When the University of Kentucky submitted its last-ditch appeal to the NCAA Student Reinstatement committee on behalf of Randolph Morris earlier this week, there was one piece of evidence the school had not included to that point.

Turns out, the infamous facsimile Morris sent to UK coach Tubby Smith last May after returning home to Atlanta just happened to be one of the key components of UK winning its appeal and Morris having his suspension reduced from the entire season to 14 games.

Call it Fax Gate if you will, but Smith and the Cats are just happy they finally found the document after searching for it for months.

"One of the things that was important at the time," Smith said. "I had lost the fax…actually lost some papers on a plane and I've been looking for them since. We were doing a lot of traveling during the month of June and July. When you misplace stuff, sometimes it happens like that. Had I known what it was, I would have held on to it a little tighter."

When Smith was approached by UK compliance director Sandy Bell about the whereabouts of the fax, Smith realized he had no idea where it was and set about trying to find it. The school had a copy of the fax from the family's end, but that didn't have a date on it. It had a copy of the cover sheet from the fax, but not the actual three-sentence document that would help prove Morris' intent to keep his collegiate eligibility during his attempt to see where he fit in the NBA Draft.

"I had some papers shipped back to me that had been lost on a plane that I never bothered to look at to be honest with you," Smith said. "Sandy Bell said, 'Coach, if you had that…' Well, I'll go back and look. I threw papers everywhere around the house and office.

"I had it stuffed in a folder with some other papers. I think somebody must have realized what was in it and the importance of it. I had the cover, but that was it."

The fax Morris sent read, in part, "I would like to announce my intentions to 'test the waters' in the 2005 NBA Draft. My intent is not to obtain an agent so as to maintain my collegiate eligibility."

Smith said he never gave the fax a second thought because he assumed Morris was gone after the hastiness of sending the fax.

"At the time, I wondered why anyone needed it," Smith said. "When you put it away, in my mind, I thought he was gone. The draft took place the last part of June, so by that time it had been almost two months into it.

"Thank God I found it because had I known at the time the importance of it...In my mind, I thought I knew all I needed to know."

Who knew three sentences of an infamous fax would help save half of Morris' season?