, leaving some with the impression that he’s Lexington-bound.

Jerry Tipton reports from Lexington that Calipari’s current deal with Memphis is good for $3 million a year and hears Dick Vitale describe this likely hire as “an absolute grand slam.”

A Memphis television station is saying that Calipari-to-Kentucky is a done deal, and he’s taking two of his Memphis players with him.

If Cal hits the Blue Grass, it will be a great injection not just for Kentucky, but also for an SEC that was absolutely moribund last season and has very little in the way of great coaching personalities to reverse that course. The league may never enjoy the days when the likes of Wimp Sanderson, Hugh Durham, Sonny Smith, Richard Williams and Dale Brown lifted the SEC out of a football-only mindset with their humor and by recruiting top-flight players. But perhaps some kind of renaissance could be underway with Kentucky, naturally, leading the way.

I just wonder if the Commonwealth of Kentucky is big enough to contain both Calipari and Rick Pitino, their outsized egos and enormous ambitions at two basketball-made institutions.

Just another slice of intrigue, another great example of why I think college basketball is the most fascinating sport on the North American landscape.

But that’s just this woman’s perspective.

Final Four’s half from the Big East, at least

UConn staved off Missouri’s pressure and Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds broke Pittsburgh’s hearts in the final half-second Saturday as two Big East teams reached the Final Four in displays exemplifying what’s been a resounding season for teams from the nation’s toughest league. Louisville’s favored to make it a threesome.

Is the ACC ‘Almost Completely Carolina?’

The Tar Heels were rounding into national championship form in demolishing Gonzaga Friday (as was Louisville in routing Arizona), but North Carolina is all that’s left of a once-proud ACC that Duke alum John Feinstein proclaims is just as mediocre in basketball as it has been in football.

Gillispie out at Kentucky; Donovan denies report

After two rocky years Billy Gillispie is “not retained” by Kentucky, but the school maintains it won’t be paying the full $6 million buyout amount stipulated in a contract that Gillispie never signed.

Florida coach Billy Donovan, who turned down Lexington two years ago after Tubby Smith left, is denying an Orlando report that he’s going to assume the mantle once held by Rick Pitino, for whom he served as an assistant there.

Stay tuned.

This isn’t Duke of old

Dan Wetzel watches the Blue Devils go down hard to Villanova in the Sweet 16 and notes that they haven’t advanced past this stage of the NCAA Tournament in five years.

UConn’s ‘waist deep’ in greed, arrogance

Jeff Jacobs of the Hartford Courant unleashes his rage at the revelation of alleged recruiting violations by the Connecticut men’s basketball program.

The most unsavory element here, far beyond the heavy volume of contacts with former Huskies recruit Nate Miles, is the agent-as-college recruiter role played by a former UConn team manager.

Marc Isenberg of the Money Players blog points out that even claims by former a UConn player, Rip Hamilton, that the manager-turned-agent, Josh Nochimson, stole from him didn’t deter the UConn coaching staff from working with Nochimson to land a deal with Miles.

The NCAA has started looking into the allegations, first reported Wednesday by Yahoo! Sports.

But a full-fledged probe is likely to be a long, drawn-out process, as NCAA probes usually are. What are the chances of a heavy punishment if UConn is found guilty? Keep the following in mind.

Bud Withers of the Seattle Times, writing last summer in Basketball Times (article not online), noticed that the number of major football-playing schools getting probation for major violations has steadily decreased since the 1970s:

“This decade, you can come from South Central L.A., live at the Playboy Mansion and drive a Bentley with a Hollywood starlet riding shotgun, and because of something called plausible deniability, it’s cool.

“As long as the cash cow stays plump, Myles Brand, the NCAA czar, seems to be happy. Nowadays, it’s all about money, and you can’t make any if you’re sitting out of the postseason on probation or off television. In the face of ever-escalating costs and a full ration of women’s sports — very few of which are moneymakers — the mantra is, let it be.”

FIFA, UEFA resist doping compliance

The World Anti-Doping Agency could threaten the future of Olympic soccer if FIFA (as well as UEFA, the European soccer confederation) continues to resist a provision that requires them to report the “whereabouts” of players for at least one hour each day.

Olympic soccer has never been a big deal for FIFA, but its resistance in rooted in more complicated factors. In World Soccer magazine for April (not available online), Keir Radnedge warns that the international soccer governing board shouldn’t risk testing WADA’s resolve:

“Standing aloof is not an option. Staying out in the cold — no matter how you dress it up — says you have something to hide, the secret that ‘dare not mention its name.’ “

As for the players:

“If pampered, out-of-the-real-world superstars are too deeply engrossed with their PlayStations, the ‘whereabouts’ information can be provided by their agents and personal managers.”

Maybe so, but this all smacks of far too much Big Brother than is necessary. I’m no fan of how FIFA operates in general, but perhaps its recalcitrance can get WADA to back down on this nasty little piece of unnecessary oversight.

Congress to hold hearings on BCS

The same Congress that didn’t notice it included monster raises in its AIG bailout is determined to hold the lords of college football to account for their errant ways.

No time to rest for Lady Vols

The Tennessee Lady Vols were in the practice gym two days after their shocking first-round loss in the NCAA Tournament, and not just to work out the bad vibes of Pat Summitt’s earliest postseason departure ever. It followed a team meeting during which she asked players whether they intended to stay with the program:

“We went around the table and I said ‘you in or out. We need to know,’” Summitt said. “I told them if you want to leave now’s the time . . . We’re getting ready to raise the bar on the expectations we have on the court and in all your strength and conditioning work.”