Memphis's official punishment yesterday may have further clouded most college basketball fans' opinions of John Calipari. The bad new ESPN show with this tool took a poll yesterday asking if fans would hire John Calipari to be their head basketball coach; only 52 percent responded "yes." (I say "only" because that's a startlingly low number for someone that coaches at one of the country's premier programs and gets paid more than any other coach in the country to do so.) Most regular sports fans are not too high on Calipari right now, and for good reasons.

Of course, Big Blue Nation isn't comprised of regular sports fans. Which is why you get scenes like this from yesterday's Kentucky State Fair. It's official: Pretty much everyone in Kentucky is still head over heels for John Calipari:

Hours before the NCAA stripped Memphis of its 2008 Final Four appearance, former coach John Calipari stepped to a microphone at the Kentucky State Fair and received a standing ovation.

That would be good enough, but Calipari even managed to snag the blessing of Kentucky's governor. Actually, come to think of it, Calipari is unquestionably more popular than the governor right now. To wit:

“I’m not worried about it because they have never said Coach Cal did anything wrong at all,” said Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, who chatted with Calipari for several minutes early Thursday. “I think he’s a very upstanding guy. I think that’s his reputation and I think that reputation will be with him here. I really don’t foresee any problems.”

That's right, Beshear. Who's your daddy?

In the meantime, Kentucky's president says he still doesn't have any problem with Calipari, calling Memphis's troubles "not a University of Kentucky issue." All of which would be well and good -- after all, Calipari hasn't been officially implicated in anything related to Derrick Rose's fraudulent test -- if it didn't seem like Kentucky fans should maybe be a little less brash about all of this. Calipari's coached at two major collegiate basketball programs, and each place he's been he's done three things: recruited really well, won a lot of games, and fled the program just as the NCAA comes bearing down with sanctions and win vacations, leaving a trail of probations in his wake.

Kentucky fans should cheer their new coach with full throats, but doing so without even a hint of concern? Telling anyone who would question Calipari's latest foibles to shut up? This seems like a bad idea. Karma has a way of evening these things out.

Related: Ill-behaved People, SEC Basketball