John Clay's Sidelines

Big Blue Links for Monday:

Steve Kelley of the Seattle Times knocks John Calipari in the Terrence Jones affair: “But there is a time when a coach should give up. There is a time when the clock has run out and a coach should shake a player’s hand and admit defeat. Take Friday, for instance, when Terrence Jones and his best friend Terrence Ross announced at a joint news conference, held at their Portland high school, they were going to play basketball for Washington. It was a day for celebration. It was their day, nobody else’s.”

Christian Caple of the Washington student Daily on Terrence Jones: “And he still might. Nothing is final or binding until Jones signs a letter, and he has until May 19 to do so. He had narrowed his finalists to UW, Kentucky, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon and UCLA by Friday’s press conference.”

John McGrath of the Olympian on Terrence Jones saga: “As Huskies fans were celebrating – the West Coast’s premier big man, on his way to Montlake – the story took a severe twist: Terrence Jones picked up the Washington cap because, after all, there were all these people in the gym, friends and family members and reporters and spectators drawn to the circus, and he figured he was supposed to choose, well, something. But Jones has yet to fax his signed letter of intent to Washington, as he’s having second thoughts.” (Hat tip Spam’s Wildcat Page.)

Jerry Tipton’s story Sunday about UK’s poor GPA in basketball: “The same Kentucky team that won the Southeastern Conference regular-season and post-season tournament championships had a cumulative grade-point average of 2.025 for the fall semester, according to records obtained by the Herald-Leader through an open records request. That was the worst of nine SEC schools that gave their men’s basketball GPAs to the newspaper.”

John Jackson of the Chicago Sun-Times says Calipari’s name could surface in Chicago: “It’s doubtful the Bulls will reach down to the college level — unless, of course, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski is interested — but one name to keep an eye on is Kentucky’s John Calipari, who coached Rose at Memphis and has previous NBA experience.” (Hat tip to Aaron’s UK Basketball Blog.)

Art Thiel of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on a weird Seattle weekend: “Also making news was the surprisingly semi-loquacious retirement monologue by the greatest Seahawk of them all, Walter Jones, and the recruitment to the University of Washington of coveted Portland prep basketball star Terrence Ross, as well as intrigue around the possibility of being joined by his more highly regarded teammate, 6-9 Terrence Jones.”

Austin Ward of the Knoxville News-Sentinel on Tennessee baseball knocking off UK: “But even if the offense mostly qualified as ugly on Sunday at Lindsey Nelson Stadium, combined with some stellar defense and tremendous pitching it looked gorgeous to the Vols after battling for a 3-1 win over the Wildcats. And no matter how it was earned, the series victory makes UT’s postseason chances look much more attractive as well.”

Aaron Smith of the Kentucky Kernel writes that UK baseball is on the ropes: “UK (24-20, 7-14 SEC) sits in tenth place in the conference, two spots behind the eighth and final spot that makes it into the postseason conference tournament. The Cats dropped a series to Tennessee (24-21, 8-13 SEC) this weekend. The two teams were tied for ninth place entering the weekend but Tennessee captured the position, dropping UK to tenth in the SEC.”

Mark Story’s column on UK as a possibility for the Big Ten: “For a singular reason, I think it would behoove the University of Kentucky to at least consider trying to become part of the Big Ten’s expected expansion process. That reason is football.”

Wildcat Blue Blog says Terrence Jones saga has a political feel: “If this all sounds eerily similar, let’s step in the way back machine to November 1999 and the 2000 Presidential election. The state of Florida was called early in the evening for Al Gore and immediately the Republicans howled in indignation and the the treats of recounts started immediately. The vote prediction was overturned in the late hours and Florida was awarded to George Bush. And right when things appeared the darkest for the Democrats, Gore held a very late night press conference to tell his followers to keep on fighting … and the Democrats were charged to continue the fight.”

A Sea of Blue on UK basketball’s bad grades: “This cannot make any UK fan happy, and I am absolutely not pleased. I have opined that “one and done” is as good a route to go as any, and that sports at many NCAA institutions runs in opposition to their stated mission of academic achievement. I stand by those comments, but I think we have to fairly examine the results of the fall semester.”

Straitpinkie is re-focusing on Terrence Jones: “Even though UK is in the mix and there’s a lot of uncertainty out there, I don’t think you can classify Jones as anything other than a Washington lean. It will take a lot for Jones to overcome the pressure on him to stay with Washington and the embarrassment of changing at this point.”

Kentucky Sports Radio on UK basketball’s bad grades: “The 2.07 GPA is way too low….lowest in the SEC, lowest versus our “rivals” like Louisville, Duke and Kansas by a great deal and the second lowest in the last 20 years at UK (only surpassed by Team Turmoil which had two players who I believe had a 0.0 GPA for the semester). Also while I love Calipari, when you go out and make a big deal about a player’s GPA being very good (in this case John Wall), then you cant be upset when people point out that the team’s GPA isnt good. That is part of the trade off.”

Bluegrass State Basketball on a couple of former Cats going for basketball titles.

Inner Circle on the academic debate: “Everyone knows that players like John Wall, Patrick Patterson, and DeMarcus Cousins are future professional basketball players. By the time July rolls around John Wall will be making more money in a year than we will in an entire lifetime. Think of this, I am a teacher. If the average teacher makes $40,000 per year and works for approximately 30 years, he or she will make 1.2 million. Pretty subpar when compared to what our UK basketball players will be making as pro athletes.”