Pasadena Post Article by Michael Miller on Calipari

[Shocker1976]

An interesting read regards Calipari and Kentucky basketball

http://www.thepasadenapost.com/post/112768850743/former-william-wesley-acquaintance-calipari

[wu_shizzle]

The phantom calls on Fred, I can't dispute.

[Shocker1976]

A UK friend emailed this article to me; he thinks this is BS published by some UL fans. IMO this looks very questionable (google provides no support that this is real).

[Anthroshock]

I looked for the "Pasadena Post" online and I could not find a thing. The fact that it is on Tumblr also makes it suspect.

[SHOCKvalue]

It is not a media source (in spite of what the name wants you to think), it is a BS blog post by someone with an axe to grind. I've seen the legitimacy of the article destroyed on other forums today, by fan bases that probably dislike Paypal much more than we do. It is nothing to give any thought to, even if it would be nice to be true.

[AZ Shocker]

There is sooooooooooooo much in that article that is probably true. Interesting if true. I guess follow the money train...

[ShockerEngineer]

I do remember a lot of phantom calls.. Particularly on Evan again Julius Randle, where Evan picked up two fouls in less than a minute.

But yeah.. That blog literally just has one post.

[Royals85]

The idea that Cal would be sending hand signals to the refs is one of the dumbest conspiracy theories of all time. Pretty sure the ref in this fantasyland would be able to implement the plan of "screw over the other team" without the assistance of signs from the bench.

[SirShoxAlot]

I read up until he said Cal wants to keep UL from winning and is obsessed with Pitino. Not buying it.

[podunkboy]

It doesn't bode well for WSU if it's true (and I have no reason to believe it IS true), but I saw Lunardi's Bracketology the other day and they had WSU meeting Kentucky again in the 3rd round (assuming they get by Carolina in the 2nd round). http://espn.go.com/ncb/bracketology Nope, wait, now it's Louisville, then Kentucky. Yeah, that seems fair.

[ShoxRoxMySox]

I'm not buying the full theory here, not by a long shot. I mean, seriously, hand signals -- no way. However, I think we as a society would be pretty naive to think that the money train at the top couldn't influence college refs. Not only the money from NCAA Bball/universities/TV viewer interests, but the massive amount of gambling done on games via Vegas and what not. I believe it happens at all levels in all sports to some degree, it's just human nature to use connections/power/money for a small advantage.

Hell, I remember in the championship intramural game of flag football, one of the refs was a good friend of our team because he was an athletic trainer with one of our best players. I got to know him as well, and I remember chasing the opponents QB into the end zone and swiping his flag way after he released the ball. The friend/ref was right there and called a safety, and we never talked about it, but I guarantee that wasn't the right call and probably wouldn't have been made with someone else... And that's intramural flag football, no money, just a friendly connection.

Sure that's not a great analogy, but I find it hard to believe there isn't at least SLIGHT influence on a small minority of refs. Now, I have more questions after reading that than anything. Like is there really any correlation to star players sitting more mins when vs Kentucky? How do refs get assigned to games? Etc.

Ultimately I'm not buying the idea as a whole. But one thing I'm positive of, is that there's some form of ref influence in college basketball. And if there's one coach that has a track record of weird ass incidents following him around, it's certainly Cal.