Geoff Calkins of the Memphis Commercial Appeal asks the tough question as the school prepares to meet Saturday with the NCAA over allegations that Derek Rose had somebody else take his SAT.
While there are other issues on Saturday's agenda — former women's golf coach Jenny Bruun was providing extra benefits worth more than $3,000 to several members of her team from 2004-08, something Memphis has already acknowledged — the university is prepared to put up a fight in the Rose case.
Nonetheless, Calkins writes that "Memphis knew what it was getting when it hired John Calipari as head coach. For nine years, the guy had the run of the place. Is it surprising that he recruited a player who might have faked an SAT? Really? If you're being completely honest with yourself?"
"On the same day the university released its response to the Rose allegations, CBS Sports.com reported that Georgia did not accept Robert Dozier because of a 'fishy' SAT. Georgia officials apparently got a tip that Dozier's score might not be valid. When Dozier took the test again, he got a suspiciously lower score.
"So is Memphis just the innocent victim of a duplicitous point guard who passed himself off as something he's not? Or did the Memphis program under Calipari invite investigations like the present one? One thing's for sure: The university did a better job explaining the Rose allegations than it did explaining why it took so long to tell anyone about the scandal."
It appears others knew that something was fishy with Rose as well. Illinois athletic director Ron Guenther, whose school was one of three finalists for the point guard, told the Champaign News-Gazette: "We understood what was going on [with Rose] all along. The sport of men's basketball has issues that the NCAA has been trying to address. There are many tentacles to the problem, so there is no magic bullet to solve it. It has been a focal point for discussions in this conference for more than 10 years. We've had task forces looking into the AAU, the shoe money, the agent."
What does it mean for Calipari, who will respond to the NCAA allegations by phone because he's in China? Eric Crawford of the Louisville Courier-Journal said the Kentucky coach's forecast is likely clear to partly cloudy.
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