UMass "jilted" by UK

Kentucky will pay to get out of return game in Boston, while UMass will lose $300,000 in game revenue. Also means the ol’ RPI (and that of the A-10) will take a hit. Good ol’ chicken s__t Billy Gillispie! :hammer:

ESPN.com: Kentucky will pay $50K to get out of UMass game

Hope UMASS is getting at leat $300K. Not to bad for a night off.

[QUOTE=VA49er;239286]Hope UMASS is getting at leat $300K. Not to bad for a night off.[/QUOTE]
VA, you need to re-read Katz’s article. The buyout is $50,000, which means UMass will LOSE $300,000 in revenue that game would have generated.

UMass will [B]LOSE $300,000[/B] in revenue that game would have generated.

…and will have to track down 7,000 people and refund the tickets already sold for the game at the Boston garden.

Lesson learned, write a better buyout.

At this point, the best way for them not to lose all that money would be to offer some other big name a percentage of the gate to come and “rescue” them. Offer someone the $50,000 UK buyout plus 25-33% of that $300,000, then at least you’re mitigating your losses and you’re “buying” yourself that big home game. Someone like Duke, Chapel Hill, Florida, etc. would take that game at this late date for as lucrative a package as that.

Someone like Duke, Chapel Hill, Florida, etc. would take that game at this late date for as lucrative a package as that.

If Kentucky refuses to play a UMass team with an alum as a coach…what makes you think that Duke, Chapel Hill, Florida, etc. will travel to Boston when they can just schedule Winston Salem State at home (like they normally would)?

[QUOTE=Brick Tamland, Weather;239302]Someone like Duke, Chapel Hill, Florida, etc. would take that game at this late date for as lucrative a package as that.[/QUOTE]
I have to doubt that very much. The lesson learned is that even when you allow your opponent to pick the venue, change the original date (which causes you to then have to further negotiate with the NBA and NHL tenants of said venue) to another date that will probably conflict with I-AA football playoffs (UMass played AppState for the championship last season), and even if your coach is an alum and prospective future head coach of said opponent, you still get screwed!

With Gillepsie’s drinking “issues” its probably a good thing for him he isn’t going to Boston…

[QUOTE=run49er;239297]VA, you need to re-read Katz’s article. The buyout is $50,000, which means UMass will LOSE $300,000 in revenue that game would have generated.[/QUOTE]

Correction. I need to read Katz’s article. Silly me. :silly:

[QUOTE=Brick Tamland, Weather;239302]Lesson learned, write a better buyout.[/QUOTE]

That isn’t an option. They can add zeroes just fine, thanks. But no way Kentucky would have agreed to it on the front end.

Call our Athletic Department. I’m sure they can whip out a series contract with a $1 million buyout clause in about 5 secs. Have fun shopping that.

UMass’ schedule went from looking “not bad” to “not very good” with one game deleted.

[QUOTE]Meanwhile, UMass needs three more games. They have a a one-way road game at Syracuse (the Orange won’t return), travel to Boston College in an annual home-and-home series and are at Northern Iowa’s tournament along with Northern Illinois and Cal Poly. The Minutemen play Toledo, Yale, Wisconsin-Green Bay and Boston University at home.[/QUOTE]

Hopefully they’ll be able to find some additional RPI boosters this late in the scheduling process. So long as they get Northern Iowa in the final of that tourney, at least they’ll have three good non-conference opponents. Toledo lost their 3 leading scorers, so they will be nowhere near their MAC Regular Season Champ status of last season. Yale and BU are bad. UW-GB could be decent.

2 area stories on this… nothing new really.

[URL=http://www.masslive.com/umassbasketball/republican/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/1179794702165300.xml&coll=1][B]A very foul shot from Kentucky[/B][/URL], Springfield Republican
[URL=http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/mens_basketball/articles/2007/05/22/kentucky_will_not_play_umass/][B]Kentucky will not play UMass[/B][/URL], Boston Globe

This piece from the Daily Hampshire Gazette notes that when Gonzaga pulled the same thing on the Minutemen back in 05-06, UMass sued and received a settlement. Not saying they should do the same with UK, but interesting nonetheless.

GazetteNet.com: Kentucky pulls plug on UMass hoop game

Matt Vautour of the Daily Hampshire Gazette finally got in touch with Travis Ford at the A-10 meetings in Florida to get the coach’s thoughts on the UK debacle…

May 22, 2007

Travis’ Ford’s thoughts
Posted At : 8:38 AM | Posted By : matt vautour
Related Categories: UMass Basketball

Didn’t reach Travis Ford until this morning (I don’t think anyone else did either) about the Kentucky game so you won’t find quotes from him in today’s story. But finally connected early this morning. He’s at the A-10 meetings in Florida.

“Obviously there were a lot of emotions for me having played there. I wanted UMass fans to experience an incredible game and I wanted Kentucky fans to get a chance to see where I’m at now.”

“I love the University of Kentucky. I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.”

“Obviously the financial impact for us is difficult.”

“The timing is not good. They scheduled the (date of the) game we worked hard to get it done. It’s late in the game.”

Ford said he’s gotten a lot of calls from Kentucky fans both sympathizing and apologizing.

“They love their own. They’ve been unbelievably nice. A lot of people have called apologizing on behalf of the University of Kentucky. The fans there have always been unbelievably good to me.”

He walked the line pretty well of still loving his Alma Mater but still being frustrated. It’s hard for me to believe he’ll ever play UK again while at UMass because I can’t imagine John McCutcheon would allow the game to get scheduled.

Message boards and blogs all over the SEC are using this as an opportunity to snipe at Kentucky.

I wonder how many UK fans had already purchased plane tickets and planned their Thanksgivings around this. They’re the ones getting the true short end of the stick, because neither UMass or UK is refunding the travel arrangements.

I think some UMass people had actually taken a little bit of a liking to Kentucky before this. They chose to buy into Travis’ love for the place and were appreciative of the Wildcats’ willingness to play this game in Massachusetts.

Now most MInutemen fans have Kentucky around UConn, BC and any team coached by Mike Jarvis in the pecking order of least favorites.

As far as buyout clauses go it seems to me like the number should escalate the closer it gets to the game.

I wonder if it was ever discussed to push the game back a year.

Does Minnesota have an open date?

…five months til Midnight Madness…

Link: UMass Sports Blog

Well, while UK screws UMass and cancels their November matchup in Boston, Virginia requests a change with Xavier in which the Cavaliers will visit Xintas in 07-08, with X returning to UVa in 08-09. The original contract had X at UVa first, then UVa returning in 08-09.

Anyway, here’s the 07-08 OOC sked for the Musketeers:

Home
Southeast Missouri State (Chicago Invite)
Coppin State (Chicago Invite)
Cincinnati
Virginia
Creighton
Tennessee
Oakland
Belmont
Delaware State

Road
Auburn
Miami U
Arizona State

Neutral
Kansas State (US Bank Arena, Cincy - counts as Home per RPI)
Indiana (Chicago Invite)
Kent State (Chicago Invite)

Jackie MacMullan called out Kentucky for dropping UMass on Around the Horn yesterday during her “30 seconds” after she won yesterday. Good to see that this didn’t go completely unnoticed on the national scene.

For those that have never watched Around the Horn… [URL=http://sports.espn.go.com/espntv/espnShow?showID=TAAH][B][COLOR=Red]ESPNtv.com: Around the Horn[/COLOR][/B][/URL]

There some irony here. First, UMass gets screwed by Kentucky. Now, Ole Miss loses its marquee home game as former UMass head honcho John Calipari and the Memphis Tigers “dump” the Rebels for a game with Georgetown.

ESPN.com: Memphis adds four-year series vs. Hoyas, drops Rebels from upcoming season

BTW, UMass is apparently in discussion with ACC, Big East, and SEC (not UK, of course!) schools to replace Kentucky on their OOC sked.