Lute Olsen thinks Coach Cal was "unprofessional" in bringing Memphis recruits to UK

 Everyone has an uncle or a grandpa or a family friend who sometimes fades less than gracefully as old age begins to set in and they start to say crazy things from time to time.  For Arizona basketball, that figure is program patriarch Lute Olson, who after catching the ire of the NCAA earlier this year, snuck out of the nursing home to mumble about Jean Harlow to anyone who would listen and talk to Jeff Goodman about his former protege, Josh Pastner.  In Olson’s defense of Memphis’ struggles under Pastner this season, Olson placed some of the blame on Coach Cal and muttered one of those little words that immediately make your ears perk:

“He needs to get his type of kids, the kind of kids he wants in the program to fit his style of play and coaching,” Olson said of Pastner, who played and coached under him.  “I also thought it was unprofessional of John Calipari to take all those kids out of there to Kentucky. Very unprofessional.”

While Olson’s intentions are admirable and defending a former player and assistant can be commended.  But the notion that schools “own” playersis as old-fashioned and misplaced as the apparently wide-spread belief that Kentucky’s entire class last year came from Memphis.  DeMarcus Cousins was committed to be a Tiger, sure, but what are words?  Darnell Dodson left, but I’m not sure that makes a huge difference in the Tigers’ performance this season.  Hell, they could have had him back. 

There are a handful of reasons why Memphis isn’t having the type of season that makes Lute Olson want to skip his evening silent movie time to watch a game, but none of them have to do with Calipari.  I’m sure Josh Pastner would tell you the same thing.  Using Cal as the escape goat and using an out-dated rhetoric to insult another coach just further proves the point of those Olson so aggressively attacked for questioning how out of touch he was in his final years.  Hard to disagree with them now.

via Jeff Goodman