NCAA Basketball mississippi Rebels

Four months ago, Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy was arrested (video above) after a cab driver said Kennedy punched him and taunted him with racial insults. At the time Kennedy claimed he would be exonerated. Now Kennedy has pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.

Cincinnati police have released an hour-long video taken during their arrest of Ole Miss head basketball coach Andy Kennedy in December. Police arrested Kennedy for allegedly assaulting a cab driver outside a downtown night club. The driver claimed the Rebels coach, who was in town to play Louisville in the Big East-SEC Invitational, directed racial slurs at him.

In the video, Kennedy is pulled over, handcuffed, placed in the police cruiser and taken back to the night club to be positively identified. In the video taken from the cruiser's dashboard camera, Kennedy repeatedly begs the officers to let him go because the arrest would create "an international altercation."

I think we can all agree that Billy Gillispie doesn't exactly scream "Rocco Mediate-style interviews." Billy Clyde looks like he wants to win games, coach kids and, well, that's about it.

Last night, with Gillispie's Wildcats up 39-37 at halftime, ESPN reporter Jeanine Edwards caught up with the UK coach. Edwards asked about Jodie Meeks, and, as you will now see, Gillispie thought Jeanine just chose her question poorly.

There has been another lawsuit filed after the fallout of Ole Miss head basketball coach Andy Kennedy's run-in with a cab driver in Cincinnati last month. Mohamed Jiddou claimed that Kennedy punched him while shouting racial slurs in front of a local bar. Kennedy denies all of this and has filed a defamation suit against Jiddou and a valet who said he witnessed the assault. Kennedy is due in court today for a preliminary hearing of the assault charge.

What got lost in the shuffle was another lawsuit filed by the Kennedy clan. Kennedy's wife, Kimber, is suing the cabbie and the valet over the claim that her husband hasn't been able to perform in the bedroom since the incident happened.

Completely contradictory accounts. Witnesses with different perspectives on what happened. Multiple variations. No, it isn't the Kurosawa classic. At the moment, it is Ole Miss head coach Andy Kennedy's life.

There was the initial report this morning from the police report on Andy Kennedy's arrest -- that he got belligerent at a cabbie after a dispute over how many people could ride in the cab. Referring to the cabbie as "bin Laden" and other racially-charged insults, and then punching him in the face.

Then came stories that a member of Kennedy's staff was extremely drunk, after being kicked out of the bar where the Ole Miss coaching staff had been to unwind, and was also taken into custody. The intoxication was denied, and the bar says there was no problem with anyone from the Ole Miss coaching staff.

Alex Moller, who identified himself as the general manager of the Lodge Bar, disputed the police report when reached by telephone today.

"The reports that they were kicked out are untrue," said Moller. "They were here, but they left on good terms. As for what happened after they left the bar, I don't know, but there was no incident here."

Now Andy Kennedy and Ole Miss are getting out their version of events, that, yes, there was a problem with the cabs but it started over a dispute on money owed to another cabbie.

Tonight at 9 pm he has to face Louisville in Cincinnati for the SEC/Big East Invitational. This game was not looking like a particularly attractive game after the injuries Ole Miss has sustained. Now, it looks like this game got a lot more interesting for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual game.

Ole Miss Coach Andy Kennedy spent a four years as an assistant at Cincinnati under Bob Huggins, and a year as Cinci's interim head coach. Apparently he learned much from Bob Huggins, including behavior that would be considered anti-social, at best.

Cincinnati Police say 40 year old Andy Kennedy punched 25 year old cab driver Jiddou Mohammed Ould in the face with a closed fist while shouting racial slurs. The assault happened in the 500 block of Walnut Street in Downtown Cincinnati at 1 a.m. The police report states that there was an unrelated witness who saw the incident.

Kennedy was charged with misdemeanor assault and has a court appearance this afternoon. There is no indication as to whether Kennedy was intoxicated or not -- though, being out at 1 am in Cinci on a Wednesday night/Thursday morning suggests he might have had a few.

The use of racial slurs while swinging on the cabbie is going to be the bigger issue for Kennedy. Assault and perhaps being drunk is one thing. Racial epithets are something completely different for any public figure. Especially an employee at a public university.

UPDATE (12:33): A commenter left a link to a blog post from Cincinnati Enquirer columnist, Paul Daugherty. In the comments, the Daugherty suggests that this might be one big non-story with Kennedy having several witnesses corroborating his version of events.

What? You didn't know the NIT announced their bids tonight as well? They were. If you were a fan of a bubble team that didn't make it, now is the chance to at least make a good showing that you were the most deserving team left out of the NCAA Tournament.

#1 seeds: Arizona State, Virginia Tech, Ohio State, Syracuse
#2 seeds: Florida, Illinois State, Ole Miss, UMass
#3 seeds: Creighton, Florida State, Dayton, Nebraska
#4 seeds: Minnesota, Cal, SIU, VCU
#5 seeds: Oklahoma State, Maryland, New Mexico, UAB
#6 seeds: Rhode Island, Akron, Cleveland State, Charlotte
#7 seeds: San Diego State, Stephen F. Austin, Utah State, UC-Santa Barbara
#8 seeds: Alabama State, Robert Morris, Morgan State, UNC-Asheville

Not much else to say. This is as big an indictment of how weak the bubble really was when you look at this list. Only a couple of these teams have any sort of argument that they were screwed by the NCAA Tournament.

"Gonna free fall out into nothin'... gonna leave this world for a while... " -Tom Petty

I seem to remember having this discussion about Vanderbilt in the preseason. It went something like this:

"They're so overrated it hurts. They'll be lucky to go .500 in conference. You can't win in the SEC with defense like that."

At the time Vanderbilt was ranked in the Top 15 and was sporting a nifty, perfect 16-0 record and a 1-0 start to conference play.

Since then, they've played five games and lost four of them. The Commodores lost @ Kentucky, @ Tennessee, @ Florida and as of last night, @ Ole Miss. Their lone win came over LSU.

Losing four road games to two ranked opponents (the Vols and Ole Miss are both Top 25 teams) and a team on the rise (Florida, which is now ranked #19 in the AP Poll) in a "murderer's row" scheduling stretch shouldn't be enough to cause the Vandy faithful to go running for the panic button. But losing three of those four games in blowout fashion should. The 'Dores were hammered 80-60 by Tennessee, 86-64 by Florida and 74-58 by Ole Miss for a combined losing differential of 58 points in three games.

Each weekday, The Daily W looks at the Who, What, Where, When, or Whys of SEC basketball. Today's question:

Who would have thought that, in late January, we'd have a weekend where the two most important games featured the Mississippi schools, Vanderbilt, and Florida?

And yet, that's what we got this past weekend. State's 88-68 win over Ole Miss and the Gators blowout of Vandy iced it: we've been following the wrong teams from the Magnolia State and Eastern division all along.

It was supposed to be a rebuilding year for Florida, but if the Gators can hold off Arkansas this weekend, next week's game against Tennessee will go a long way toward deciding the SEC Eastern division. The Gators have put themselves in this position by getting phenomenal play from freshman starters Jai Lucas and Nick Calathes, but also got a career-high 19 from Walter Hodge against the Commodores (as a junior in a lineup made from freshmen and sophomores, Hodge qualifies as an "old man").

The Gators looked good but untested in non-conference play, losing the only two games they played against teams with a pulse (Florida State and Ohio State). But they're being tested now that the SEC season has cranked up, and answering the bell in stunning fashion. Other than an increasingly inexplicable loss to Ole Miss, the Gators look lights-out in conference play, with a league-best 81.5 points/game, and tremendous production from freshmen Calathes (41 assists to only 15 turnovers in SEC games) and Lucas (11 of 18 from behind the arc in SEC play). This team is not rebuilding, they're redefining what expectations should be when a school wins consecutive championships.

On the other side of the conference, Ryan Ferguson already tabbed Mississippi State as the best in the West, and he's probably right.

Mississippi State might be the best team in the SEC. They certainly have the conference's best record -- 5-0 -- and they just dominated what was popularly believed to the best team in the West Division, Ole Miss. Final was 88-68... a blowout.

In fact, the Bulldogs have won all but one of their conference games by at least 10 points. Two were won by 20 or more. Only the game against Kentucky was close, but Mississippi State prevailed 69-64.

Rick Stansbury might be fielding his best team in many moons at Mississippi State. Despite a slow start -- the Bulldogs lost 5 games in preseason play, including a mystifying loss to South Alabama and a heartbreaking 84-82 loss to Clemson -- MSU looks to be a very complete package at this point in the season. Jarvis Varnado has blocked 10 or more shots in three separate games, which is otherworldly. 6' 8" F-C Charles Rhodes has been averaging 15 points and 7 rebounds per game while Jamont Gordon's 17 points and 4 assists per game have been the ice that chills the Bulldogs' drink.

The SEC picture continues to emerge, but for now I'm calling it as such: the best team in the SEC West is Mississippi State. In the East, it's Tennessee. The two powerhouses meet on February 2nd in Starkville, and that will tell us a lot about just how good the Bulldogs can be.