Report: Eric Bledsoe had grades changed in high school

Back in May, Pete Thamel of the New York Times penned an article claiming that Eric Bledsoe received improper benefits during his high school days, and also made accusations of academic impropriety.

While Thamel's article seemed to do nothing more than spawn an investigation, a report today from the Birmingham News seems, on the surface, to be quite damning.

You can read the article from Jon Solomon in full here (and I strongly suggest you do), but there are two key components to take note of.

• Bledsoe's transcript says that he received a 90 in Algebra 3 during two night school sessions. But a grade report from those two sessions indicates that Bledsoe actually received a low C and a low B in those classes.


• The other issue is that Bledsoe seemingly took these classes out of order. He took Alegbra 3 during the first semester of his senior year, while taking Algebra 2 in the second semester. He got an A in both classes. As the article indicates, Bledsoe would have fallen short of the NCAA's criteria for eligibility if he had received anything less than an A in either class. Bledsoe had never received a grade higher than a C in math before enrolling at Parker High for his senior year.
  


• Another issue to take note of is that Bledsoe received just one grade higher than a C in his core classes before enrolling at Parker, and that was a B he received as a make-up grade during a summer school session. After enrolling at Parker, seven of the ten grades he received in core classes (the ones that matter to the NCAA) were an A or a B.
  

Now, I don't want to make assumptions or insinuations here. High school algebra is not the most difficult of classes, and high school in general is not always academically rigorous. It is quite feasible that Bledsoe a) realized that his chances of playing college basketball were on the line and he really buckled down to improve his academics; and b) was that good at math that he was capable of pulling an A in Algebra 3 before taking Algebra 2.

But with all the other information out there -- including grades that seem to have actually been changed -- this report is going to draw a lot of interest from the NCAA.

As we learned from the Derrick Rose fiasco, the NCAA has the right to, if they wish, retroactively make a player ineligible. The NCAA has a staff of 55 people to examine some 90,000 potentially ineligible transcripts. Their view is that it is on the school to do a more thorough investigation into an athlete's eligibility.

If Bledsoe did lie on his transcripts, if the NCAA decides that Bledsoe earned a C in Algebra 3 instead of an A, then they could very well rule him ineligible. (Although this case does resemble the one involving Kansas' Darrell Arthur.)That would mean that Kentucky would, in all likelihood, have to vacate every one of the wins that Bledsoe played, which just so happens to be every game Kentucky won last season with the exception of a 104-61 drubbing of Hartford.

We will definitely be following this story as it develops.