I think we've somewhat disagreed about this one for a couple of years. I've always liked Amaker and Blakeney, but it's fairly clear that they tried to skirt some NCAA rules regarding contacts with recruits (eg, Blakeney playing pick-up games with prospects immediately prior to his signing a contract as a coach; Amaker "running into" the father of a prospect). These activities didn't lead to NCAA charges, but, if they were done by Calhoun or Pitino, this thread would not be so charitable.
The issue of academic standards is more complicated, but it's clear that Harvard lowered its own requirements at the exact time they hired Amaker. I don't know whether or not Amaker stipulated this in his own recruitment to be coach or whether it simply reflected Harvard's overall decision to start winning some games, but I don't think there's any question that he was able to offer admission to some players who would previously have been completely off limits. Is this bad or good? Who knows, but it did open up recruiting. One ramification to his getting in a top 25 class was that he recruited over some of the players who were already on the team. That meant that he wouldn't have a place for them. Instead of telling a handful of players in the spring that they were getting kicked off the varsity team, he had told them there would be tryouts in the fall. He went back on that pledge and instead cut five of them in September without the promised tryout. Would these 5 have transferred out if they'd known they wouldn't even have a tryout in the fall? Again, who knows, but it was an error from my perspective--regardless of whether or not these players were good enough to play for a different Div I team.
When you take in some of the recruiting faux pas, as well as his mixed runs at higher profile places like Michigan and Seton Hall, I'd say that Amaker isn't among the most likely candidates for Coach K's job.
This is a typical story from a couple of years ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/sp...pagewanted=all