Not Jerry Tipton's Friday Basketball Notebook

The 2013-14 season is almost over, and Kentucky is still trying to atone for the disaster was the 2012-13 season. John Calipari’s team is trying to do something that no team in the history of college basketball has ever done: Win a national championship relying primarily on 6 freshmen who were McDonald’s All Americans. With disappointing losses to a whole bunch of teams, the team will fail to reach its ultimate goal of perfect season, and will instead try to console itself with a national title. To stay apprised and educated, follow me on Twitter @NotJerryTipton. Here’s the weekly notebook:

*There There: On Tuesday, the UK men’s basketball team found itself in the middle of a controversy that rocked the entire sports world when it was discovered that star freshman Julius Randle appeared in a campaign video for Senator Mitch McConnell. This is probably a major NCAA violation, and could jeopardize the school’s eligibility to compete in the rest of the NCAA Tournament. Though UK predictably denied any wrongdoing, the NCAA has yet to release a statement supported by an affidavit signed by a high ranking NCAA official that Kentucky would definitely not be punished for trying to bolster the public profile of a student athlete. Also, this doesn’t even take into account how angry Democrats in the Commonwealth will be that a player on the state’s most popular and visible team chose to cast his lot with a Republican like McConnell. Moreover, this figures to be a huge distraction for the team heading into the Sweet 16. If UK should not win the NCAA championship this year, many will point to this as the only reason why.

*Karma Police: After initial reports that Manhattan coach Steve Masiello had agreed to become the new coach at the University of South Florida, it was announced that the deal was nixed, as Masiello has lied on his resume. As it turns out, he never graduated from UK, despite claiming he did. This is a huge black eye for the University of Kentucky, the city of Lexington and the state of Kentucky as a whole. By painting all Kentucky residents as untruthful scoundrels who are not only willing to lie to get ahead, but are also unable to graduate from college, all the old stereotypes about the Bluegrass State are brought to the forefront. Also, it suggests that every player who ever wore the UK uniform, as Masiello did from 1996 until 2000, is a bad person. Heading into Friday’s big Sweet 16 showdown with Louisville, this is exactly the kind of distraction that John Calipari did not want.

*Lucky: Last Sunday in a Round of 32 NCAA Tournament game, UK edged Wichita State 78-76. The contest was dubbed an instant classic, as it featured several lead changes, big shots, plot twists and heroic plays. This does not bode well for Kentucky. In five years as the head coach at UK, John Calipari has only lost one game to a school not in a BCS conference. That game, of course, was what objective journalist Pat Forde once called “the low point for Kentucky basketball in 24 years:” Robert Morris in the 2013 NIT. After living through the nightmare that was the 2012-13 season, UK fans probably thought they wouldn’t be sweating out a ballgame with a mid-major anymore. Nebertheless, despite having the most ballyhooed recruiting class in history, the Cats found themselves in a nailbiter with a team that lost games to Drake, Evansville and Bradley.*

* In 2010

* On this date: On this date in 2013, Kentucky’s season was over, while Indiana was a #1 seed and headed to the Sweet 16, on a collision course with the school’s first national championship since “Alf” was on the air.