U of L’s use of ex-player raises questions

Kentucky expected to borrow an idea from arch rival Louisville. To fill out the teams for its Blue-White Scrimmage Tuesday night, UK planned to use three former players.

Ever the promoter, Coach John Calipari used his website to stage a contest asking fans to guess who the three players would be (the prize was the DVD Blue Dawn).

Then the NCAA stepped in saying former players cannot be used in competitions open to the public. If UK chose to use the former players, the scrimmage would count toward the limit of games for schedules. So Wayne Turner, Mark Krebs and Perry Stevenson did not join the 10 players on UK’s team.

This left some UK fans wondering about Louisville using a former player in its Red-White Game last Sunday.

Perrin Johnson, who played for the Cards from 2003 to 2007, played 22 minutes. He scored six points and grabbed six rebounds.

Injuries — Stephan Van Treese’s sprained ankle, Elisha Justice’s  broken rib, Russ Smith’s broken foot and Jared Swopshire’s strained groin — led U of L to use Johnson, spokesman Kenny Klein said Wednesday morning.

When asked a possible effect on U of L’s schedule, Klein said, “We’d have checked in advance. We wouldn’t have just done it.”

U of L has scheduled exhibition games against Northern Kentucky on Sunday and Kentucky Wesleyan on Nov. 11.

When asked about Kentucky planning to use former players in the Blue-White Scrimmage, NCAA spokesman Chuck Wynne said ex-players can participate in practice on an occasional basis, but they cannot play in a scrimmage that is open, publicized and has an admission charge.

Wynne declined to comment on U of L using Johnson in its Red-White game, which drew an announced crowd of 21,218 to the school’s new KFC Yum! Center.

“We don’t comment on current, potential or pending investigations,” Wynne wrote in an e-mail.