UK screws UMASS

[Raider Country]

Kentucky will pay $50K to get out of UMass game
By Andy Katz
ESPN.com
May 21, 2007

Kentucky wants out of its game with Massachusetts in November and the school is willing to pay $50,000 to do it, but the Minutemen aren't happy.

Wildcats athletic director Mitch Barnhart told UMass he will cut the check to get out of a return series game scheduled for the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston on Nov. 24, but an estimated 7,000 tickets have already been sold for the contest. The arena and the Minutemen would have to refund those purchases, and overall, stand to lose an estimated $300,000 that the game would have generated.

Barnhart and UMass athletic director John McCutcheon confirmed Sunday that the Kentucky AD made the call to the Minutemen on Friday and said the Wildcats wouldn't be coming next season. The contract on the home-and-home series called for a $50,000 buyout. UMass, coached by Kentucky alumnus Travis Ford, lost to the Tubby Smith-coached Wildcats 82-68 on Dec. 22.

McCutheon said losing the marquee game will likely mean UMass won't play a game at the Garden since the Minutemen would be unable to attract a high-profile team at this late date.

We're going to have to refund the money. It's a big hassle and very problematic.

"We did this deal a year ago and had a date of Dec. 22 but Kentucky wanted to move it so we worked with the arena and got Nov. 24, which was a challenge since two pro teams play there [the NBA's Celtics and NHL's Bruins]," McCutcheon said. "You live and learn. I know this was a concern for the coaches' association [teams getting out of contracts]. We're going to have to refund the money. It's a big hassle and very problematic.

"If we had had a sellout, a conservative estimate is that we could have made $250,000 to $300,000," he added. "Playing in Boston is off the board now. I don't see how we can get a caliber opponent like Kentucky."

McCutcheon said he firmly believes the Wildcats got out of the game because of the coaching change from Smith to former Texas A&M coach Billy Gillispie.

"This is a bad practice and maybe next time we should have a higher buyout," McCutcheon said. "This wasn't our arena. This wasn't on our campus."

Barnhart said the Wildcats have scheduling challenges next season. The schedule was put together by Smith and Barnhart said, "Tubby went to Minnesota." According to the AD, this is the first time Kentucky has paid a game buyout during his five years on the job.

Gillispie said he had just looked at the schedule late last week and deferred all comments on the matter to Barnhart.

Kentucky is still honoring a return road game at Houston next season, which should end up being a recruiting hotbed for the Wildcats under the Texas-raised Gillispie. Kentucky is also at Indiana. North Carolina and Louisville come to Rupp Arena in the other major nonconference games. Kentucky will likely play two neutral-site games in New York in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, assuming the Wildcats win two home games against likely lower-profile competition. Kentucky is expected to face Connecticut in one semifinal in New York with Memphis and Oklahoma in the other bracket in the November tournament. The rest of Kentucky's nonconference schedule will be filled by home games, but the slate will not likely have high-major competition.

Meanwhile, UMass needs three more games. They have a a one-way road game at Syracuse (the Orange won't return), travel to Boston College in an annual home-and-home series and are at Northern Iowa's tournament with Northern Illinois, Cal Poly and IUPUI. The Minutemen play Toledo, Yale, Wisconsin-Green Bay and Boston University at home.

Kentucky did take into consideration that Ford is a former Wildcat, but in the end didn't want to have five games away from Rupp.

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.

sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2877223

[Willie]

buckeyeball said:

Kentucky did take into consideration that Ford is a former Wildcat, but in the end didn't want to have five games away from Rupp.

Wow! They are complaining about playing 5 whole games on the road next year. What a bunch of candy asses.

[wsu97]

I hate seeing a mid-major getting taken advantage of by a BCS program but I am enjoying it in this case. If you go back and look at our scheduling thread from last summer you will notice we had a tentative game set up with UMASS. The truth is we had a verbal agreement with them and the backed out of it before the contracts were signed. We got stuck playing Chicago St two times last year because of UMASS backing out of that contract. This is just Karma at work.

[Big D]

UMASS still has 3 games to fill for next year. Even though they backed out of playing us last year, I wouldn't mind starting a series with them this year. It is hard to blame them. I would have backed out of a contract negotiation with them for a home and home with UK. That would have been a no brainer. The only real mistake they made was they should have had a much larger buyout than 50K.

[Raider Fanatic]

No excuse for UK's stiffing UMass
By John Clay
HERALD-LEADER SPORTS COLUMNIST

John Clay Spare me the everybody else does it.

Everyone else has an expensive new basketball practice facility, so Kentucky has to have one too. Everyone else pays their coaches exorbitant salaries, so Kentucky does too. Everyone else buys their way out of agreements they signed but no longer feel best fit their purposes, so Kentucky does likewise.

But when do you start being better than everyone else?

That's my question.

When does a university's athletic program start keeping its word, in the spirit of what universities are supposed to be about in the first place, i.e., integrity, education, molding young minds?

Whatever happened to doing the right thing?

The University of Kentucky signed a home-and-home contract to play basketball with the University of Massachusetts. Plain and simple. UMass honored its end of the deal by playing in Rupp Arena last year, losing to Tubby Smith's Wildcats in a December game.

Now Kentucky is shirking its duties, shamelessly paying the $50,000 out-fee to leave the Minutemen in a lurch. Reason: Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart and new coach Billy Gillispie want to schedule another UK home game against a directional school of their choosing.

It's a win-win, where the Cats look like losers.

Previous athletics director C.M. Newton did the same thing, canceling a contract the university had signed to play a football game at East Carolina. He also caved to Rick Pitino's demand that the Cats cancel a six-year basketball series with North Carolina -- a series Newton had asked Dean Smith for in the first place -- after Kentucky dropped the first two games. It was wrong then. It's wrong now.

But it's a bit more contemptible this time around, considering the Cats are sticking it to an alum in the process. Travis Ford is the UMass basketball coach. He's the former Kentucky point guard. He's trying to build a program in Amherst. Having a Kentucky come to Boston would help the cause.

But Kentucky says it's worried about its own cause.

The poor thing.

After all, how can the nation's winningest basketball program, which reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament last year, expect to win at an Atlantic 10 school that played in the NIT last year?

That's so unfair.

UK's associate athletic director, Scott Stricklin, pointed out that this is the first time Barnhart has exercised such a contract option in his five years on the job. Technically, that's true.

But Barnhart did give in to Rich Brooks' misguided request to shift the Kentucky-Louisville football game off its season-opener slot when UK plays host.

Brooks said he wanted time for his young team to prepare for the big, bad Cardinals. Considering that new Louisville coach Steve Kragthorpe will now have a couple of games under his belt before his first meeting with the archrival come fall, we'll see how Brooks' strategy plays out.

Perhaps it's the same here. Perhaps Barnhart is only bowing to the wishes of his new coach. Maybe Gillispie doesn't want to play a tough road game against a UK alum early in the season. That's understandable. But also unacceptable.

That's where Barnhart needed to step in and do the right thing. That's where Barnhart needed to say, "I'll consider your scheduling requests in the future, Billy Clyde, but this year we have a contract. We're going to honor our word, just as we want teams to honor their word when they sign a contract to play us."

That's the way it should work.

For everybody.

Kentucky included.

www.kentucky.com/285/story/77328.html

[Tipp City Raider]

raiderd said:

UMASS still has 3 games to fill for next year. Even though they backed out of playing us last year, I wouldn't mind starting a series with them this year. It is hard to blame them. I would have backed out of a contract negotiation with them for a home and home with UK. That would have been a no brainer. The only real mistake they made was they should have had a much larger buyout than 50K.

Speaking of scheduling. Does anyone know when the schedule will be released?