Brandon Marshall, Pacman reincarnate?

-Just saw the ESPN story on Denver Broncos' wide receiver Brandon Marshall and his seven--count them, seven--counts of domestic abuse. In an interview with Bob Ley, when asked what do the abuse accusations say about him, he attempted to dodge the question by brown-nosing the NFL and lightly admitting that "it's a problem".

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell gave Marshall a 4-game suspension for violating the league's personal conduct policy last season, and for a player with the talent of Marshall, this is disappointing to see.

Though he has never actually been responsible for a shooting or a mass brawl, Marshall is starting to look a lot like former Titan/Cowboy/current NFL bad boy Adam "Pacman" Jones. He seems to feel as if he is above the league and maybe a longer suspension will be something that may be in order to set him straight. He's only going into his fourth season in the league, so if he reforms now, he can save a promising career, but as of now, he bares a striking resemblance to the career of Jones, who started early in his career with the criminal extracurriculars and has subsequently been black-balled by the NFL and it's teams. If Marshall isn't careful, he could end up like Jones.

No team wants to take a chance on a P.R. nightmare in a time when the commissioner can be a bit suspension/fine happy at times.

Like Pacman, Marshall has never been a locker room distraction so much to the team, but more just a hazard to himself.

Marshall will be playing under a young coach in Josh McDaniels starting this season and maybe playing under a coach who is closer and more relateable to himself will help him rehabilitate, it'll be interesting to see how he adjusts.

Thoughts?

Something to chew on...

-So now the word is that newly-annointed Kentucky head coach John Calipari's former staff at Memphis is under investigation by the NCAA for major violations with the academics of a player from their 2007-08 squad. Sources say it's Derrick Rose and has to do with possible shoty SAT scores...Not like the kid needed to go to class anyway.

The Memphis Commercial-Appeal reports that Cal's name is not in the report and Kentucky said they knew about the allegations, which came to light on January 16. He has also been asked to appear at the hearing by the NCAA on June 6.

Seems a lot like his situation at UMass in the 90's when the Minutemen were forced to vacate their 1996 Final Four appearance after improper benefits were paid to players, most notably Marcus Camby. Calipari was cleared of any wrong-doing.

Not a great two days for Calipari. First, he loses four players to transfer, neglect or just flat quitting (though most UK fans would tell you that isn't a problem), now this. The road to success is (ahem) bumpy.

If UK knew about the allegations beforehand, then they know exactly what they were getting, so any future trouble with Calipari and the Big Blue program can't be blamed by the university on being naive. But it will be interesting to see how something like this affects the fanbase and what road they see their program going down.

Thoughts?

New Era, Lost Tradition

-Tradition is something that fans of Kentucky men's basketball have come to inherit, something that has stood the test of time and coaching changes. No matter who took the reigns, Kentucky was always had a coach who both respected the tradition of the proud program and also wanted to do everything in their power to further it.

New UK coach John Calipari's move today makes me wonder whether he is that coach.

Calipari has basically given walk-on guard Landon Slone the silent treatment according to reports by Brett Dawson of the Courier-Journal, which in turn, has been Slone's indicator that he is not welcome in the hallowed halls of Rupp next season.

While this situation may play itself out in the next few days, it seems like this is something that the fans of Big Blue Nation are sorrowly overlooking.

Richie Farmer, Brandon Stockton, John Pelphrey, all players from rural Kentucky counties who have played for the Big Blue. It's been the roots for the fanbase, they are players the common fan can relate too. Granted yes, these are all former Mr. Basketball winner in the state, but the concept is still the same.

Slone played sparing minutes last season for Billy Gillespie. In those minutes, he proved his worth. The kid bleeds blue, he's always been a Wildcat fan, and would gladly sit the bench for three more seasons if that means success for the Cats, just being able to practice and play for UK is enough for him.

But according to Slone, he was ignored by Calipari and instead talked to an assistant coach who told him that Calipari's teams feature a total of two walk-ons in his nine seasons at Memphis (and one was last season, J.J. Henry, who was used to lure his younger brother and top-10 2009 prospect, Xavier, to Memphis. Xavier signed with Kansas after de-commiting for Calipari when he left for UK).

As a lifelong Kentuckian and someone who has seen the devotion to the program that I have seen over the years, the fact that UK fans are not at all upset about this confuses me and gets me to thinking that the rose-colored glasses are fitting a little too tight to their collective faces. Yes, this is a new era of UK basketball. Calipari has the best recruiting class possibly ever coming to UK, he has support, charisma, more money that most second-world country's annual budgets and a reputation of winning as of late. But all that has made for a possible loss of tradition that could be imminent.

It's not a crime to let Slone go. But it could be the first step in UK losing the tradition it has held on to for so long. Kentucky graduates players, Cal's teams at Memphis routinely graduated less that 10%. UK keeps a clean program (excluding the Eddie Sutton years), the 1996 Calipari-coached UMass team was forced to vacate it's Final Four appearance after players received improper benefits.

People can change, Calipari may do so. Maybe the new coach comes in and not only reforms the teams ways on the court, but also reforms his reputation off it.

But something that doesn't need reformation is the proud Kentucky traditions, and they must hope that Slone's cold-shoulder treatment isn't the first step to that.

Calpari Makin' Moves

-It's another day in the neighborhood of UK hoops and new coach John Calipari has pulled yet another ripe fruit from the recruiting tree and nabbed John Wall, a top-5 player in the nation and his third top-15 recruit of the offseason.

No doubt the guy has proven he is able to compete on the biggest stage off the court, now it's a matter of time before he can prove that all this talent will bring on the court success. It's been an amazing about-face for the UK faithful in the past three months. Going from the firing of Billy Gillespie to the hiring of Cal to the pristine class he is bringing in. I wouldn't be surprised if a few fans showed up at hospitals for treatment from being delirious.

Bottom line, the guy is single-handedly resurrecting the Kentucky name all over the place, and he's the right man for the job. Talent-wise, the team is Final Four-calibur, and outside of Wall's misdemeanor breaking and entering charge, none of the players seem to be getting into trouble. But as of now, Wall is the final piece to a 2009-2010 squad that should be top-10.

Now the question will be if they can play.

I'm Back

No fear folks. I'm back after a long hiatus with the College Heights Herald owning my life. I'll be posting soon. Also, check out my twitter page, Twitter name: otbthinker

Irrelevant Irrelevance

Just another example of how most MLB players, current and former, are handling the rampant steroids accusations that I'm pretty sure your mother has been accused of in the past year:

Former Mets clubhouse attendant and all-around steroid pit boss Kurt Radomski, in an interview on ESPN's Outside the Lines, alleged that he gave former New York Mets pitcher Dwight Gooden steroids, not really surprising considering Gooden was on everything but skates at some point in his career. When ESPN asked him his response to the allegations, Gooden referred all questions to his inner 13-year-old, responding in a text message reading...."LOL".

Good to see Dwight still hasn't lost his youthful exuberance.

Youth Movement

Yet another sign of the apocalypse, ESPN.com reports that the socialist, agenda-wielding group known as the NCAA deemed that 7th graders--thats right, 7th graders--as college prospects. This coming months after the National Association of Basketball Coaches set restrictions on college coaches and their recruiting habits, no doubt focusing on the craddle-robbers of the hardwood.

The real question here is, why? What does a kid who probably spends more time texting that praticing his jumpshot should be available for scouting by coaches two levels above them? Do they want a visit from Chris Hansen? Does it give a school's boosters an opportunity to try out their latest bribery techinques? "I'll trade you two snack-packs for your verbal."

Maybe it was a scare tactic. Some people in the business I have talked to say this was a way to prevent coaches from calling the players. In the report, it is said to be a way of preventing college coaches from working middle-school-aged camps and gaining a recruiting edge over other programs. Hence the drop in the cut-off age from ninth grade to seventh. In that respect, it is a great idea.

But on the other hand, this only presents just one-more challenge that certain college coaches will have to find a loophole for to gain that edge. In this day of 'microwave' expectations, most programs will stop at nothing to find ways around the NCAA and their rules, and it seems to not stop coaches from doing what they can to win and subsequently keep their jobs.

It will be a matter of time to find out whether this curbs recruiting young, but if young players these days are choosing colleges before high schools (see: Boatwright, Ryan) it may just make players work harder to find a way to get to college coaches.