Calipari - UMass jersey retirement

[Jackson96]

Well if he went to UMass and has an issue with celebrating Cal, then he should really have a problem when UConn decides to honor Calhoun.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

^

He's been active responding, so we'll see what he has to say to that.

[Swampy]

Anybody on the board go to the event tonight?

Athletics put these up...
http://www.umassathletics.com/view.gal?id=187626

[SignMan]

Intense...
https://usatthebiglead.files.wordpress. ... =640&h=348

[InnervisionsUMASS]

https://youtu.be/Glacui5hcKE

[Berkman]

I was talking with my wife this morning about the celebration last night honoring Coach Cal and mentioned that it was a $ 300 a plate affair. She asked who was going to get a share of the profits and I said that it probably will be the Athletic Fund. Anyone heard anything about where the profit is going?

[fenway617]

Well if he went to UMass and has an issue with celebrating Cal, then he should really have a problem when UConn decides to honor Calhoun.

And he covered the Yankees so he should have a problem with them honoring admited steroir user Andy Pettit. And more importantly Joe Torre who manged teams that had multiple steroid users on his team. Torre oversaw a culture of cheating which lead to the Yankees winning a lot of games.

[CarriageEstates22]

^
Jesus this is quite the leap. People on this board are so f*cking sensitive about anything negative said about Cal. It's mind-blowing.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

^

It is? How is Cal supposedly knowing about Camby a leap from Torre supposedly knowing about his players cheating? Or Calhoun supposedly knowing about the plane tickets/laptop thefts/recruiting violations/terrible academics?

[mlaconte459]

^ Exactly it will be interesting how he covers Ortiz final year as a sox reporter. Only where he is because of Steroids.. So if he stays true to his word he should bash every mention of him all year.. Guy is scum and a troll no matter how you look at it. I wish the globe would just go under so we dont have to deal with this crap anymore.

[MikeUMA]

Anybody on the board go to the event tonight?

Yes

[fenway617]

Jesus this is quite the leap. People on this board are so f*cking sensitive about anything negative said about Cal. It's mind-blowing.

Read Pete Abraham Twitter posts yesterday about this topic then respond. You'll change your mind (unless you're a Yankees fan). He said Cal knew what was going on, lured players with hookers and money, created a culture of cheating, and used it to win games. None of which was ever proven and Cal was cleared by the NCAA of any wrongdoing. Pete Abraham covered the yankees so it is fair to ask if he will or does hold Joe Torre to the same standard.

And just today Pete Abraham released his HOF ballot for 2016 and he voted for 2-3 players that were directly linked to steroids.

[LS71]

This ongoing sh*t about Coach Cal continues to piss me off. Sorry for the long quotes...I don't know how many people take the time to click on links and actually read the stories...but how does Calhoun get a pass from this guy? If the NCAA had something to pin on Calipari, I think they would have. How about you?

From the article posted by DrG:

The National Collegiate Athletic Association came down hard yesterday on both the University of Massachusetts and the University of Connecticut, stripping each school of its victories in the 1996 men's basketball tournament.

The penalties were imposed for the illegal acceptance of gifts by Marcus Camby of UMass and Kirk King and Ricky Moore of UConn during the 1995-96 season....

...Connecticut was ordered to return $90,970, 45 percent of its share from appearing in three games in the same tournament. The penalties were imposed by the N.C.A.A. Executive Committee at its annual meeting in Pebble Beach, Calif....

...he Connecticut penalty was imposed because King, a senior co-captain, and Moore, a sophomore guard, became ineligible by accepting plane tickets to their homes in Baton Rouge, La., and Augusta, Ga., respectively, in October 1995. UConn won two games in the 1996 tournament before losing in a regional semifinal.

King, who originally denied having been given the tickets, but then conceded he had received them, was suspended for the Huskies' last 19 games in the 1996-97 season, including five in the National Invitation Tournament, thus ending his collegiate career in midseason. At the time of his suspension, King was the team's leading rebounder and third in scoring. He now plays with the Connecticut Skyhawks of the United States Basketball League. Moore, who also admitted accepting airline tickets, was suspended for five games.

Officials and coaches at both UMass and UConn have maintained that they were unaware that the players had violated any N.C.A.A. rules. And N.C.A.A. enforcement officials have conceded that neither school knew that Camby, King and Moore had competed in the 1996 tournament while they were ineligible. That lack of knowledge was a mitigating factor against even more severe sanctions...

The UConn basketball program is still on probation because the school was caught -- first by Yahoo! Sports, then by the NCAA -- using a booster turned agent to buy a recruit. Say what you want about John Calipari, Scott Drew or any of the other coaches who turned up on our list of perceived cheaters last month, but none of them have ever been caught leading a program that worked with a booster/agent to secure a commitment from a prospect neck-deep in extra benefits. Calhoun, on the other hand, was caught leading a program that did exactly that, and the Huskies remain on probation because of it. So that's a stain.

Also a stain: UConn can't play in this season's NCAA tournament because of its terrible APR score that's a result of subpar academics. Also a stain: Calhoun is considered by most to be the primary reason Jeff Hathaway was run out of Connecticut a year ago, meaning the basketball coach basically fired his athletic director 13 months before his exit. Also a stain: The timing of this decision essentially forced UConn to promote an unproven assistant to the position of head coach at a time when the roster is depleted and the team is setup to lose a bunch of games, which is almost certainly why Calhoun is walking away in the first place. You really think he'd be retiring if UConn was eligible for the NCAA tournament and in possession of enough talent to advance in the bracket? Please.

That's all part of Calhoun's legacy, too.

That's also part of this story.

And it's why it would be wrong to spend this space waxing poetically only about how Calhoun made college basketball relevant in New England, about how he built a program out of nothing in the middle of nowhere, about how he signed and developed Rip, Emeka, Kemba and dozens of other NBA Draft picks, the last being Andre Drummond and Jeremy Lamb. That's some of story, and that portion of the story is really impressive. It's why Calhoun is in the Hall of Fame, and deservedly so. But the other part of the story is about a bully who apparently didn't demand the same type of excellence in the classroom from his players that he demanded on the court, about a stubborn man who walked away only when his body failed him yet again, about a rule-breaker who left a program on probation, banned from the NCAA tournament and without the kind of talent necessary to compete in the Big East.

Read that last (really long) sentence again.

[mdogt12]

Cal will be on with Bertrand and ZO at 12:50

[MikeEsq]

Anybody on the board go to the event tonight?

Yes

How was it? How would you describe the event? Well done?