The Facts About Eric Bledsoe

• Neither UK under Gillispie, Florida under Donovan, or Memphis under Calipari recruited Bledsoe until after all the events mentioned in the NY Times story
• Bledsoe's H.S. Coach who may have paid a few months of $400 rent for Eric and his mother, publicly stated that he was disappointed in Eric's decision to attend Kentucky and play for Calipari. He felt that it wasn't the right fit for Eric with John Wall already being there.
• According to the landlord, the Bledsoe family still owes over $3,000 in rent to this day.

There are a lot of other facts regarding this issue, but I personally don't think this is even big enough of a deal to spend much time on. I won't even touch on the grades issue because the NY Times found absolutely no evidence to suggest that Bledsoe's grades weren't legit. They simply stated that it was "improbable" that he would have been able to improve his grades at the rate that he did as a Junior and a Senior. Without any evidence or even a hint of any academic fraud, it's simply ridiculous to assume that the kid didn't just work harder to receive the better grades in his last two years in high school.

With the three facts stated above, one can conclude with some common sense that at least Gillispie, Calipari, and Donovan were not involved in providing any money for Bledsoe's rent because they had not started to recruit him. He was, however, committed with UAB during the course of these events. One can also conclude that it is especially unlikely that the money came from Calipari or UK if Bledsoe's coach publicly stated that he was dissapointed on numerous occasions of Eric's decision to play at UK. Why would the coach speak out against a program if that program was paying him? And the last fact makes it incredibly unlikely that ANY school was involved in providing money for Bledsoe's rent. If any major college basketball program were to pay for Bledsoe's rent, I think they would have at least paid the full amount.

It looks as if the high school coach did not pay a monthly rent, but paid the landlord just enough of it (up to 3 months) so that Bledsoe and his mother would not be kicked out and put onto the streets, which is a totally separate issue that I will tackle another time- should the NCAA punish a poor kid for receiving "benefits" such as food and shelter when they would otherwise be put onto the streets? Is this whole issue something that the NCAA needs to take a second look at how they should handle such situations of an incredibly poor family? Also, how embarrassing must this whole situation be for the Bledsoe family? In more ways than one, their right to privacy was breached, especially when the NY Times illegally obtained a copy of Eric's high school transcripts.

Consider this the first of many unsuccessful attempts to bring down Calipari and Kentucky.