'This Was A Unique Situation'

Lorenzo Romar sums up the highly bizarre recruitment of Terrence Jones in an interview with The Seattle Times:

“I’ve been doing this 17 years and never been involved in one like this, and I don’t know if we ever will again,” Romar said. “This was a unique situation.”

Unique because Jones publicly verbally committed to Washington but didn’t sign a letter of intent. A few weeks later, he committed to Kentucky, but still didn’t sign a letter of intent.

As John Canzano points out, anything is possible — and likely nefarious — when John Calipari is involved.

Take a stroll around Calipari’s programs and you’ll find a pack of men with unknown motives hanging around. Agents, hangers-on, sycophants, and of course, the infamous and powerful talent broker — William “Worldwide Wes” Wesley — who steers players into Calipari’s arms. 

Look at Calipari’s coaching resumé and you find academic fraud, including NCAA sanctions over a cooked-up entrance examination. Calipari had to throw out his NCAA Final Four appearance at the University of Massachusetts when it was learned that one of his players (Marcus Camby) took money from an agent. The same thing happened at Memphis after the NCAA investigated Rose’s recruitment and his SAT test.

Calipari has yet to win a national title, but he has one unique item on his resumé: He’s the only coach to have Final Four appearances at more than one school vacated because of violations. Here’s guessing he’s headed for a trifecta.