College basketball fans were "allowed to look in live, either on ESPNU or ESPN3.com," to the Univ. of Kentucky men's basketball team's practice yesterday, according to Kyle Tucker of the Louisville COURIER-JOURNAL. The practice was also open to UK students, faculty and staff, and "about 1,500 showed up” to Memorial Coliseum. UK coach John Calipari said, “The whole idea -- and it kind of mushrooms like everything else we do around here -- was only supposed to be an open practice. I want to get the students into it. Then it turns into … ‘Why don’t we call ESPN?’” Tucker reports ESPN “didn’t send anyone to Lexington for the broadcast, instead picking up the feed" from WKYT-CBS. But ESPNU did “bump two hours of programming ... to show the entire practice.” ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas said, “It’s great. Kentucky has a tremendous following. The fact that [Calipari is] doing it and TV’s taking him up on it, I applaud it. I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to get a look at what a practice is like.” Tucker notes Calipari “wore a microphone and let a handful of mild profanities slip.” Bilas, a "harsh critic of the NCAA, joked on Twitter this week that he wondered how quickly televised practices would be banned after Calipari held one” (Louisville COURIER-JOURNAL, 2/16). In Lexington, John Clay writes only UK and Calipari “would have a televised open practice during the middle of the week in the middle of the season.” But fans should “look for the NCAA to ban these sorts of things in the future” (Lexington HERALD-LEADER, 2/16).
