The one where it takes me longer to think of my opening “the one where” than writing the rest of the Smear…

Well, it’s official.  Memphis will not be assimilated by one of the larger conferences for a while.  John Calipari has left the building.

Kentucky lured the high profile C-USA coach with more than 31 million over 8 years and supposedly a 2.5 million dollar signing bonus.  Um, yeah… I’d take that money.  It’s like winning the lottery without buying a ticket.  The coach with no national titles is now the highest paid in college basketball.  The scapegoat?  Coaching in Conference USA, of course.

So, there are two major questions here: 1) Calipari has never coached in a big conference (UMass was an Atlantic 10 team).  Can he re-create his mastery in the SEC?  2) With the head cut off of the C-USA Leviathan, who’s going to step up?

In regards to question #1, I think it would be safe to assume that there aren’t going to be any conference win streaks approaching 60 games in Coach Cal’s near future.  But, it’s not like the SEC was the premier conference in the Division I last year.  Kentucky will probably find themselves in the Tournament next year and probably in the top three of the SEC.

The answer to question #2?  The University of Houston, duh!  Actually, no.  I think that Conference USA needs to prepare themselves for a few years of instability atop the standings.  Will the nation forget that the conference exists?  Probably.  Is that a bad thing?  Not necessarily.  When the media absolutely has to pay attention, they’re not going to have the “easy out” and just do the profile piece on the latest Memphis prodigal point-guard.

All in all, I don’t agree with the statements of the Donkey Show Coordinator’s comments yesterday.  Parity in Conference USA isn’t going to be such a bad thing (for a couple years) anyway.  Not just because the Cougars will have a marginally better chance to make the Tourney either, but because all the teams deserve a chance to fight for the limelight.

Up ahead are the rest of your Houston sports updates:

Texans:  Nothing (absolutely NOTHING) new has come across my desk since yesterday.

Rockets:  Yao Ming needs to be more affluent.  The love of an entire country and millions of American Dollars are just not enough.  A partnership with Google will definitely do the trick.  Yao is the co-founder of Top100.cn who will now be providing 1.1 million songs to the Democratic Republic of China with the help of Google.  Each of the songs will be fine-tuned to meet the requirements of the government.  “I’m on a Boat” will be changed to “I’m on a Junk.”

Astros:  The bicep tendinitis that has been bothering Lance Berkman may have cleared up enough to allow him to play today.  I mean, “two days ago.”  Fucking Google Alerts.  Can’t we be a little more prompt.  Good news though, one week from opening day!  Thank God.

Dynamo:  Ade Akinbiyi!!! Yeah, he’s my new favorite.  We’re going to have to come up with a nickname for him.  In honor of my friend’s (a dude, by the way) gravitation to Justin Timberlake and especially N’Sync, I’m going to start the nicknaming at “Ade Akin-bye-bye-bye-yay.”  Ade may be with the team this Saturday in D.C. for the match against DC United.

University of Houston:  Since the news coming from UH is pretty much shit (really? “RecycleMania” is news?) let’s report on our more famous alumni.  Kevin Kolb is apparently the catalyst for April Fool’s Day jokes up in Philadelphia.   AAAAHAHAHA!  Kevin Kolb was named the starter before mini-camps start!!!  That’s TOTALLY believable!  Oh, you had me going… I just pissed myself from laughing so hard.  Douche.

- Septimus Rex

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