Questions continue to be raised about Eric Bledsoe's academics in high school

To get to college, you have to get through high school with reasonable success. Nothing ground-breaking there.

There have always been wink-wink suspicions that star athletes, on occasion, don't have, uh ... let's just say as strenuous a workload if a school needs them to stay eligible. But as a rule, even athletes have to meet some basic requirements to get to college.



Some in Alabama believe Kentucky freshman and soon-to-be NBA player Eric Bledsoe did not meet those requirements, yet somehow still managed to stay eligible his entire senior season and get admitted into Kentucky:

"At this point, I think you'd have to consider it to be an investigation of an investigation," Witherspoon said, noting he believed Bledsoe's eligibility was probed last year. "What I am going to be doing is re-evaluating or assessing what took place to ensure from our perspective the requirements and procedures set forth by the association were indeed followed." Witherspoon said his investigation will focus on Bledsoe's high school eligibility. "Our obligation is to the high school athletic association with this review," he said. Witherspoon's primary task coming out of the 90-minute meeting will be verifying the grades listed on Bledsoe's transcript are accurate. Grade books must be kept by school systems in order to confirm that a transcript is valid.

So ... re-evaluating the the evaluating to see if more evaluating is needed.

Now, no offense to the fine folks in the Bluegrass State, but UK is not exactly known as one of the finest academic institutions going, and if a guy can ball, most in Lexington wouldn't be too concerned if he wasn't the greatest student in high school. And Kentucky is certainly not alone in that reputation — it plagues virtually all big-time basketball and football schools.

But the person who should be very concerned is John Calipari. He's left two programs — UMass and Memphis — just in time to escape NCAA sanctions for misdeeds. While those transgressions were investigated and punishments meted out after Calipari left, having something like this come out in his first year at UK could mean that NCAA hammer is finally gaining ground on him, and unless he's planning on bolting for a new job quickly (Cleveland?), his tenure at Kentucky could quickly be mired in controversy.