It’s no big deal that the weasel Billy Clyde Gillispie filed a lawsuit against the University of Kentucky Athletics Association in Dallas, seeking millions in damages on the grounds that he was wrongfully terminated.

What is it with these clowns from Texas? Didn’t Claude Bassett try to sue UK after doing everything he could to ruin the football program? I believe Gillispie’s lawsuit has about as much merit as Bassett’s and won’t amount to much except for the aggravation of it all.

But the news coming out of Memphis tonight is about as bad as it gets. According to a report on the Memphis Commercial-Appeal website, the NCAA is investigating John Calipari’s former program at Memphis for some serious potential rules violations.

And just like that – poof! — the big pink cloud that has been hovering over Lexington since Calipari’s hiring has turned decidedly dark and threatening. All that talk about Calipari’s sensational recruiting class will be drowned out by the I-Told-You-So crowd who opposed his hiring because of his shady reputation as a recruiter.

So far Calipari has not been accused of anything. However, the NCAA has asked that he be present at a hearing early next month to answer questions about how an unnamed player qualified to get into school and who paid the travel expenses for one of his hang-around guys.

It’s easy to read between the lines. The charges say the player competed only in the 2007-’08 season, the one when the Tigers advanced to the NCAA Tournament title game before losing to Kansas in overtime.

So that limits the suspect list to one — Derrick Rose, the then-freshman point guard who vaulted into the NBA draft after only one season in college and was made the No. 1 overall pick. The NCAA apparently suspects that somebody took Rose’s SAT test for him.

Read the Rest after the Jump…

The hang-around guy? It could be anybody. But it probably has something to do with “Worldwide Wes,” the semi-mysterious “advisor” who ingratiates himself with talented high-school players, guides them to his favorite colleges, and then serves them as an agent when they go pro. He’s the same guy who sent Tyreke Evans to Calipari as Rose’s replacement last season.

Guys like “Worldwide Wes” have evolved from the slime of the AAU summer leagues. They have replaced high school coaches and even parents as the people who have the most influence over certain recruits. They are leeches and parasites. They have no redeeming social value. And yet so far the NCAA hasn’t been able to figure out how to stop them.

Calipari’s relationship with “Worldwide Wes” is hardly a secret. At Memphis, the coach freely admitted that the blood-sucker was “a friend of the program.” When UK was vetting Calipari, compliance officer Sandy Bell supposedly checked out the relationship with the NCAA and the Southeastern Conference.

Interestingly, even though Memphis has known about the NCAA’s concerns since Jan. 16, the NCAA inquiry didn’t become public until tonight (May 27). Surely Calipari told Mitch Barnhart and Lee Todd about it during their discussions. If so, they had every reason to cross him off their list – or, at least, make the information public and say they had decided to hire him regardless.

If the charges prove to be true, Memphis could be forced to forfeit the 38 victories it earned in 2007-’08, not to mention its runner-up trophy and hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Tigers might become “Vacated” in the NCAA record book, just like Calipari’s 1996 Massachusetts team that had its Final Four run nullified when it was learned that star center Marcus Camby had illegally signed with an agent.

Calipari was never implicated in any wrongdoing at UMass, just as Eddie Sutton was never implicated in the 1989 UK recruiting scandal that led to Sutton’s firing and replacement by Rick Pitino. After an unsuccessful stint in the NBA, Calipari took the Memphis job and, in nine years, built the Tigers into a national contender.

Even so, he was dogged by questions about how he got his best players. To get Dujuan Wagner, for example, he gave his father, former U of L star Milt Wagner, an administrative staff job. A handful of Memphis players had run-ins with the law. But all that was brushed aside in Memphis because Calipari was winning big – big enough to get the UK job shortly after Gillispie was fired for, among other things, impersonating a big-time coach.

Unless the NCAA has specific evidence against Calipari – the way it did, say, against ex-Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson – chances are he will skate. Any penalties will be levied against the program he left behind. In Lexington, it’s a given than he’ll be forgiven. No doubt some of the more rabid Big Blue faithful already are raving about an NCAA conspiracy.

Sandy Bell now will have her work cut out. If she has not already gone over every little detail about Calipari’s recruits, she better get out her fine-tooth comb and go to work. After two years of Billy Clyde Clueless, the last thing UK needs is collateral damage from whatever shakes out in Memphis.

Barnhart, who finally seemed to have reached the light at the end of the tunnel, is back on the hot seat. All of us who supported the decision to hire Calipari need some answers. The fan base needs reassurances.

A lawsuit from the discredited former UK coach and serious problems involving the new ones. The pink cloud is gone and nobody knows when it will be seen again.