FanHouse AndyKennedy

Four months ago, Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy was arrested (video above) after a cab driver said Kennedy punched him and taunted him with racial insults. At the time Kennedy claimed he would be exonerated. Now Kennedy has pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.

Cincinnati police have released an hour-long video taken during their arrest of Ole Miss head basketball coach Andy Kennedy in December. Police arrested Kennedy for allegedly assaulting a cab driver outside a downtown night club. The driver claimed the Rebels coach, who was in town to play Louisville in the Big East-SEC Invitational, directed racial slurs at him.

In the video, Kennedy is pulled over, handcuffed, placed in the police cruiser and taken back to the night club to be positively identified. In the video taken from the cruiser's dashboard camera, Kennedy repeatedly begs the officers to let him go because the arrest would create "an international altercation."

There has been another lawsuit filed after the fallout of Ole Miss head basketball coach Andy Kennedy's run-in with a cab driver in Cincinnati last month. Mohamed Jiddou claimed that Kennedy punched him while shouting racial slurs in front of a local bar. Kennedy denies all of this and has filed a defamation suit against Jiddou and a valet who said he witnessed the assault. Kennedy is due in court today for a preliminary hearing of the assault charge.

What got lost in the shuffle was another lawsuit filed by the Kennedy clan. Kennedy's wife, Kimber, is suing the cabbie and the valet over the claim that her husband hasn't been able to perform in the bedroom since the incident happened.

Ole Miss head basketball coach Andy Kennedy has filed a defamation of character lawsuit against the man who accused him of assault and a witness to the alleged incident. In the original assault claim, there was talk of a drunk Kennedy assaulting a cab driver and spitting out racial taunts like "bin Laden."

The suit is against that cab driver who went on local news stations telling his side of the story and Michael Strother, a valet who also went on the local news and said he witnessed Kennedy's alleged conduct.

There are all kinds of conflicting reports since then but Kennedy believes that the damage has already been done.

Kennedy's attorney, Richard Katz, said Friday that the statements made by Mohamed Moctar Ould Jiddou and Strother might do permanent damage to Kennedy's coaching career, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. He also alleged their statements to police and the media have not been consistent.

"As an athlete or a coach, if you're in this business and something happens, whether you're innocent or guilty, it's with you for the rest of your career," Katz said, according to the report. "We don't want this to happen. We want this to be over and then throw the baggage in the river."

Again, this is a mess that has three sides: Kennedy's, the cab driver's and the absolute truth. Hopefully we can find out the final side.

Andy Kennedy's Rebels went down to the 9th-ranked Volunteers, but not without one hell of a fight. It was a tight, high-scoring affair. Final: Vols 85, Rebs 83.

The game was regionally telecast, so the nation at large didn't really get a chance to see Ole Miss play. If you missed out, here's what you see in Mississippi: a team that absolutely refuses to be outhustled or outworked. A team that works like a well-oiled machine. And a team with great basketball IQ. They're not the most talented team in the conference, but they make up for that with fantastic team chemistry and an obsessive drive to win.

That was evidenced in the second half when the Rebels found themselves down 12 points with :11 remaining in the half. The Rebs dug deep, stepped up on defense and actually took a 4-point lead with two minutes and 30 seconds left in the game.

It wasn't enough, as the Vols were able to score the game-winning basket with 4 ticks left on the clock. Still, Ole Miss had shown the conference that it was going to be a tough team to beat. Leaving with an L, though, is the bottom line for Kennedy and his team.

"We're way beyond moral victories," Mississippi coach Andy Kennedy said. "Our guys are crushed. I've got grown men crying in there."

Perhaps you didn't get my repeated memos to this effect, but the SEC is in a bit of a down cycle right now. That doesn't mean all of the conference's teams are bad.

Just most of them.

I kid, I kid. Well, sort of. In truth the SEC fields three teams which I would consider to be potential "conference powers" in 2008: Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Ole Miss.

What, no Kentucky? No Florida? No LSU? Arkansas was supposed to be good this year, no?

Right: no Kentucky, no Florida, definitely no LSU and Arkansas is a team which could get better, but right now is still reeling from a loss to Appalachian State. So, no Hogs either.

We expected Tennessee to be pretty good after their Sweet 16 appearance last year, and although they started a bit sluggishly, they're picking up steam. At 12-1, the Vols' only loss is to red-hot Texas -- no real shame there, although no one wants to lose by 19 points -- and they just beat Gonzaga out in Seattle over the holidays.