new kentucky coach

[bananahammock]

rumor is gillispie is the man.

[MarquetteFan94]

yep...congrats to UK on getting their 3rd choice!

[OneMadWarrior]

My question is isn't Gillespie exactly the same as Crean was after Marquette's final four run. I mean he has never won a conference title in a major conference(1 for Crean) he has never advanced to the Elite 8 (Crean took Marquette to the final four) The worst of it is that no one has seen what he can do with a roster made of his own players. IN Crean's first season with just his players on the roster  he went to the Final Four and beat the Bluegrass Rednecks along the way. This all just goes to show that Kentucky fans and idiots. They are probably smoking way too much "bluegrass." This smells a lot like the Matt Dougherty hire at UNC again. Hire the hottest coach at the time with a good record of recruiting. He will get in over his head by the second year. Underachieve with great recruiting classes, and be run out of town with Donovan decides 3 years from now that 2007 wasn't the time to go to Kentucky, but 2010 just felt right to him.

[Litehouse]

ESPN reports that Gillispie to Kentucky is official.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2827764

[The Lens]

My question is isn't Gillespie exactly the same as Crean was after Marquette's final four run. I mean he has never won a conference title in a major conference(1 for Crean) he has never advanced to the Elite 8 (Crean took Marquette to the final four) The worst of it is that no one has seen what he can do with a roster made of his own players. IN Crean's first season with just his players on the roster  he went to the Final Four and beat the Bluegrass Rednecks along the way. This all just goes to show that Kentucky fans and idiots. They are probably smoking way too much "bluegrass." This smells a lot like the Matt Dougherty hire at UNC again. Hire the hottest coach at the time with a good record of recruiting. He will get in over his head by the second year. Underachieve with great recruiting classes, and be run out of town with Donovan decides 3 years from now that 2007 wasn't the time to go to Kentucky, but 2010 just felt right to him.

Look at how quick BG turned around UTEP and A&M.  He certainl;y hasn't gone as deep in the tourney cas Coach Crean but he has turned around two programs extremely quickly.

From his bio:

A&M

"He inherited a team that had gone 7-21 the previous year, including a dismal 0-16 mark in Big 12 play. The program had not had a winning season in 11 years.

In just two seasons, Gillispie has engineered one of the most amazing turnarounds in college basketball history, leading ESPN’s Steve Lavin, among others, to christen him a “miracle worker.”

In Gillispie’s first season in 2004-05, the Aggies were picked to finish last in the rugged Big 12, but shot out to a perfect 11-0 start and went on to finish 21-10,"

UTEP:

The Miners finished 6-24 in his first season, but went 24-8 and advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 2004, an incredible 18-win improvement that ranks among the best in history. As a result, Gillispie was named district coach of the year by the USBWA, Texas coach of the year by the TABC, and was a finalist for national coach of the year honors.

The Miners captured the 2004 Western Athletic Conference title, its first in 12 years, after being picked to finish ninth in the preseason poll. UTEP became only the third WAC team in history — and the first in 35 years — to win a league title after finishing last the previous year. In the exhibition season, the Miners ended the Harlem Globetrotters’ 288-game winning streak with an 89-88 victory.


 

[OneMadWarrior]

Its the Big 12 and the WAC. I know people seem to think that the Big 12 is good a t basketball, but besides Kansas it is usually decidedly Mediocre. The WAC is WAC. The prominence of those schools is not necessarily on par with the old Conference USA. I am just saying I'd like to see what he does with his own players before we see how good he is.

[StillAWarrior]

I am just saying I'd like to see what he does with his own players before we see how good he is.

I agree.  I think Billy G. might turn out to be a great coach, but I'm not completely sold yet.  If he'd been the UK athletic director's first choice, many of the fans there would have had a fit.  But, when it's 1:55 a.m. and the bar is closing...

[dwaderoy2004]

I am just saying I'd like to see what he does with his own players before we see how good he is.

well if he can take a group of players that went 7-21, and turn that same core group of players into a sweet 16 team, well then, i'm scared to think what he can accomplish with his own players.  It's not like matt painter, or chris lowery, at SIU, that inhereited teams that were already successful.  gillispie turned a crappy, possibly underperforming team without adding much personnel.  And the people he did get, he somehow convinced them to go to a school that has had basically zero success, past or present.  He is the real deal.

[OneMadWarrior]

Yes but he did both in zero pressure low visibility environments. Its not like he went to a Kentucky team coming off of probation and rebuilt them in the public eye. IN Texas its football first, Basketball season is just something to hold you over until its Time for Spring Practices. IN Kentucky Basketball is everything. Its not the same quiet environment where your practices are sparsely attended. Hell for March Madness they will be standing room only in the Rupp. Sure he did well at both his other stops but is he going to be able to go 4 on a consistent enough basis to keep them off his back.

[Niv Berkowitz]

Toughmover, you gotta give Gilles SOME credit. I mean, to say he did it in a state where 'football is the priority' is akin to saying 'yeah, but he didn't do it with one hand tied behind his back.'

The guy's a really, really good coach and I personally think he should have been the second candidate after Donovan. Barnes is a terrible game manager and would have been run out of town in a year.

Gillespie? The rednecks will run him out in three years.

Great news for MU.

[OneMadWarrior]

I'll give him credit for being a good coach. I like what he did in College Station. I just would like to see what he can do when all the pressure is on him to go 4. Kentucky is a different Animal, mostly because their fans are barely sentient beings. Hell I thought he was a good enough coach to get them to the Final Four this year. This is more of an indictment of Kentucky basketball fans as a whole then it is Of Billy G.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Marquette's own Mack Rhoades (AD at Akron) was the one to give BG his first head coaching gig at UTEP.