Much ado about nothing: Wall likely to be cleared by Nov. 13

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October 23, 2009

Basketball Prospectus’ John Gasaway couldn’t have described the reaction to the Wall story any better yesterday:

Assuming no new facts come to light, the story was an excellent example
of the “WHAT?!…Oh, is that all?” reaction that news professionals now
refer to as the balloon boy sequence: shock and fright followed by a
shrug.

Most of us were shrugging within fifteen minutes of reading the whole
story yesterday, but there are probably some — I’m betting they’re
Indiana and Louisville and Memphis fans, most of them — who are hoping
the John Wall thing turns into a crippling mess for Kentucky
basketball. A day later, that seems less and less likely. From Jeff Goodman:

Sources close to the situation have told FOXSports.com that Wall will
likely be cleared prior to Kentucky’s season-opener – which is on Nov.
13 against Morehead State at Rupp Arena.

Ahh. You feel that? It’s shoulder-shrugging time. Work the kinks out.
Really get in there. Make this the best part of your day. Because
here’s the thing: Even if Wall isn’t cleared, the three or four games
he’d likely miss as punishment would be all of Kentucky’s early-season
cupcakes. Every team has them. And when you’re as talented as UK, you
can lose your best player for four games early in the year and still
not even break a sweat. This little AAU oversight, whether sinister or
not, isn’t going to matter much in the 2009-10 college basketball
season. Kentucky fans can take deep breaths; those eager for Calipari
to fall from his occasionally skeevy pedestal will have to practice a
little more patience.

And that’s the consensus among the pundits (I love using the word
"pundits" for "writers and bloggers"; it adds a bit of Anglo flair to
the proceedings, doesn’t it?) today as well. Had Calipari stayed at
Memphis, Wall might never have seen the floor.
But since Wall is at Kentucky and Calipari is scot-free, the punishment
won’t be all that strict, nor will Calipari’s name get dragged through
the mud. Or, if it does, it shouldn’t. At least not this time.

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