Court tosses Cyprien defamation suit

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that the Louisiana Supreme Court dismissed a defamation suit brought by UK assistant coach Glynn Cyprien. The suit came out of Cyprien being hired by Louisiana-Lafayette as its coach and then fired for falsifying his resume.

When asked before UK’s game against Auburn about the court action, Cyprien said UK basketball publicist DeWayne Peevy would be issuing an official reaction.

After the game, UK distributed a statement from Cyprien.

“I am totally focused and committed to the Kentucky basketball program,” it read. “We are working hard to achieve our goals. My attorneys will continue their efforts to resolve this case. To that end, I have no further comment.”

Here’s the wire service story:

The Louisiana Supreme Court throws out a defamation suit brought by a college basketball coach fired months after he was hired.

It says Louisiana-Lafayette had a valid reason to fire Glynn Cyprien and did not defame him when it accused him of resume fraud.

The school hired Cyprien in May 2004. It fired him after a news report that his degrees were from an online school — and he had not graduated from Texas-San Antonio, as a resume claimed.

Cyprien said he was defamed because he gave the correct information in another form, and hand-delivered a correct resume before a student worker at Oklahoma State faxed the inaccurate one.

The high court ruled that since he did submit a false resume — and never explained why it was in his files — he had no case.

Cyprien, now an assistant at Kentucky, spent the 2006-07 season at Arkansas.