By LARRY VAUGHT

The Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy, who is one of the best when it comes to covering college basketball, says Kentucky has reported a secondary rules violation to the NCAA involving a former program assistant.

DeCourcy didn’t name his source, but his information has to be reliable or he would have not gone with it.

DeCourcy wrote that former staff member Bilal Batley went to the UK practice facility in July to talk to a player about an academic matter and while he was there he rebounded shots. Kentucky determined that should be turned into the NCAA as a secondary violation.

With rumors swirling for weeks about a “big national story” coming out on UK basketball, speculation mounted that Batley might be involved when UK confirmed that Batley had left his position as  assistant director of basketball operations/manager, the same job he had the previous year at Memphis under coach John Calipari.

Before that, he was a graduate manager for a year at Indiana under coach Kelvin Sampson where he organized the program’s recruiting information and mentored student-athletes. He took graduate courses in Indiana’s sport management program. Prior to that he was a student-manager at Oklahoma for two seasons where he assisted with practice preparations and pre-game setup and organized recruiting mailings.

He’s also worked as an assistant coach/personal assistant at the John Lucas Pre-Draft Camp in Houston.

DeCourcy reported that Batley had resigned  to return home to Houston because of a family illness based on what his source told him.

Another source told me Batley left because of a serious illness in his family. “Batley left Kentucky to spend time with the individual before they pass,” the source indicated because he felt fans needed to know why Batley had gone back to Texas.

Obviously, UK has not confirmed why Batley left and probably won’t. But it now looks like the “rumored” breaking national news story either was not true or the story is not going to happen. It wasn’t DeCourcy that was rumored to be working on the story and now that he’s got this scoop, it’s hard to imagine anything else is out there.

“With John (Calipari), you just have to get used to this. Folks are always throwing stones at him and taking shots,” one national source said.

Could be because this is truly a minor, minor violation and the kind of secondary violation that draws no penalties and doesn’t compare to what Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin did when he racked up secondary violations in a hurry after he got the job.

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Two other readers have related not so flattering stories about former UK basketball player Derrick Miller after his arrest in a ticket scam deal earlier this week.

Liberty’s Steve Hill sent this e-mail: “As the pharmacist/owner of Hill’s Pharmacy in Liberty, we too were taken by Derrick’s scam. There were several others in Liberty as well. We trusted him because of his UK connection. We also chalked it up as a lesson you learn in doing business. We just wrote it off and forgot about it until we heard the story about the ticket scam.”

Then there was this post on the site here in case you missed it: “We had a similar experience with Miller about the same time period. I used to own a package store next to the old Parkette Drive-In (in Lexington). Miller came in one day and was selling ads for some new publication. We chatted a bit but I turned him down.”

Again, all I can say is this is truly a sad, sad situation. But if you have a similar story, feel free to share it. Others need to know.

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Finally, thanks to Derek Kirby, a region manager for Dayton (Ohio) Freight Lines or this e-mail that made my day:

“I call you Larry because I feel like I know you. I grew in Mt. Vernon and I am not sure how long I listened to you on call-in shows but I always paid attention to when and where you would be on. I like you honest take on UK. I listen for facts and not a lot of speculation. You always call it like you see it. I live in Ohio now and love VaughtsViews.com. I rarely go to the Lexington Herald site for anything. Thanks for the site and the reports! It looks great but more importantly has content.”

That’s what I like to hear.

If you have a comment, feel free to contact me at larry@amnews.com. After all, I want this to be your blog, too.