Donovan Says “NO”! ORESTES MEEKS SPEAKS!

“Billy Gillispie’s tenure as head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats ended yesterday after a two year record of 40-27, one NCAA appearance and one NIT appearance. At this moment, UK is without a basketball coach. Apparently, that will not be Billy Donovan.

“In response to the rumors circulating about my interest in other jobs, I wanted to address this as quickly as possible. I’m committed to the University of Florida and look forward to continuing to build our program here.” So says Billy Donovan about his interest in the vacant University of Kentucky job.

So says Billy Donovan, who was the second part of the persistent rumor that swirled around Billy Gillispie — that he would be fired and Billy Donovan would be the replacement. Now, we see that the administration had no coach in the wings, and the firing was what it is. A desire to remove Gillispie based on “philosophical differentness and “UN-FIT” circumstances.

Now I have no doubt, after careful consideration, that Billy C. Gillispie did nothing to ingratiate himself to the boosters, media, or the HEAD MAN. He was a hard driving basketball junkie who loved the game and hated the spotlight. This is plenty enough to get you fired in the real world, yet this isn’t the real world. This is no marriage, there was no contract. This was no agreement; there was none, perhaps an understanding, but those are very flimsy, as we can see now.

This is a basketball team with young men hanging in the balance of their careers, and a program tethering on the brink of instability. A strong recruiting class coming, whose parents want to know what is going on. Those things are paramount in considering anything in relation to the men’s basketball program. Having a man in place who appreciates what the University of Kentucky basketball program is all about is a no-brainer. Mitch should have thought of that two years ago when he introduced us to Billy Clyde as the saviour of UK basketball.

Now, we are left to twist in the wind while we look for a basketball coach. Experienced coaches are turning us down now, first Donovan, now Calipari. Never say never, and some may reconsider but, A “home run” hire is necessary soon to address the need to retain the recruits we have coming in. The search is on……

Mike Decourcy, The Sporting News, weighs in, “The guy’s been there two years. If you’re firing somebody after two years, with one NCAA appearance and an NIT, I’m not sure the failure belongs to the coach.”

“You need a special guy…I think that John Calapari…Rick Barnes….Travis Ford…” Vitale offered these names, and we know these. We will be needing NO help from Dicky V. I’ll take Travis. Thank You.

Orestes Meeks, Jodie’s father, had some very unflattering things to say about Billy Gillispie. “They got worse as the season progressed. I don’t know why that was. To me, that is a leadership issue. There is a lot of behind the scenes stuff that went on. Some of that stuff was self inflicted (by Gillispie). I couldn’t understand a lot of the stuff they tried to do.” After UK’s loss at Florida, a Florida player said Jodie Meeks told him he was told by Gillispie to quit shooting. Gillispie denied that later as did Jodie Meeks. However, Orestes Meeks said it happened in other games this year as well. “He was telling him that all year about shooting,” Orestes Meeks said. “When he hit 7 3’s against Tennessee State in the first half and he was 8-for-11 from the field and he told him, ‘Why do you have 11 shots. You are shooting too much.’ “I think Coach had a problem with Jodie doing as well as he did. We do not have a relationship. I do not talk to him. When the school started the (national player of the year) promotion for Jodie (in February), he benched him (at South Carolina). He took him out and told him not to shoot even though he just had made a shot. He just told him to sit down. How does that make sense?” Indeed Orestes, it makes no sense, and if this is true, we did make the best move…

UK ESCAPES CREIGHTON 65-63!

Amid swirling rumours as to his future as UK’s basketball coach, Billy Clyde Gillispie took his basketball team to Omaha Nebraska to take on a Creighton Blue Jays squad that has been on a roll of sorts winning 12 of their last 13 games. They certainly represented an almost impossible task and a tough out for a team like UK that went in the other direction over their last 13 games, dropping 9 of those…

UK rode the backs of its two leading scores, Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson, who sit out most of the first half with foul trouble. Patrick was a warrior inside the entire second half and Jodie won the game, scoring the last 5 points, after being held in check most of the night…

BCG is right, this team has matured over the past couple of weeks, because this is one of those games that they lost all season, but this one, well.., they found a way to win, using their “bunker mentality” says Glenn Cyprien, assistant coach. Example: UK was down by 3 points with 1:25 seconds to play…Jodie Meeks scored a layup, and was fouled on a driving shot in the lane, for the old fashion 3 point play…The final margin of 2, with 7.5 seconds, left was the largest lead for a UK team that fought to stay even all night…

One indicator of team maturity is the fact that UK executed all five of it’s time out plays, including the all important one to Meeks that won the game. “I just think we’re executing a lot better overall, but coming out of timeouts people realize their assignments and are carrying them out the right way,” sophomore Patrick Patterson said. “Coach always has an arsenal of plays and tonight we executed them a bunch of times,” said Patterson, who was on the giving and receiving end of the set plays. “Down the stretch, it enabled us to score when it mattered the most.”

But, again, the biggest story was the way they played in winning their second straight NIT matchup. Defeating what was considered the strongest team in the field, will go a long way for the team’s confidence come Wednesday Night against Notre Dame.

Indeed, UK was the underdog here, and seemed to relish the role, playing in front of a sold-out Qwest Arena…There’s nothing that can quell the rumours like a team that comes out, and plays as if there is none…BCG intimated that he and the players were having fun, “…Shoot, our guys are having fun, I’m having fun and we’re going to go after it.”

BCG seems to be an “old school”, throw- back, type coach, who is not concerned with social graces, hence his problems at UK. There’s is no doubt he could have chosen his words much better in many encounters with the press this year, and with his own in-house media people. Hopefully, the gist of Friday’s meeting will alleviate that situation…

He is a single man who lives and breathes basketball, and two years ago we were told by this very administration that HE would be THE FIT for UK basketball. If he goes, he has not had sufficient chance, by any means, to build a team and the error is UK.

To say that a man cannot change, as some in the media have suggested, is an awful stigma on one’s persona. Patrick Patterson intimates that Billy Gillespie has ALREADY changed, “”Coach will ask our opinions. He’ll ask if we see anything out there and he’ll take it to heart,” Patterson added. “I think he’s come a long way from last year because he didn’t do that too much. But we’re all a lot more comfortable with each other.” THEY better have a top notch coach waiting in the wings, or it might be a difficult search for a new ONE….