Mike DeCourcy: UK reports secondary violation

There have been lots of rumors floating around over the past few days regarding bad news on the horizon for Kentucky basketball. Mike DeCourcy is reporting that the bad news is a secondary violation committed by now-departed staffer Bilal Batley that UK is self-reporting.

Surely everyone without loyalties to the UK program is going to jump all over this as evidence that John Calipari is going to take Kentucky basketball down a road no one wants to even think about. However, considering the rumors that have been circulating, I can think of much worse things than this.

SPORTING NEWS – Kentucky reported a secondary rules violation to the NCAA involving a former program assistant, a source close to the Wildcats told Sporting News.

In early July, Bilal Batley visited the UK practice gym to speak with a player regarding an academic matter, the source said. While there, he was seen gathering rebounds for one of the players. The university determined it should be turned into the NCAA as a secondary violation.

An Oklahoma graduate, Batley worked several years at John Lucas’ training center in Houston and joined John Calipari’s staff at Memphis last fall. He resigned his Kentucky position last week to return home to Houston because of a family illness, the source said.