Kelvin is out the door and Dan is not our man, so that can only mean one thing: It’s coaching search time! Here’s a look at the candidates that could land in Bloomington. We’ll give you the pros, the cons and the bottom line. This afternoon: Memphis’s John Calipari.
Pros: John Calipari is a proven, lifetime winner at the collegiate level. His all-time record is 409-135, and while that number is inflated by the easy 20-ish wins Memphis picks up in Conference USA every year, the fact that Memphis is in a position to cruise through their conference so easily is solely thanks to Calipari’s program-building. Memphis doesn’t just run through C-USA — they are a perennial national contender, because Calipari might be the best recruiter in the country.
Once Calipari assembles his talent, his Memphis Attack offense (derived from Vance Walberg’s dribble-drive motion offense) is one of the most exacting, difficult offensive styles in the country. It forces teams to isolate each player defensively and dares them to stop Chris Douglas-Roberts or Derrick Rose from getting to the hole. The notion that players like that might one day be running Cal’s DDM offense in Assembly Hall is enough to make an uptempo hoops fan’s mouth water. (Hint: My mouth is watering.)
Cons: It’d be disingenuous to say Calipari’s near-legendary recruitment process always seems above-board. At the very least, he’s an admitted and open associate of William Wesley, and while that’s not a violation — Wesley’s a “friend of the program,” surely no different from many IU boosters — Wesley also happens to have a strange, iconic relationship with young talent. The upshot of this is that a Calipari IU program would be stocked with the best talent in the country. The downside is a nuclear scenario of someday finding out the creepy ways that talent got there.
Bottom Line: Calipari might be interested in the IU job, and the Hoosiers should give him at least a cursory look, but at the end of the day IU’s squeamishness about Calipari’s recruiting undertones will probably prevent them from getting too serious.
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Settle an argument, ITH-ers.
While making my rounds through Borders last night, I noticed a third college hoops publication on the shelves and it was that of CBS Sports. For the most part it looked like a solid magazine, sans the presence of Gary Parrish.
If you’re a fan of basketball at any level, you owe it to yourself to 
While we usually don’t put much stock into lists or pure speculation, this particular instance caught our eye. Mike DeCourcy, who covers college hoops (and does it quite well) for the Sporting News, listed his take on five potential guys who could go No. 1 in next year’s draft. Our boy, Eric Gordon, wasn’t among those listed, but we’re fine with that.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario where an IU fan would actually be happy about a five-star recruit choosing Kentucky as his college destination.
NCAA, per the usual, drops the ball with Memphis ruling
That Memphis club, which won 38 games before falling to Kansas 75-68 in the title game, was spearheaded by freshman point guard Derrick Rose. And after a lengthy investigation, the NCAA ruled that something just didn’t smell right when Rose took the SAT on May 5, 2007.
After failing to achieve a qualifying score on the ACT each of the three times he took the test in Chicago, someone, presumably not Rose, achieved the SAT scores needed on that early day in May.
Only this time the test was taken in Detroit, which also happens to be the home of William Wesley. You might know Wesley better as World Wide Wes, a confidant of Calipari. You do the math.
Calipari will do his usual song and dance when pressed to disclose whether or not he knew of possible indiscretions with Rose’s test score: Deny, deny and deny some more. It’s all in the past, right? It’s the same tune currently being belted in Lexington by fans who are desperate for a winner after Billy Gillispie flamed out last spring in the NIT.
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