Uh, Yeah

If you believe this, I've got swamp land in Florida to sell you:

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Randolph Morris will be eligible to return to the University of Kentucky's basketball team this season after a suspension of 14 games, the NCAA announced yesterday.

The NCAA amended an earlier ruling that Morris must sit out the entire season because he violated rules during his flirtation with the NBA draft.

The NCAA said a three-sentence fax from Morris to UK coach Tubby Smith that had been missing for nearly seven months was a vital piece of evidence in Morris' favor. UK submitted the fax for NCAA consideration on Tuesday, along with other confidential information from the Morris family.

...In amending that ruling yesterday, the NCAA said its decision to reduce the penalty was based on "new information." Neither Morris nor UK would describe the new information, other than the fax, because it was said to be personal.

The fax, however, "indicated Morris' clear intent to retain his collegiate eligibility while declaring for the NBA draft," the NCAA's ruling said.

Morris' last sentence in the fax, which was dated May 9 and which officially informed Smith of his decision to enter the NBA draft, read, "My intent is not to obtain an agent so as to maintain my collegiate eligibility."

Smith said UK's compliance officials told him the fax could be an important piece of evidence, but the coach said he couldn't find it. The document had been missing since the summer, he said.

Several news outlets, including The Courier-Journal, had submitted open-records requests for it, but the school initially told them that student-privacy laws protected the fax. Later, UK officials said it had been discarded.

Smith explained yesterday that the fax had been stuffed in a folder and was lost on a flight in June or July. The folder eventually was returned to Smith, and he said he discovered the missing document last week.

"I had lost papers on a plane, and I have been looking for them for some time," Smith said. "If I would have known how important those papers were, I would have held onto them more tightly. Somebody must have realized what was in the papers and sent them back to us. If you travel as much as I do, you can sometimes lose papers when you travel. Thank God I found the papers and we were able to work things out."