When Bob Knight speaks, the sports world has to listen whether it wants to or not.

Kentucky Wildcat fans better have been listening last week when Knight publicly questioned the character of UK's newfound basketball savior, John Calipari. The question is, what can the characters in the Bluegrass State really do about it now that they're married to the mob?

Pray Calipari doesn't do to them what he did to his previous employers, that's what.

Knight was right: questions must be asked and the system must be scrutinized after Calipari lands one of the prize jobs in college sports while his two previous schools -- Memphis and Massachusetts -- have landed on NCAA probation. Coach Cal is the first coach ever to vacate Final 4 appearances at two different schools, yet he now has the keys to one of college basketball's most classic cars. 

And is it me, or does the NCAA always levy its verdicts against the victims? Usually those victims are the players, like Kenny Thomas in the 1990's or Colorado's Olympic skier/punt returner Jeremy Bloom, or Oklahoma State receiver Dez Bryant this fall, or rest of the countless 'student-athletes' betrayed by the same legislation theoretically intended to protect them and maintain the integrity of interscholastic athletics. 

Bob Knight wonders if that integrity any longer exists in any abundance worth protecting, and I can't help but echo the general's concern.

Sometimes the players are indeed part of the perpetration, like Ohio State's Maurice Clarrett or Oklahoma's Rhett Bomar, or many others, but even then the NCAA likes to throw its 'student-athletes' under the bus and look the other way while the multi-million dollar boosters and professional agents tiptoe out the back door undetected (and unpunished).

Meanwhile, the players at Massachusetts and Memphis who didn't take their own tests and didn't earn their own grades and didn't play by the rules as most of their competitors are sent to the NBA for a lottery deal or another university for a fresh start. That means academic fraud is rewarded with indifference while players driving somebody else's Yukon or getting overpaid for a part-time job (while the NCAA exploits them for billions) is punished with persecution?

How much more duplicit can a double standard get? 

I guess a country with backwards priorities is bound to spawn businesses with backwards practices, and the NCAA simply can't figure out whom to hold accountable and when.

Most of Calipari's Minuteman and Tiger players chose U-Mass or Memphis because they wanted to play basketball for him, not to attend class and absorb the curriculum at either academic institution. Why, then, are the academic institutions and bankrupt basketball programs Calipari left behind penalized when he, his players and coaches are free to jump ship at their earliest convenience.

Granted, Massachusetts and Memphis received untold television exposure and profited unparalleled monetary gains from the success of their basketball programs under Calipari; and granted, Calipari isn't the only college coach doing whatever it is he does to bend or break the rules wherever he coaches.

But, the punishment never seems to fit the crime when the NCAA is involved, and if Bob Knight's voice doesn't call the necessary attention to the inequities of a sports world where amateur athletes make professional money for their colleges and coaches, whose will?

Calipari moves on to a more prestigious position with a more lucrative long-term deal while Massachusetts and Memphis are left behind to take down banners, forfeit scholarships and/or receive post-season bans?

That just doesn't make sense, but the sour scents scatter through the air because, unfortunately, it always makes cents.