2008 Memphis Tigers finally defeated ... by Derrick Rose's SATs

31 college basketball teams don't have to feel so bad anymore about losing to the Memphis Tigers in 2007-08.

According to a report from the Memphis Commercial Appeal, The NCAA Committee on Infractions will announce Thursday that Memphis will have to forfeit all of its 38 wins from that season, including the Final Four appearance, based on information that then-freshman guard Derrick Rose had someone else take his SATs for him, thereby rendering him ineligible for the season.

(I love how the masthead for that article comes with a banner reading "Go Memphis Tigers." Go where? You could have a lot of fun with that, based on this news. "Go ... to class!" "Go apologize! "Go directly to jail, do not pass GO, do not collect 38 victories.")

This is huge news. Memphis was seconds away from a national championship that year, had it not been for Mario Chalmers' amazing shot to send the game into overtime and Kansas to the title. And Rose was the driving force for that team. 15 points, five assists, and four rebounds per game, and an eventual No. 1 NBA draft pick to the Chicago Bulls. I remember seeing just how good Rose was when Memphis defeated Gonzaga in January 2008. Rose had a near-triple double, with 19 points, nine assists and eight rebounds while routinely carving up the Zag defense and getting to the line.

But even aside from Rose, that was a special Memphis team. They were so freakishly athletic that my friends and I nicknamed them the Monstars. They could beat any team, any night, with their physical skills alone.

Now all of that is gone, because Rose was too dumb to take his own SATs.

A big problem that is coming out of this is finding who to punish. We all know exactly who to blame, but different circumstances are changing who will have the hammer laid down on them.

You can't blame Rose entirely, because he got exactly what he wanted out of it. He got to skip the SATs, play for a college basketball power, and parlayed all of that into a multi-million dollar NBA contract. It was shady and backhanded, and Rose probably doesn't care one bit. As well, he's in the NBA now, and won't be subject to any punishment for his cheating. He's going to get off scot free.

So then we move to the next major player, former coach John Calipari. As a Division-I head coach, you have to know the academic situations of your players, if only to know when to cover it up when they're failing, so obviously Calipari knew about this. But he wanted to win, and wasn't about to let silly little things like "ethics" or "rules" or "serious violations" take away the best point guard in the country. He's just as liable as Rose. But the problem is, you can't punish him, either. Calipari just left this offseason to take the Kentucky head coaching job (probably to avoid this mess). So as it stands now, he's essentially in the clear (it won't follow him to Kentucky, college basketball programs are notorious for ignoring the past misdeeds of coaches).

So because the two major players are no longer in the picture, that leaves only one who will receive the full brunt of the NCAA's wrath: the University of Memphis.

The player who cheated is already gone. The coach who allowed it is already gone. That leaves only Memphis and its athletic department to take all the punishment. While I'm sure that they participated in this on some level, it couldn't have been as big of involvement as Rose or Calipari. And yet it's the school, the team and the fans who will forever have to live with a big asterisk next to its records from 07-08.

Hey, you've got to punish somebody.

And while all this is happening, Rose and Calipari are laughing like they're in the ending of a heist movie; they pulled all of this off, pinned it on a fall guy and got out just in time before the axe fell.