Since there's been a day or so to reflect on the whole thing, today's Extra Onions is a round up of Calipari-based opinions from around the 'Webs. Anger, malice, and ill will sold separately. As always, email or follow me on Twitter to send along your stuff.

John Gasaway, Basketball Prospectus: "Since the moment Kentucky decided that Gillispie was their man in early April of 2007, every significant decision and/or action that the University has made with regard to its basketball program has been 180 degrees wrong ... On April 1, 2009, Kentucky hired Memphis coach John Calipari knowing full well, they now tell us, that Calipari’s program was being investigated by the NCAA. True, it could well be that Calipari knew nothing of shady doings related to Derrick Rose and an SAT whose results may or may not have been fraudulent. But if you’re Kentucky and you have knowledge of the NCAA’s Notice of Allegations, do you really go ahead and pull the trigger on the Calipari hire? Indiana raised some eyebrows in 2006 by hiring Kelvin Sampson at a time when he was under NCAA investigation at Oklahoma. Say this for the Hoosiers, though: at least Sampson’s status was public knowledge. By contrast Kentucky gives the appearance of having hustled Calipari into town furtively before the news could gum up their plans."

Spencer Hall, The Sporting Blog: "The real gusty laughter should be reserved for the NCAA, the sloth- footed firemen who by design are forever pulling up with the firehoses and slapping their foreheads at the sight of a scorched and still smoking foundation. As with the Tim Floyd case at USC, the NCAA's role here is to play the coroner, not the sheriff. At this point, they are less of a regulatory agency than a kind of verification service for cheats, happy to confirm that rule-breaking occurred, spend a good amount of money doing so, and then shelve the report without action except in the tiniest, most kickable offenders' cases. Under Myles Brand's leadership, they remain what they've always been: the country hanging judge who'll give a small-time pot dealer 15 years but lets a banker skate when a few mil go missing at the bank."

Luke Winn, Sports Illustrated: "In Memphis' locker room shortly after its heartbreaking overtime loss to Kansas in the 2008 national championship game, forward Chris Douglas-Roberts tried to console teammate Joey Dorsey by telling him, "The Fab Five never won a title. Douglas-Roberts' belief was that the Tigers were an iconic team, like Michigan's 1992 and '93 squads, that wouldn't be forgotten despite their lack of title rings. He most certainly wasn't expecting that the Tigers, like the Wolverines, might eventually have to vacate their title-game appearance. The irony in that analogy is now thick." 

Truzenzuzex, A Sea Of Blue: "But assuming that no surprises crawl out of the woodwork implicating Coach Cal, I think we should all reread this sage advice and once again, embrace the hate.  'Why,' you ask?  Because if you are honest with yourself, you know as well as I do that if St. Peter himself came down from Heaven and testified in open court that John Calipari was as blameless as a newborn babe in any and all these allegations, it would not matter one iota to this program's detractors, nor to many who find Calipari's occasional close proximity to NCAA violations troubling.  That's the way the game is played, and the only antidote is skin as thick as an M1A1 Abrams' armor.  Many of us were glad to have Coach Cal, and we got him, warts, baggage and all. So embrace that hate, Big Blue Nation, and take pleasure in the loathing.  I know I will."

Rick Bozich, Louisville Courier-Journal: "It's not Kentucky's shame — at least not yet. But Mitch Barnhart's shame? That's more like it. Barnhart, the University of Kentucky athletic director, has questions he needs to ask — and answer. About his old basketball coach, Billy Gillispie. About his new coach, John Calipari. And about his new basketball coach's newest recruit, John Wall. [...] It's the Calipari situation that should make Barnhart squirm."

Matt Jones, Kentucky Sports Radio: "The Calipari situation doesnt bother me at this point. Why? Its simple…we knew what we were getting when Calipari was hired. When UK made the decision to get Calipari, we knew that we would have one of the best coaches in America, the top recruiter and a guy who immediately could get Kentucky back to the top of the basketball mountain. And you know what, he has done all of those things. But we also knew that we were getting a coach that had a reputation nationally of being on the edge of the NCAA rules. Face it, before he came to Kentucky, you thought things were fishy with Calipari. Everyone did. There has never been any proof of anything, but when you mentioned Cal’s name to non-Memphis fans, they all thought something was up. It may not have been fair, but it was reality. The day UK hired him, they inherited that as well, and we all knew it going in."

Jason Brubaker, College Hoops Net: "With the news of the allegations breaking on the same day that Wall pleaded guilty, Calipari's reputation appears to be catching up to him. And for an image-conscious program like Kentucky, you have to think the administration is sweating just a bit right now as this process plays out. Calipari supporters, and UK fans, will be quick to point out that Calipari himself has never had any violations, and that Wall is just a young kid who made a mistake (over-zealous UK fans could probably justify signing Christian Laettner right now if they thought he could deliver victories). But a look at the big picture delivers a disturbing reality, namely that trouble just seems to follow Calipari around. "

Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports: "It might have been Memphis, an obvious beneficiary of his eligibility, which did it. It also might have been someone who wanted to curry favor with him and his family so that after he did his six months at college, he might sign with them. Rose might not have even known about what the NCAA richly describes as “fraudulence and misconduct.” Rose probably didn’t do it himself, because if you’re capable of figuring out how to fix the SAT you probably don’t have to. [...] For everyone else the details don’t matter. Calipari might be cleared (or never charged) but he was cleared and never charged with the Marcus Camby situation at Massachusetts. Eventually there are too many cleared and never charged to remember. He’ll survive because head coaches always survive; especially when they have a killer team for next season. But perception is reality as Cal likes to say. And the reality is that after two months of glorious, worshipful sunshine, it just got really cloudy in Lexington."

RTMSF, Rush The Court: "And of course Kentucky fans are all too familiar with Eric Manuel’s sad tale of academic fraud from the late 80s which ultimately led to some of the darkest days in the program’s history. You have to wonder if the school’s frustration with Tubby and then Gillispie has opened the door to another era of the ‘anything goes’ mentality in Lexington.  After all, it’s been a generation since Eddie Sutton was run out of town; most of the students at UK weren’t even alive yet for that particular abomination. One thing’s for sure about this whole mess.  Calipari is starting to remind us a little of Elijah Price in “Unbreakable” - bad shhtuff seems to follow him around wherever he goes, but nothing ever seems to get pinned directly onto him.  Whether this is something Kentucky fans are worried about is up for debate, but this has to be a tad unsettling for Kentucky fans over the age of 30."

Related: SEC Basketball, C-USA Basketball, Extra Onions