Memphis Tigers Basketball

The Memphis Tiger's are being stripped of their 2007-2008, 38 win, runner-up season. The Tiger's season was full of memorable games, alley-oops, and steamrolling opponents. 

For an entire season Memphis brought us the most exciting college basketball team in years.  They gave us Derrick Rose and John Calipari, the nation's best freshman and the hottest coach money can buy.  

If not for a championship game implosion the Tiger's would be our National Champions, completing a dream season.  

But now its all coming unglued for the Tiger's.  Derrick Rose allegedly had a stand-in take his SAT test for him and Memphis forward Robert Dozier guilty of a similar scandal in 2004.

It has not been determined what exactly has happened with Rose or Dozier yet but the prospect of the idea is plain and simple—both would not be academically eligible on their own.  

After submitting a staggering SAT score of over 1200, Georgia had asked Robert Dozier to take the test again.  Dozier then submitted a score of 540...

...really?

Georgia refused to take Dozier after coming to the conclusion that the two tests were taken by two different people.  Two months later Memphis accepted Dozier.  

Now what bothers me is not that this scandal has actually happened, I'm not surprised and I don't think anybody is.  That's why this has all blown over pretty smoothly and we only had to hear about it for one full day on ESPN.

It has been the response from Memphis and everybody involved that has (as John Calipari would say) disheartens me.  

At what cost are we willing to win? How much do we have to pay to get a ring? How low do we have to sink to climb up the ladder?

Those are the questions Memphis should be asking themselves today.

Now we all know that it is very likely that Memphis is not the only school in the country that is sneaking in athletes that cannot academically perform to the standards set by the NCAA. Memphis just got caught.

But never have I seen the people involved run so cowardly from the situation as Memphis, Derrick Rose and John Calipari have in the last week.  

It disheartens me that Memphis president Shirley Raines believes these are unfair allegations and is in the process of appealing any penalty the NCAA can think of.

"We know the rules," Raines said. "We did our due diligence. We did everything we could to determine the student-athlete was eligible and that the rules were being followed." 

Really Shirley? Hmm. Did you?

John Calipari, now the big-man on campus at Kentucky has had little to say on the matter.  Calipari has been quoted that he was "very disappointed and disheartened by the NCAA's findings."

That's it John? You are compromising the last bit of academics that is left in big time college sports and all you are is "disheartened?"

I guess you didn't have time to offer more now than you are the star of a national powerhouse and have a top recruiting class to produce.  As long as it's in the top five, we won't care.

Pathetic.

Derrick Rose, the third person involved in the scandal has been quoted in a statement by his attorney saying, "I think it is important for people to understand that I complied with everything that was asked of me while at the university, including my full participation in the university's investigation of this issue, and was ultimately cleared to play in the entire 2007-08 season by the NCAA clearinghouse and the university."

Not even speaking for yourself Derrick? That's really going to give you a lot of credibility in an educational scandal. Rose must not have learned how to write his own statement during his stay at Memphis.

And last but not least there is the NCAA clearinghouse. An institution in which their sole purpose is to check academic eligibility.  They cleared Rose and Dozier twice. 

They missed it twice!

Its alright though, Memphis won 38 games, more then they ever had!

In order for this win-at-all-costs culture to change, it has to be more than just the NCAA board taking action.  

Players, fans, and coaches must has themselves how far they are willing to sink to win.  Is it as far as recruiting one-and-done's?  Giving a good player apparel to influence his decision? Or changing his academic scores altogether?

High School students all over the country struggle every month to pass this test. They study, they pay for tutoring, they stress day and night about the exam.  But Derrick Rose can jump higher then them so he gets to go to college.

Seems pretty fair to me.

I have never been more disappointed in the University of Memphis basketball program than I am right now.

I feel as if, after all these years, the childlike innocence and blue-tinted glasses have been violently stripped from me.

I’m embarrassed by the role that Memphis fans unwittingly played in the entire ruse.

The NCAA’s hands are scarlet-stained, as well.

And I will never be the same again.

The University of Memphis has basically stipulated to the facts in the latest scandal to rock the school: the Derrick Rose SAT score fiasco.

It is alleged that Rose had someone else take his SAT for him in Detroit on May 5, 2007.

The NCAA Committee on Infractions might have redacted his name in the original documents that they disseminated, and referred to him as “student athlete 1” in their summary report, but no one in the country believes it’s anybody else but Rose.

It has been established and accepted that the student-athlete involved was on the Tiger roster only during the 2007-’08 season; no other member of the program fit that description except Rose.

So, exactly what do we know, what do we not know, and why is it all so distasteful to the author?

Why should anybody really care?

Here, to my eye, is what we know for certain:

The University of Memphis is appealing the penalties assessed on the men’s basketball program by the NCAA Infractions Committee.

“We know the rules,” intoned U of M president Shirley Raines. “We did our due diligence. We did everything we could to determine the student-athlete was eligible and that the rules were being followed. That is the basis for our appeal.”

Notice what was said and what was not said. Dr. Raines said that the school had done everything possible to make certain that Derrick Rose was eligible.

If you read the entire transcript of her press conference here, you will read a polished piece of spin that could fool the uninitiated, or anyone who really does not want to dig beneath the surface for the truth.

The kind of person that I have been up until now.

Comb through the entire statement, though, and never once does Dr. Shirley Raines emphatically state that “student-athlete 1” took his own SAT.

Perhaps R. C. Johnson, the Director of Athletics, would address the root issue, and talk about Rose’s test score?

No, he did not. He, like Dr. Raines, stipulated that the secondary issue—impermissible benefits to Rose by paying his brother’s travel and lodging expenses for three road trips—was an administrative error, that the school performed their due diligence in regard to the athlete’s eligibility, and that the penalties levied were too harsh.

Yeah, R. C., but did Rose take his own SAT? Did the school, at any point in time, do anything more than simply ask the young man that question?

Check Johnson’s statement for yourself; perhaps I missed something.

University General Counsel, Sheryl Lipman, said even less than either of her two employers, and certainly shed no particular light on the matter with her brief sound bite.

I watched the presser that followed, and when one of the members of the media point blank asked, “Are you reasonably sure that Derrick Rose took the SAT for himself?” the damning silence that ensued was both awkward and telling.

No one sitting at the U of M’s table directly addressed the question. There was more rambling about “due diligence,” but nothing close to a “yes” or a “no.”

So, we know that the NCAA is ordering the return of proceeds from the 2008 NCAA Tournament, the wiping out of all wins (38), records, and accomplishments by the coach (John Calipari) and team, and the removal by the school of all vestiges of the season in the school record books, in the media guide, and at the practice facilities and home court.

What we still do not know is: what did Derrick Rose do (or not do), and when did the University of Memphis find out about it? Once they found out, what did they do?

Going back in time a little further, it is a now-known fact that the U of M was made aware that there was a potential problem with Derrick Rose’s SAT results on Oct. 25, 2007 by the Inspector General of the Board of Education of the City of Chicago (IG), just days before the new basketball season was scheduled to commence.

 

Now, the NCAA re-enters the picture, as Dr. Raines made a telling statement:

“The student was cleared by the NCAA Eligibility Center twice—routinely before the season, and, again, after we reported a high school grade change, which did not affect his eligibility.”

So that means that the hot potato was dropped twice: once by the school, but also by the NCAA.

It seems that everyone involved was willing to turn a blind eye.

The University of Memphis was in no hurry to rule Derrick Rose ineligible, pending a true investigation into the matter.

The NCAA Clearinghouse, which was created in 1993 as the NCAA Initial-Eligibility (I’m not making that up; see page two here), is supposed to “provide consistent interpretation of NCAA initial eligibility requirements for student-athletes.”

Put another way: “The NCAA Clearinghouse (Eligibility Center) is the final arbiter of eligibility.”

Yet it took the Chicago IG to contact the U of M and notify administrators of an allegation of improper conduct; the NCAA retroactively ruled Rose ineligible only because the Educational Testing Service invalidated his SAT score due to the student-athlete’s unresponsiveness.

I have yet to see a solitary shred of evidence that the Clearinghouse truly investigated the allegations.

Derrick Rose himself, who did not respond to letters mailed to his home in Chicago, never seemed particularly eager to clear his name.

Some people argue that Rose might never have seen mail sent to Chicago when he resided in Memphis at the time; but this was going down in May, 2008.

It’s almost a year-and-a-half later, and we’ve nothing but spin control from the NBA’s newest sensation.

And the NCAA Infractions Committee was just as sloppy and culpable as everyone else, as there is no evidence that they truly investigated the entire morass, essentially basing their final decision on mounds of evidence which was largely collected by the University of Memphis.

I’ve never really been a fan of the NCAA. It’s just a sprawling, autocratic entity that profits from student-athletes without truly looking out for the kids’ best interests. Yes, the organization provides opportunities for millions of athletes around the country, but they profit handsomely from the enterprise, as well.

And anyone who thinks the U of M has a snowball’s chance on the bright side of Mercury of getting the punishment lessened is probably running an extremely high fever.

All of that I can accept.

What I cannot accept is the fact that the U of M had good reason to at least sit Derrick Rose down and get to the bottom of the situation regarding his SAT score.

Yes, I know that there is a better than decent chance that I would not have liked what was uncovered.

And yes, I understand that this would have changed the course of the magical 2007-’08 season the Memphis Tigers put together.

But I couldn’t miss what never happened in the first place; being told that 38-2 and a berth in the National Title game is no longer officially recognized sure hurts a lot more now than perhaps winning 27, 28 games and a Sweet Sixteen appearance would’ve stung then.

More than all else, though, the admins of the University of Memphis, instead of finding out the whole truth and dealing with the consequences, are whining about the severity of a half-baked set of penalties and spinning things to assign blame somewhere—anywhere—except where it belongs.

This is the second Final Four that the school has had wiped off the books; I lived through the pain of the first in 1985.

I have loved and defended this school through the embarrassment of firing a living legend behind a hot dog stand on game night.

I endured the atrocities of a head coach who was vacuous enough to not only have a sexual affair with a coed (despite being “happily married”), but also careless enough to get caught.

But through it all, I was able to retain the services of my blue-tinted shades.

As disappointed as I am now, I’m crushing them under foot, never to be replaced. I will always love and fervently support the University of Memphis, but never again will I take everything that they release for public consumption at face value.

I now know that we were a part of the problem. The fans clamoring for victories at all costs. The willingness to excuse the questionable decisions. The hurry to turn a blind eye.

Something amiss went on here, and no NCAA penalties in the world will assuage that.

Nice try, Gary Parrish. Very nice try.

But if I were to say you were wrong, it would very well diminish the meaning of “wrong” for future generations, and I don’t feel comfortable doing that.

You are past wrong, beyond wrong if you will. You are located somewhere between fool and foolish, probably closer to the previous than the latter.

Okay, you are partially correct, using partially only in the loosest of constructions. Society doesn’t associate certain programs with being corrupt, programs like Ohio State and Oklahoma that had one bad apple and then faded into sustained high-profile mediocrity.

We as society associate those programs with the men who corrupted them, Jim O'Brien and Kelvin Sampson respectively.

But programs that succeed, programs that are glorified, programs that legitimately contend for a national title and then face the wrath of the NCAA and are never heard from again, we put the blame squarely on the program.

When I hear UNLV, I don’t think about its resurgence under Lon Kruger. Hahaha! Please; I think of Jerry Tarkanian and Bill Bayno and three decades of NCAA probing.

And by the way, you associate Tarkanian with Kelvin Sampson and Jim Harrick, who were both explicitly indicted by the NCAA as cheaters. Tarkanian, despite the NCAA spending more money investing UNLV than any other program before or after, was never found to have committed any violations. But that’s for another article, Gary.

No, I’m attacking you, Gary, not for your comments on Tarkanian, but for being a flat-out fool. So from here out, Gary, I’ll stay focused.

Unless something gets tied to the coach, or unless violations are found under the same coach at multiple institutions, society is not going to associate the violations with the coach.

And even then, if there’s enough time between the violations, we’ll still associate them with the school, not the coach.

Go ask any 10 college basketball fans who was the Southern Methodist coach in the 1980s when the school gave Jon Koncak illegal payments and I’ll bet you anything no more than two of them will associate those payments with Dave Bliss’ regime. They, like me, associate it with the wide-spread corruption at SMU during that decade.

Or for that matter, go ask 10 college basketball fans about St. Bonaventure. I’ll bet you anything nine of them remember the school having to forfeit their entire season for playing some guy (whose name was Jamil Terrell) even though that guy only having a welding certificate, but how many can remember the coach who signed him or the school president who gave the go-ahead?

While John Calipari’s reputation will take a hit, even if nothing can get tied back to him, in the long run it is Memphis that will lose credibility.

And there is one reason and one reason only: Memphis is not a major conference school.

We don’t associate Georgia with corruption, as you point out, because Jim Harrick and his son were the criminals. They were the ones who gave their students freebies to stay academically eligible. But Georgia is also a major conference school with a $1 billion television contract behind it.

Why would ESPN or CBS degrade a program that it’s paying nearly $20 million each year?

But Memphis and UNLV and Southern Methodist (at least since 1996) and St. Bonaventure are not major conference schools. They’re in Conference USA and the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA and the Atlantic-10 respectively, low high-major conferences at best and run-of-the-mill mid-majors at worst.

Sure, ESPN and CBS might show them a couple times a year, but never in the most coveted time slots unless they’re playing a major conference foe.

If one of them goes on probation, it’s because that's a bad program, not just because the coach wants to bend every rule.

And sure, there are exceptions, but not many.

Southern California’s athletic department is breaking rules left and right in every sport. So too is Florida State. But we give them the benefit of the doubt.

Southern California gets a pass because the NCAA has not investigated it in football and Tim Floyd has always been a shady character. Florida State took care of its academic scandal internally and has instituted more oversight over Bobby Bowden’s football program.

How much attention has there been on the fact that the Seminoles went on probation in nine other sports for the same scandal?

None if you have been keeping track.

Really, only Alabama among major programs has been associated with being a corrupt program in post-Southwest Conference NCAA history, and that’s really only because of their three major football scandals.

Miami too has spent time unjustly under the national spotlight, as somehow Dennis Erickson avoided the blame for the Hurricanes’ mid-1990s probation, but most of their attention is not for cheating the NCAA but for cheating the law.

No, major programs get associated with the coaches that bring them down, with Kelvin Sampson at Oklahoma and Dave Bliss at Baylor, with Tim Floyd at Southern California and Kelvin Sampson at Indiana. The big contract holders of ESPN and CBS will forever make sure of that.

But when you look at a small school, then the blame can be placed exactly where it needs to be: on the institutions themselves.

I don’t care what any of these coaches have done; I really don’t. If you want me to believe that the institutions did not know that their coaches were cheating, then you might as well put me in a diaper and hand me a bottle. I’m not that naïve.

Sure, they can’t keep track of every little thing, and trust me when I say every little thing is a secondary violation that you and I never hear about. If a school isn’t self-reporting a dozen minor violations a month, then clearly the school isn’t doing its job of self-monitoring.

But if you want me to believe that the athletes at Florida State took it upon themselves from the guidance of one “learning specialist” to set up their illegal test-taking ring, then you’re crazy. It wasn't just the someone in the institution thought he or she could help out a few students and created the situation where they were told to cheat.

No, someone higher up ordered it, even if that name never gets uncovered.

We need to blame the schools, and not just the Memphises and UNLVs of the world. We need to blame the Georgias and the Southern Californias too.

And that’s where you go wrong, Gary.

You think because we did not blame those schools (and we did blame UNLV), we won’t blame Memphis. And we will.

This is not the first time Memphis has gone on probation, and we blamed them the first time. And this is not the first time John Calipari has seen one of his former programs go on probation, and we blamed the school the first time, too.

Sure, Calipari will get his share of the blame, as he should, but much of it will be left on Memphis. And if Calipari wins a national title at Kentucky or takes them to the final four, all will be forgotten.

Which brings me to Kentucky.

Twice, Kentucky has gone on major probation, and the first led to one of only two complete uses of the death penalty ever on a major sport program at a Division I school.

In 1952, the NCAA canceled the Wildcats’ season due to a point shaving scandal under Adolph Rupp.

Then in 1989, the Wildcats almost were given the death penalty again after the NCAA found proof of improper benefits given to two recruits. Kentucky was placed on three years probation and Eddie Sutton was forced to resign.

But do we think of Kentucky as a corrupt program? Do we even think of Rupp or Sutton as corrupt coaches?

Most of us do not. They both won after the scandal to erase our memories

And that’s why Gary skims the line between being foolish and being a fool.

We, as a society, have too short of a memory span. If Kentucky wins soon, we’ll forget everything we think we know about Calipari and the only thing we’ll remember is that Memphis is a corrupt program.

And Calipari will win at Kentucky. That's as clear cut as a Sammy Sosa lie.

So Gary, you’re more than wrong. Just letting you know.

Nice try, but that's as much kudos as I'll give you.

Derrick Rose doesn’t have to play by the rules.

The former University of Memphis point guard never took the Scholastic Aptitude Test, instead having a friend sweat through the exam under Rose’s name.

The results of the SAT were then sent to the NCAA clearinghouse and the qualifying score resulted in Rose being admitted to Memphis. From there, the talented freshman helped lead the Tigers basketball team to a 38-win season and an appearance in the national title game.

Memphis ended up losing in the championship to Kansas, but now must forfeit (or “vacate,” as the pundits like to say) all 38 of their victories from that fateful 2007-2008 season.

All because Derrick Rose cheated. Knowingly cheated. And did so with zero regard for the consequences his former university now faces.

Rose ended up leaving Memphis after his freshman year. The one-and-done player became the first pick in the 2008 NBA Draft, returning to his hometown of Chicago to play for the Bulls.

He had an outstanding rookie campaign and became a fixture in the community he was raised in.

But amidst all the glory and good times was a cheater and a liar who had betrayed his school, its fans, and the entire spirit of college athletics.

What kind of message are we sending to young athletes when we make an example of the school and not the individual?

How do we expect kids to play by the rules if they witness their peers getting off scot-free while the university pays for one individual’s mistakes?

To be fair, Memphis is not entirely innocent in this whole matter. They provided Rose’s brother with free transportation to watch Rose play, a clear-cut violation of NCAA rules.

Yet even still it is hard to overlook the brazen nature of Rose’s crime.

If you didn’t take the SAT, you would know it.

If you let someone else take the SAT for you, under your name, you would know that, too.

And if you carried out the lie by keeping quiet throughout the whole ordeal, then that makes you 100 percent guilty in the court of public opinion.

Rose will continue to earn millions of dollars in the NBA.

He’ll likely earn millions more in endorsements.

He will probably go out into the community and speak with kids about getting an education, being honest, and playing fair in all aspects of life.

And yet deep down inside he will have to come to terms with the fact that he cheated and lied to millions of people. He broke the rules and got away with it, leaving an entire school behind to clean up the mess he left behind.

Rose cheated. And Memphis paid the price.

It was announced today that Memphis will have to vacate all 38 wins from their 2007-08 season because a player was ineligible.

First and foremost, I don’t believe in vacating wins. You can’t go back in time and say, “that game never happened.”

You can’t erase or alter the memories of every person that watched a vacated game.

I was critical of the practice of vacating wins in a past article, mostly in regards to the current situation involving Bobby Bowden and Florida State, albeit for different reasons. But my opinion remains the same—you can’t say a win didn’t happen.

If you want to punish a team for playing an ineligible player, however, there is something you can do: only discount the statistics of the guilty party. That’s right. Punish the player—not the team.

In the situation of Memphis, the offender is likely one and done point guard Derrick Rose.

So what would happen, ideally, is Rose’s statistics from individual games would be vacated. If Memphis still had their lead after removing all points scored by Rose, by all means, let Memphis keep the victory. If not, vacate it and alter the records accordingly.

Having looked through both the results of the 2007-08 season and Rose’s game-by-game totals, vacating his points alone, Memphis would have gone 19-14 and lost in the second round of the C-USA tournament to Southern Miss, likely missing the actual NCAA tournament.

In this scenario, the other 11 members of that team get to keep their stats and the wins they fought hard for, and Rose is the only one to suffer. There would be no need to further sanction the program, especially considering both Rose and Coach John Calipari are no longer at Memphis.

If anything, this shows Memphis was a good enough team last year to win 19 games without even needing Rose. So why vacate all 38 wins when vacating half makes more sense?

The 2007-2008 College Basketball season is officially over, the Kansas Jayhawks have won the National Championship by forfeit. Memphis was unable to attend the event.

At three o'clock eastern, it is expected that the entire Memphis basketball season of 2007-2008 will be vacated. Numerous allegations are being made, mostly involving former No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft: Derrick Rose.

The first allegation is that Rose had a stand-in to take his SAT test. Without this stand-in, it can be concluded that Rose would not have been eligible according to NCAA rules. The use of the stand-in is clearly a violation of NCAA rules.

John Calipari also allowed Derrick Rose’s brother Reggie to use the university’s jet for nearly $2,000 of free travel.

For the record, this makes two Final Four teams that John Calipari has had striped of their Final Four appearance. His 1996 Umass Minutemen were stripped for rules violations as well. Calipari is the only coach to have this happen.

Luckily for Calipari, somehow his name is not implicated in the report against the Memphis program. The truth, however, is that John Calipari is responsible for the Memphis basketball team. He was the coach, and he was on the flights that Reggie Rose was getting comped from the university.

Calipari has now taken his act to Kentucky. The coach has already brought blue chip recruits with him, and Kentucky is thinking Fab-Five part II.

Be careful Wildcat fans, once is an accident and twice is a trend. Calipari may promise you the world, but will it truly count after the last ticks of the clock?

John Calipari continues to try to win by any means necessary, while this objective pays off in the short-run, the true record books have continually brought John Calipari back to earth as a mediocre coach.

Kentucky needs to realize that they have a proven commodity on their hands, one that has proven his ability to build programs to National Title contention and leave them with more problems than they started with. Good luck.

Two Final Four appearances.

Two Final Four appearances wiped out of the NCAA record books forever.

ESPN has reported that John Calipari’s Memphis team will have to “vacate” its 38 wins from the 2007-2008 season, including five NCAA tournament wins.

The Tigers reportedly will have penalties imposed for a fraudulent SAT taken by one of its players, and for paying for more than $2,000 worth of travel for Derrick Rose’s brother, Reggie.

If you take a look at Calipari’s collegiate head coaching career, you will find victorious times marked by his successful rebuilding of two downtrodden programs, yet marred by scandals at both winning stops.

Coach Cal seems to have no qualms about leaving his teams in the midst of NCAA investigations, taking off in the face of adversity after both scandals.

In 1996, after his UMass team’s Final Four appearance was erased permanently from the NCAA’s records after Marcus Camby accepted gifts from agents, Calipari bolted for the New Jersey Nets.

Now, involved in his second major scandal, Cal left Memphis in his wake to accept the Kentucky head coaching position, leaving new Memphis coach Josh Pastner to deal with the negative effects.

The Tigers will not lose scholarships or have a postseason ban, but the sanctions will leave a dark cloud hovering above the program, changing some recruits’ feelings towards Memphis and skewing the team’s public perception.

Despite Calipari’s ominous record, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear offered Calipari a vote of confidence.

“I'm not worried about it because they have never said Coach Cal did anything wrong at all,” Beshear said. “I think he's a very upstanding guy. I think that's his reputation and I think that reputation will be with him here. I really don't foresee any problems.”

Calipari, an upstanding guy?

This is the guy who has now been involved in two of the biggest scandals of the past two decades.

He is now the only coach to ever have two Final Four’s erased.

After he gets caught, Coach Cal then runs from the problems, leaving his old schools behind in favor of greener, less NCAA-mandated, pastures.

No matter whether Calipari had a hand in the problems or not, the scandals were going on directly under his nose.

When you are a head coach, it is not only your responsibility to be clean and rule-abiding yourself, but also to ensure that the rest of your program follows the rules.

While many programs, many coaches, operate firmly under the NCAA’s rules, Calipari’s programs seem to always function outside the realm of authority.

First at UMass, now at Memphis, Calipari has been the head coach during scandals big enough to delete entire seasons, great seasons, from official NCAA history.

Apparently, though, Calipari will once again see no fines or sanctions himself.

John Calipari has walked away unscathed from yet another bout with NCAA authority.

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When John Calipari left for Kentucky back in April, Memphis athletic director R.C. Johnson reassured a deflated Tiger fan base by promising a "wow hire."

That confidence dwindled as the search drug on. Rejection after rejection, including from such coaches as Bruce Pearl, Tim Floyd, and Scott Drew, revealed that Johnson may have overestimated the appeal of the job.

It became apparent that the new coach of Memphis would lack the instant credibility that had been promised.

The announcement that the Tigers had hired former assistant Josh Pastner to run the program was met with both surprise and skepticism. Most Tiger fans knew little to nothing about the former Arizona Wildcat.

They were introduced to a young, charismatic, intelligent prodigy who was already respected in recruiting circles. His first press conference provided a much needed dose of hope for disheartened fans, but there were still a number of questions to be answered.

As we approach the beginning of college basketball season, Pastner has already passed many of those tests with flying colors.

Of first priority to both the fans and Pastner himself was the current roster. The team was preparing to lose three of its stars from the previous year (Tyreke Evans, Robert Dozier, and Antonio Anderson) even before Calipari left.

With most of the recruiting class bolting for Kentucky as well, Pastner was left with a gutted roster comprised mostly of young, unproven bench players.

Pastner's biggest success thus far in his tenure as head coach has been convincing these players to stay. They had been recruited under the presumption that they would be playing for one of the greatest coaches in the country. Now they were expected to buy into the system of a first-time head coach who is too young to be their father.

Astoundingly, Pastner was able to persuade all returning players not to transfer. Considering how highly recruited all of these student-athletes were coming into college, this is truly a laudable accomplishment. Additionally, he convinced highly-regarded JUCO center Will Coleman to stay and replace the departing Shawn Taggert.

Also, former five-star guard and Memphis native Elliot Williams was sadly forced to transfer to Memphis from Duke due to an illness in his family. An unfortunate situation, but a great pick up for the Tigers.

As it stands, Memphis looks to have a talented, albeit thin, roster for the 2009-2010 season. The backcourt appears to be in good shape, with a number of contributors returning from last season including Doneal Mack, Willie Kemp, Roburt Sallie, and Wesley Witherspoon.

If Williams is granted a waiver from the NCAA and is able to play this season, this group could be one of the quickest, most athletic, and most feared in the country. Pastner has already noted that he is willing to work his style of play around his roster, so look for the Tigers to run at a very fast pace this year.

The frontcourt is where the biggest questions on this team exist, though. The only returning player from last year's group is Pierre Henderson-Niles, a physical specimen who lacks the basketball skill to be a consistent producer on the offensive end. Other options include Coleman and Angel Garcia, who will have to prove themselves before they can be counted on to be the answer down low.

There is reason for optimism, however, as all three players are talented enough to potentially become a reliable presence on the block.

Some might argue that Pastner's biggest success thus far won't have any affect at all on the Tigers in the upcoming season. This refers to the commitment of the Barton brothers, a duo of guards in the class of 2010 that validate Pastner's skills as a recruiter. 

They, especially Will Barton, the larger and more highly touted of the two, will provide an instant boost of excitement and credibility to the program.

The Barton brothers represent the notion that the best of the best players can be drawn to Memphis even without the lure of Calipari. Further supporting this idea is the commitment of Latavious Williams, a five-star player in the class of 2009 who was set to come to Memphis before deciding to pursue a professional career internationally.

If Pastner is able lure Memphis-area prospects Joe Jackson and Tarik Black of White Station and Ridgeway, respectively, he will have truly created an identity for the program that the city will embrace.

Calipari rarely recruited local talent, and when he did he usually lost out on them (Thaddeus Young, Elliot Williams, J.P. Prince). A team comprised of the best players in the area supplemented by other national recruits would be something that Calipari never created, and that would truly set Pastner apart from his predecessor.

Any level of disappointment that program has produced during Pastner’s tenure as head coach is a reflection of Calipari and the athletic department, not Pastner himself.

The Derrick Rose SAT fiasco has yielded Memphis significant negative media attention. Pastner should be considered a sympathetic figure in this ordeal, though. Pastner was not with Memphis while Rose was being recruited.

R.C. Johnson left the new head coach completely in the dark, and has been rightfully chastised by the local media for doing so. Blame for any sanctions that the program receives from the NCAA should be attributed to Calipari and Johnson, not Pastner.

Despite that situation, the Tigers look poised to be successful in the upcoming year and in the future.

Pastner’s hard work and subsequent results have created a product that is far greater than anyone could have hoped for when he was hired. All the while, coach Pastner has done things the right way, which is something the fan base should be proud of.

Months ago, Memphis fans were dreading the upcoming season. They feared a steep drop off in the level of play and national attention.

Now, hope and optimism abounds. Fans are eager to see what this team can accomplish. Josh Pastner should be credited entirely for this excitement.

He may not have been the “wow hire” that fans were initially hoping for, but he sure is producing those kind of results.

I know this may be old news but I had to get this off of my chest. I know that there are some Memphis Tigers B-Ball fans out there that are still angry with John Calipari. But I want them to think about something. Don't you think that us losing our historic recruiting class could've been prevented. Why did everything seem to fall apart after Calipari left. It makes you think of something. Roy Williams is a great coach and once he left Kansas for North Carolina nothing fell apart for them. This goes for any other school that has lost a coach they may have taken a small hit but they continued but, for some reason Memphis is prepping to take a hit way bigger than other schools. And, it's all Memphis' fault.

Trust me on this one and read the article carefully this is coming from a die hard Tigers and Grizz fan(don't make fun of me). When Calipari left I was calling him every name in the book. Most I can't put on this website but, I'm sure most of my fellow Tigers fans can agree that they said the same things. But enough with the blabbing lets get down to the nitty gritty of why I think it is all of the University of Memphis' fault. It is their fault because the allowed one man to become much bigger than the University to the point where he could've ran the city of Memphis. Now I don't know if Calipari was a crooked coach or recruiter but whatever he did was dang good. For some reason they decided to give him full control over everything and they didn't keep tabs on what he was doing.

The sad thing is that I didn't realize how much Memphis had riding on Calipari until he left and everything started to fall apart. When he left I never felt so depressed since that one cruel day a year ago when Kansas beat Memphis in the Championship game when I was so sure we were going to win when we were up by 9 points with 2 minutes left.

Calipari had so much control over everything and they just let him build his ego and reputation to the point where people were praising him and dissing the University of Memphis just for being a team outside of a major conference. We were getting ragged on by practically every other sports network and school.

My point in writing this article is that no school should ever allow a coach to become bigger than a school to the point where there success depends on whether or not he leaves the school.