The Kentucky basketball program continues to find itself in undesirable situations. First it was the revelation that Enes Kanter probably isn’t eligible as an amateur anymore and now we find out Eric Bledsoe isn’t really as smart as a sheet of paper says he is.
An in-depth report from The Birmingham News found that Bledsoe not only had a dramatic increase in his GPA by attending night school before college, but that he also aced Algebra 3 before he took Algebra 2.
Now that there’s some redneck math.
“That meant Bledsoe needed to jump from a 1.75 core GPA in almost three years at Hayes High School to a 2.475 by the end of his high school career at Parker.
Those would be two different schools and by golly, who would have guessed what the final result would be? A 2.5 core GPA allowing him to play NCAA basketball.
Do you know how easy it is to be qualified to play an NCAA sport? Remember taking the SAT? Yeah it sucked, but it wasn’t all that hard. According to the NCAA sliding scale that weights GPA vs ACT and SAT scores, even if you had a 2.5 GPA like Bledsoe, all you would need is an 820 on the S-A-freaking-T to qualify. And if you have a 3.5 or above Рall you need is a 400 combined. That’s like writing your name, drooling on the test and having your saliva fill out the Scantron.
So what does this mean for the heralded 2011 SU recruiting class? Not a ton. But, there will most likely be implications for UK down the road.
Does this mean John Calipari did anything wrong? Not necessarily, but it sure sounds like strings were getting pulled behind the scenes somewhere. Maybe nobody is guilty of anything, but there are probably very few people who are innocent.
Perception is reality, no? So if you’re a potential one-and-done (Fab Melo?) recruit, are you going to choose the program with a fairly clean track record for the last two decades (Syracuse) or one that churns out NBA players but also find itself in plenty of hot messes and eligibility snafus (Kentucky)?
In this case, by just doing nothing and letting the competition screw themselves, the Per’Fesser wins again.
Posted: Mike Couzens
