Saturday, January 12, 2002
UK allows Stone to play at Louisville
But Pitino takes wait-and-see view
The Associated Press
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kentucky unexpectedly granted a release to former basketball player Marvin Stone on Friday, allowing him to play for former Kentucky coach Rick Pitino at archrival Louisville.
“Coach (Tubby) Smith and I met this morning, and Coach Smith has had a change of heart,” Kentucky athletics director Larry Ivy said during a hastily called news conference. “He has agreed, and I also concurred, that we will release him to the University of Louisville.”
Stone, a 6-foot-10 junior and former McDonald's All-American at Grissom High School in Huntsville, Ala., now can be offered a scholarship to play at Louisville after sitting out a season under NCAA transfer rules. He would have one full season of eligibility remaining.
Stone became the first player dismissed in Smith's five years at Kentucky on Dec.27 — two days before the school's nationally televised showdown with Pitino and Louisville — when he failed to return from the holiday break.
“I don't know Marvin Stone,” Pitino said. “This may not be the right place for him. He thinks it is, but he's got to find out exactly what Louisville basketball is all about.”
Pitino, who coached at Kentucky from 1989-97, said he would talk with Stone about joining the program.
“We certainly need big men, and there's certainly playing time,” Pitino said. “But there has to be a very strong commitment academically, a very strong commitment to discipline, and I won't know that until I meet with him.”
Neither Stone nor his attorney, Behrouz Rahmati of Huntsville, Ala., could be reached for comment immediately. Stone enrolled as a student at Louisville earlier this week.
“This came after a really gut-wrenching few days for Coach Smith,” Ivy said. “Marvin's leaving the team after the Christmas break was very, very bad timing. Normally these things don't happen during the middle of a season.”
“After the somewhat possibly confusing nature of our statements relative to our procedures and all the distractions that has caused around the program, Coach Smith felt like it was best for the program and best for Marvin that we put this to bed and release him so he can get on with his life and we can get on with ours at the University of Kentucky.”
Stone never lived up to his pre-college billing, averaging 5.3 points and four rebounds in about 14 minutes in nine games this season. He totaled 397 points and 314 rebounds in his career after playing in 75 games with 11 starts.
“Coach Smith informed me that he would like Marvin to be released to any institution other than a Southeastern Conference school or a school that we had a continuing, ongoing contractual relationship with.”
When Stone announced his intention to transfer to Louisville or Colorado State, Ivy originally stated that an unwritten school policy dictated he could not be released to another Southeastern Conference school or a program Kentucky plays on a regular basis, such as Louisville, Indiana or Notre Dame.
Pitino and C.M. Newton, who retired as Kentucky's athletics director in 2000, however, publicly stated that they knew of no policy that prohibited Stone's transfer to Louisville.
Stone retained Rahmati to study his options. Rahmati later threatened to file a lawsuit against UK for violating Stone's constitutional right to equal protection and due process.
The bitter two-week battle was played out in newspapers and on radio call-in shows. Friday's announcement came a day after Smith implied on the SEC's weekly teleconference that the decision not to release Stone to Louisville was not entirely his own but the decision of the athletics director and the school's compliance officer.
“What a coach does in my situation is say, "Well, fine with me. Let's release him,'” Smith said Thursday. “But then the school makes a decision. "We have other sports, Tubby. You're part of the entire athletics program.' I have people I have to answer to as well.”
Friday's announcement came after Smith's pre-South Carolina news conference and he could not be reached for comment about the decision.
Ivy, however, reiterated that if Smith had initially agreed to Stone's release to Louisville, he would have supported that decision as well.
“The first step in any transfer procedure is, "What is the desire of the head coach?” Ivy said. “The initial thought by Coach Smith was, from a competitive standpoint, we didn't want to have to play against Marvin at another institution.”
Ivy opened the news conference saying he wanted to clarify the school's position on its transfer guidelines, which have been in effect for about 12 years.
“We probably misinformed you,” he said. “This is a procedure that we have been following as we do in football, basketball and every sport.
“When we said policy, most people were probably thinking, "Show me something. Where is it written? Where do you say that he can't transfer to Louisville or Indiana? I think policy implies that it should be written. I think procedure is just steps that we follow in reaching a decision.”
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UK allows Stone to play at Louisville
