Orange and Blue Hue » The Gillispie Gambit

The Gillispie Gambit

Billy Gillispie has done a great job recruiting so far in Lexington. Adding Alex Legion and Patrick Patterson to the Wildcat roster might have saved UK from a painful growing phase that the Kentucky faithful are not used to. Now the influx of talent should allow UK to continue to be one of the better SEC teams. 2008 commit DeAndre Liggins is also a top playmaker who will arrive on campus next year. However Kentucky fans are going completely bonkers and much of it is because Gillispie also has 3 other recruits committed to his program - 1 for the 2009 class and 2 for the 2010 class.

Perhaps this is the natural euphoria of a school that had become used to getting regularly trounced in recruiting recently to landing a lot of big names very quickly. But I have to seriously question the strategy of going gaga over kids who are sophomores in high school. Not that you can’t identify talented kids at a young age but in basketball it’s common to only have 3 or 4 scholarships available in a given year. And this is a sport where many of the talented players don’t “blow up” until their senior seasons or the summer circuit prior to their senior year while numerous other can’t miss “superstars” have simply matured before their peers and peak early.

Kentucky is not the first school to offer a scholarship early to a top player but I can’t recall many schools doing it to the degree that Gillispie has committed UK. Granted one of the 2010 kids is from Texas where Gillispie was watching them closely for Texas A&M but how good will he be in . . . three years? Hopefully for UK fans, he’ll still be one of the better guards in the country. In basketball, reneging on a scholarship offer - even if offered years in advance - would be held over his head for the rest of his coaching career on the recruiting circuit.

So Gillispie gambles on creating a buzz about the Wildcats and uses it to secure a solid footing for the future. With the one year college rule he doesn’t have to worry about any player getting so good as to jump straight to the league and skip college altogether, and his recruits should still be serviceable college players even if they don’t live up to the superstar hype. Billy Clyde Gillispie is employing a new and risky strategy in college recruiting and only time will tell if it pays off.

If anything the slew of commitments has (for now) placated and emboldened the fickle and frustrated Wildcat base. For example, John Clay cites a number of articles about Gillespie in his blog article “Billy G’s recruiting hysteria” while A Sea of Blue states in it’s post “The Gillispie Strategy”

Still, with Donovan laying low after his disastrous annulment with Orlando, and Gillispie on a major recruiting offensive, Kentucky is all the rage again, and in a good way, for the first time in quite a while. Wildcat fans are reveling in the exposure and embracing everything Gillispie at the moment.

Kentucky is winning in July, something we haven’t seen since … when? And by doing so, we are putting the rest of the nation on notice. Just like the “TV people” in Poltergeist:

“[We]’re baaaaaaccck.“

So UK fans finally have something to cheer about: kids who will arrive on campus within the next three years. In the meantime, though, Kentucky will be looking at a much different SEC from their heyday in the Pitino era. Tennessee is a top 10 team and favorite to win it all. Arkansas brings a very good coach to lead it’s talented but underachieving program. Ole Miss looks as if Andy Kennedy might finally bring the Rebels back to the thick of the SEC fight while Felton is positioned to sink or swim in the next two years. And lest we forget the reigning SEC and back to back National Champions are still the toast of the SEC having wrested away Kentucky’s throne in brutal fashion.

However, to all Wildcat fans out there, this just in - Basketball recruiting is not headline news, it even pales compared to football recruiting on the national radar. Futher more the number of fans who are aware of the top 2009 and 2010 recruits are in the hundreds. Only in Kentucky could people think the national spotlight is on them while all the sports conglomerates and radio talk shows are still talking about the Florida Gators and their showing in the NBA draft. The most important off-season news in the SEC is Bruce Pearl having top transfer Tyler Smith eligible for next season. Yet we will let the Wildcats enjoy their moment in the sun, even if those rays are bouncing off the Gators National Championship Trophy. After all when the season starts it could be a hard time for the Lexington faithful.

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Nice…very nice.

[…] The Gillispie Gambit […]

wow… you’re an idiot. Enjoy football season.

you really dont have anything other to do, do you? It is pretty obvious from the dating of your threads. You are funny, and a little sad.

The real fun begins when the season starts. Enjoy your demise as obviously you know whats coming as the G-force vibrations resonate thoughout the college blog sites.

If you’re going to write an article about someone maybe you should spell their name right. G-I-L-L-I-S-P-I-E. Even worse, you switch back and forth between spellings. This sounds purely like jealousy. In no way is a 2010 commitment a bad thing. Any way you look at it. It’s in no way binding and Billy G is already recruiting over these players as insurance. You’re an idiot.

You are 100% correct. Recruting isn’t in the talk of the town anywhere except for Kentucky. The National Spotlight isn’t on Kentucky right now. What you fail to understand is that recruiting in the summer, is building the foundation for years and years of time in the National Spotlight. Florida was good for 2 or 3 years. Hope you enjoyed it. We’ll be taking our spot back now. Enjoy the view from below us, you’ve seen it before for decades, it shouldn’t be too hard to get used to again.

Didn’d Florida make an offer to Dakotah Euton, our 2010 commit before he verbaled to UK? Maybe you didn’t know that or maybe forgot, huh? So has our coach really influenced your coach that much?

[…] Leaving Goodman to wallow in his own clueless self-importance, we move on to our friends at Orange and Blue Hue, a University of Florida blog, who also has a recent post containing dire warnings for Kentucky fans about early signing, but also full of assurances that we are no longer the Big Cats we once were: So UK fans finally have something to cheer about, kids who will arrive on campus within the next three years. In the meantime though Kentucky will be looking at a much different SEC from their heyday in the Pitino era. Tennessee is a top 10 team and favorite to win it all. Arkansas brings a very good coach to lead it’s talented but underachieving program. Ole Miss looks as if Andy Kennedy might finally bring the Rebels back to the thick of the SEC fight while Felton is positioned to sink or swim in the next two years. And lest we forget the reigning SEC and back to back National Championship are still the toast of the SEC having wrested away Kentucky’s throne in brutal fashion. […]

Another retarded blog by another retarded Florida fan.

Hey guys . . . nobody is going to HAND Big Blue the label of top dog. UK is going to have to EARN it on the court. If UK regains the dominance it once had in the past they you are more than welcome to shove it in everyone’s faces. Until then you are selling fiction and fairy tales as if it’s reality.

Florida is top dog until it’s knocked off. I think if anyone can do that next year it’s either Tennessee or Arkansas. After that who knows. No one is going to BOW down before the Wildcats simply because of the name on their Jersey. Maybe that used to happen but not anymore. Ask Alabama what it’s like to live in the past.

As usual Kentucky fans are totally out of sync with reality and are completely off of the godforsaken rocker!!

Florida is coming off two, COUNT EM TWO national championships back to back and 3 top 10 draft picks in one year. THEY ARE THE TOAST OF THE SEC and the Cats are nothing more than yet another contender for the throne.

There is nothing special about Kentucky. Get in line fools.

Boys,

Easy, easy.

The Gators are at the top of the heap right now. Nothing guarantees that they stay there except a continuation of winning.

Likewise, nothing guarantees that Kentucky will ever return to the top. It doesn’t work that way. Refer to tradition and the past all you like, but you have to go out there and win. Kentucky has good facilities. So does Florida. Kentucky is starting to get good recruits again. Florida has the #1 recruiting class in the nation.

Kentucky’s days of ruling the SEC are over. They will never return. Kentucky can hope to be competitive in the SEC, sure; and I expect they will be. But the past, when the SEC was a pushover basketball league, is long gone.

Kentucky will have to battle it out just like everyone else. When Gillispie fails to invent time travel such that the Cats can return to their glory years, the bloom will be off the rose yet again.

If Kentucky fans can’t adjust to this new reality they are in for a real miserable run.

I agree. UK gets it’s 3rd or 4th choice of head coach, he goes out and lands a couple good recruits and now they think the SEC is just going to hand them the title of supreme leader. UK is going to be the 4th best team in the SEC next year and if the SEC basketball programs keep advancing the way they have in the past half decade, it will be hard for any team to win anywhere close to the way the “old” Kentucky teams did in conference.

UK will become more like Duke in my opinion. The CURRENT Duke where they have to scratch and claw for wins not the Duke that ran roughshod over the ACC for much of the 90s. Those days are over for both the Blue Devils AND Wildcats.

I’d almost rather give them the title before the season begins than listen to one more “good ‘ole days” post from another self-indulgent UK feline.

Almost.

i think another angle to take on these ridiculous verbals from young players is job security- good recruiting is one of the most important job quality indicators at the very competitive schools and by getting players for classes 2, 3, or 4 years in the future i believe that coaches think it becomes harder for administrations to fire the coaches lest the players rescind their verbal offers.

oh yeah, and to all of the UK fans who have posted on this thread- i find it “cute” that you are all back to your typical shit-talking many, many months before anything is decided by, you know, an actual college basketball game. how many games at UK has “Billy G” won again?
but hey- if you won’t let things like “reality” and “measurable performance” get in the way of your arguments, who am i to say anything about it?

I guess being at the top of the Basketball world all those years made Kentucky a little lazy in recruiting. Billy Donovan took advantage. Kudos on that. However, with new blood at the top, the basketball world will return to normal. Kentucky is on their way back to ruling the SEC. Recruits are lining up to play at UK. Kentucky has a divine right to dominate college basketball. Everyone knows that God is a Kentucky fan. This is going to be fun to watch.

i do believe coach donovan offered dakotah euton a scholarship

Yes, in fact it was right after Euton attended Florida’s Elite Eight that Clyde (who had been slow playing the kid) decided he needed to lock him up. He’s a Kentucky kid so it’s a good move. But having 2 2010 commits already (and rumors that a 3rd could be coming soon) is highly unusual. Especially for a school like UK who you would think should be able to pick and choose the top kids every year as an elite program.

The success that Billy Donovan has enjoyed at Florida was a gift from Tubby Smith. Billy D. took advantage of Tubby’s lazy recruiting style and got players Florida should have never had. Corey Brewer and Al Horford would have played at UK if Tubby would have shown some interest. Tubby is gone . Billy D. will find the recruiting trail colder over the coming years. UK has ruled this conference for over 100 years consistently. The last couple of years have only been a bump in the road. Billy D. really should have taken that Orlando job because his stock will never be this high again. And talk of Florida’s 2 titles really doesn’t impress me when UK has 7 NCAA titles and the many National titles UK won before the NCAA was even created that never get counted. At Florida(and other schools like UF) the coach makes the program. At Kentucky the program makes the coach. i.e Rupp, Pitino, and Smith.

Maybe you should change the name of your site to white and blue hue in that the articles that receive the greatest number of comments are related to the University of Kentucky.

All that really needs to be said is that Florida is the two-time defending national champ, but when it comes to basketball you’re still worried about UK. In July. After the worst two year period in our history since Geroge bush SENIOR was president. UK basketball = still owning the SEC. You’d need a Catholic priest to do an excorsism if you have any hope of removing us from your heads.

I like having Kentucky in my head. I enjoy a good rivalry and Kentucky is easy to dislike. It’s all the more fun when the Gators are on top…

Enjoy, brother. All I know is you turkeys are bringing back 17 minutes out of a possible 200 from the championship game. Gobble whilke you can. I would, cause times running out.

Florida fans sure do talk a lot of smack for not even supporting their team. How about you guys actually try to sell out that tiny arena of yours every once in a while. Nobody ever cared about UF basketball before but now that they have had a few good season everyone wants to jump on the wagon. 12,000 seats and it barely ever even sells out…pathetic.

Pretty confident statement at the end considering the only success has been with the same team. Now that they are all gone, the moment is gone.

How quickly you forget that in 2000 the Gators appeared in yet another national championship game. Florida’s been to 3 title games in seven years. That is not a “one-off” level of success. That is excellence.

you’re right gatorpilot, i too enjoy a good rivalry. and with UK- it’s almost like it never went away…as in, they’ve been making the same arguments forever- despite recent developments! here are basically all of them that are made, just with a few variations:
1) “we sell out our big basketball arena and you don’t so we’re better than you!”
-that’s perhaps a fair point, but then again what else is there to do in kentucky? what other sport does UK perform at a high level against the SEC? other teams in other sports, like the chicago cubs and montreal canadiens, consistently sell out their arenas despite terrible teams- so attendance doesn’t prove a thing. all of those extra seats came in handy when you all booed the team last year- congrats!
2) “we have so much more tradition than you! we’re meant to “own” the SEC and our tradition makes us better than you!”
-seriously, you guys are the Notre Dame of college basketball. looking at your record of national championships, only 2 have come since athletic programs were un-segregated. thank you for proving my point wildcatnATL- it really had to be hard to win those championships against City College and Holy Cross, didn’t it?
3) “florida was only good because UK was doing such a crappy job of recruiting- technically UK helped UF win their national championships and now we’re taking back the recruiting and therefore we rule again!”
-this point is utterly ridiculous. first, UK didn’t do anything to “help” UF win the championships. i know your fans don’t want to take credit for your team’s mediocre performance as of late, but taking the credit for other team’s success? that’s fantasticly delusional. recruits look for the easiest way to exposure and the NBA- there are plenty of schools that can give them that, including UK, but no select group of teams hold a leg up to the rest like they once did.

Actually an article on Notre Dame was BY FAR the most commented on post here at O&BHue. The UK threads don’t compare. UK IS our biggest bball rival and a hot topic now.

P.S. The year the 04s were recruited Kentucky KILLED us in the recruiting rankings with 3 McDonald’s All-Americans signed. But it turned out that coaching, player development, and evaluation won the day.

keltic: i was referring to the fan attitude that the two teams seem to share as well as that specific post here about ND- i believe i incited some of the more, ahem, gauche commentary back in the spring.

Why are you putting quotation marks around things that were never said and taken out of context? I never said UK was better than Florida because Kentucky sells out every game in a basketball arena more than two times the size of Florida’s and Florida never sells out. And there is plenty to do in Kentucky, what does that have to do with anything? Besides that the city of Lexington is almost 3 times the size of middle-of-nowhere Gainesville, what is there to do in Gainesville? Obviously people don’t go to basketball games. My point is that Florida basketball fans are fair weather fans that never existed when the program sucked. True fans are always loyal to their program, they don’t just jump on the wagon when their program is doing well as most of you certainly have. I never heard a peep from UF fans in regards to basketball until very recently so I know there weren’t many Florida b-ball fans prior to the past few bandwagon years.

im glad UF is talking smack. this season’s games are going to be ridiculous, i cant freakin wait! Im a huge ky fan, and have been for 25+ years. I love that we have had some down years and now have something to prove, makes it damn exciting. and i know, being the best and winning national championships is fun fun fun, but i almost enjoy having a few bad years just as much, because that means we have some good years ahead! nothing ever lasts, all the top programs have down years and ky is no different, we have been damn good for the most part but there have definitely been down years and i expect them. but when they’re over the real fun begins. especially with the coaching change. and i love that UF has been dominating and big-headed. i love ky basketball and i love when we have a good rivalry. now it seems we a few good rivalries! when is this season going to start already! go cats!

oh, and about the recruiting. who cares. no one here is anywhere even close to as qualified as BG is for evaluating talent and planning for the future of Kentucky basketball. all i care about is he is obviously working hard and taking chances. there is nothing wrong with that and yes it has many long time ky fans excited. and not necessarily because of talent of the kids that are commiting. just signs of life.

Kentucky has the best facilities in the nation for basketball. Trust me. It’s not even close. That is one reason why recruiting has ramped up. Combine a new coach with a new $35,000,000 practice facility and you will have recruits dreaming of playing for the big blue. Yes, history will repeat itself as has time and time again. Some things change and some things are meant to last forever. The kentucky tradition is here to stay folks. Until you keep kentucky at bay for about 4 or 5 years you haven’t dethroned them. We just had our 2 worst seasons in decades and we still made it to the 2nd round of the tourney for the 16th consecutive year. If you think kentucky will not be ready to lay stake to it’s claim then you are very unprepared for reality. I feel sorry for the beating your gators will recieve next season. The cats don’t care for the gator arrogance.

You enjoyed 2 years of basketball fame with a former Kentucky coach. Enjoy it, it will be your last. Go back to covering spring practice. There is a new sheriff in town and his name is Billy Gillispie.

Hmm. New sheriff doesn’t pull folks over for DUIs, does he?

I guess if you don’t have any constructive smack to throw out there, you say idiotic crap like that. Enjoy you time in the limelight because it is over in the very near future.

gatorpilot- that was awesome.

oh, and “constructive smack”? i haven’t seen one iota of constructive smack by UK fans in this entire comment column. like i said before, all every UK pulls out is the tired old cliches about “bringing back the glory” and “your time is up” and blah blah blah…. the truth of the matter is yes, you’re going to be a lot better than you were these past year, and yes you have yourself a (potentially) great coach but none of that guarantees that you’ll be putting up any new banners in the rafters anytime soon…. oh, and while you’re waiting for the basketball season to start, why don’t you enjoy the pounding you’re getting when the gator boys get up there to kentucky in October!

FU has been elite for 2 years, UK has been elite for 80 years.

just a little reminder from BBN baby !!!!

Correction: UF *is* elite. UK *was* elite.

Just a reminder from Gator Nation, sweetheart!

Florida is a mediocre basketball program with a very good coach. If Billy D ever leaves - you’ll be back in the lower half of the SEC where you have always been. UK is the class of this conference and they always will be. It is “UK” and “everybody else”.

Billy D. is a really loyal coach isnt he
Im glad he stayed in gaysville now there will be no excuses when Kentucky stomps them year after year!

you guys had a nice run in bball, congratulations and thanks for making the SEC look good. we always new some other team had it in them, the odds have to land right sometime.

now, enjoy watching Florida basketball fall to its mediocre (at best) days again.

It funny how even the great fans of the champion Gators are taking notice of the vibrations starting to take place within the SEC. Could it be that the hated Kentucky Wildcat basketball program is starting to breath life again.

Is anyone surprised? Not me. Kentucky is the Rembrandt of college basketball. Since it’s its creation it has stood alone as the most successful program of all! It holds more records than many schools combined. It has set the standard for success. Being successful throughout turmoil and controversy and they always seem to persevere! They have been down but they always get up and when they come back, they come back with fury!

So remember, walk through the museum and stop to gaze at the Rembrandt, imagine one day that that Rembrandt falls from it place and maybe it was even damaged during the fall or slightly torn or disfigured. But when the painting is placed back in its place, no one can deny, it’s still a Rembrandt!

Go Wildcats, and gator fans, you owe the University of Kentucky a lot of thanks for giving Billy the opportunity to learn how to be a winner!

I think kentucky will have florida’s number the upcomming season with the core of the gators team gone. But you HAVE to give the gators respect with there back-to-back national champions, even if you are a kentucky fan, which i am. Florida has an amazing recruiting class and will contend with Kentucky. Hopefully Billy G can bring us back :) You still cant talk crap about Florida.

The fact is that on the day the Gators won their second consecutive national championship, and congrats on that by the way, 3 of the 4 headline stories on a Gator message board I check out every so often were about spring football practice. Kentucky is THE basketball school in the SEC..Florida would have to dominate the SEC for at least the next 30 straight years to even come close to an argument.

I don’t recall any Kentucky fan saying that Kentucky is all that the nation is looking at right now. We Kentuckians are pretty excited over Gillispie and his recruiting, but we don’t think all the nation is looking at UK. I hope Florida has enjoyed their reign, because it is going to end.

And, oh yes, by the way, if Tubby Smith was capable of beating Billy D. eight straight times just a few years back against Billy’s great talent, then I have to like Gillispie’s odds of holding his own plus against Billy D.

You Gaturds have less than 100 days left to gloat and then the real ass whipping begins. EVERY team in the SEC will be out to beat the stuffing out of you. UK will be the main leader. Get ready for a beating like you’ve never seen. You lost 6 of your players. ALL 5 starters in that bunch. If anybody is heading for a bad year, it’s you guys. Tubby’s gone and a new era in UK basketball has begun. Get used to mediocrity again.

Hey, one of those 2010 boys was at Florida basketball camp with Billy D also showing high interest. The 6 foot 8 kid from Kentucky can play ball with the best in the country watch u tube and also they his stock will rise even more!

I would like to add Billy D also offered the kid from ky , a scollie do your home work Florida , Keltic Gator Fan are you putting your own coach down?

(Yes its true, I am not smart enough to read all the comments to see Keltic did address that issue and never claimed that Billy D didn’t offer. In fact he said Euton was a good move because he was a Kentucky kid. I’m such a retard. I promise to pay more attention in the future. Please don’t think all UK fans are as scatterbrained as me. Thx)

Wow…..

That throne, the one supposedly “wrested” from UK in “brutal fashion” is only temporary. Florida isn’t the only team UK has had trouble with. UK has also lost four straight to Vandy, as well as two out of four vs. UT. Dont worry though, the burden of being the head of the pack in the SEC will no longer be UF’s cross to bare. UT & UK will duke it out for that honor while UF fans will spend the next 20 years harping about their back-to-back titles. You see, it’ll be the only thing positive about UF basketball they’ll have to talk about. Have fun reminiscing about your mini two season dynasty.

I find it very humorous that ya’ll need to come here and insist that Billy G. is the savior and that Kentucky is already back on top of Florida without having played a single game.

Keep dreaming suckas!

As of now, UT is the team to beat in the SEC and UCLA is going to be the team to beat in the country. A soon to come post will address this worrying issue.

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