What Was The Real Story?

[largebluej]

I heard the answer to one of these not long ago. And it came from somebody who would absolutely know.

The topic: could D. Anderson have played in the '97 title game?

The answer: absolutely. He was dominating people in practice. But Pitino wouldn't play him, and I'm not sure if it was from caution or because he wanted to prove some kind of a point (I can win a title without my best player). But according to the person I heard this from, Anderson was ready to play and had been cleared to play.

That story is Oscar Combs favorite UK basketball "conspiracy theory" (for lack of a better term). When he had his podcast series a few years ago (which was outstanding, BTW) on every show with a guest who was in anyway involved with that team he would talk about it. Swears Anderson was absolutely ready to play.

[KCKUKFan]

What really happened with Jared Vanderbilt?

[justford]

Blackshear recruitment

[Joneslab]

I've always wanted somebody to write the definitive Billy Gillispie inside story at UK. Like no holds barred, dig-up-all-the-dirt type stuff.

Of course nobody could do that, partly because Gillispie got really sick fairly recently and it's not good to bash on a man who can't defend himself. And also because Gillispie is trying to get back in the higher-level coaching game. I've mixed thoughts about that, but you can't rip the rug out from under somebody based on stuff that happened years ago.

But I'd love to know everything that went down there, from the Josh Harrellson stuff to Dusty Mills getting run out of the program (I still cringe when I remember that guy) to the Darius Miller stuff to Gillispie and all his shenanigans. I'd love to sit down for about an hour and hear everything that went on from somebody who knows the whole deal.

[KCKUKFan]

I've always wanted somebody to write the definitive Billy Gillispie inside story at UK. Like no holds barred, dig-up-all-the-dirt type stuff.

Of course nobody could do that, partly because Gillispie got really sick fairly recently and it's not good to bash on a man who can't defend himself. And also because Gillispie is trying to get back in the higher-level coaching game. I've mixed thoughts about that, but you can't rip the rug out from under somebody based on stuff that happened years ago.

But I'd love to know everything that went down there, from the Josh Harrellson stuff to Dusty Mills getting run out of the program (I still cringe when I remember that guy) to the Darius Miller stuff to Gillispie and all his shenanigans. I'd love to sit down for about an hour and hear everything that went on from somebody who knows the whole deal.

Ask any of Lexingtons regular bar patrons and they can give you the full scoop whenever you want it.

[Dwight Schrute]

My good friend and his now wife lived at Merrick Place at the time. We'd go down to the Inn patio in the warmer months and I'll just say Billy Gillispie's antics were well known. He and I went golfing one Sunday morning and I saw Billy leaving looking rather disheveled. I am later told he vomited in the stairway of one of the buildings.

I wasn't there the night of the pool incident but I believe it.

I also had a coworker with a college aged daughter who came in to work pissed because his daughter went to a party at Billy's house out in Jessamine County.

[Catatonic]

It was so weird and embarrassing the way he stuck around after the firing.

NBC Sports story with many of Gillispie's greatest hits, and one tantalizing sentence: "Those are just the stories that I feel comfortable enough to publish."

https://collegebasketball.nbcsports....e-is-shameful/

[Dwight Schrute]

I remember when he got that DUI in Lawrenceburg on a random Thursday night in July or something.

I used to hear people tell stories of seeing in him random places around Lexington.

[Joneslab]

He once hit on my high school coach's wife...with my high school coach standing right there, having just introduced Gillispie to her.

[TrueblueCATfan]

I always wondered if Billy G making Perry Stephenson eat a box of pop tarts before practice was true

[Dwight Schrute]

He once hit on my high school coach's wife...with my high school coach standing right there, having just introduced Gillispie to her.

Billy G didn’t win enough to be as big of an arse as he was.

[Dwight Schrute]

I want to know how bad Billy Gilliapie’s 3rd season would’ve been. I heard the rumors of there being a mass exodus if he wasn’t fired. Was that true? And what were the conversations between players/families/Mitch Barnhart like?

[Catsrock]

I want to know how bad Billy Gilliapie’s 3rd season would’ve been. I heard the rumors of there being a mass exodus if he wasn’t fired. Was that true? And what were the conversations between players/families/Mitch Barnhart like?

Oh my...that's one thing I'm glad we didn't find out.

[Joneslab]

Billy Gillispie's last recruit was a player named Konner Tucker. Started at Wake Forest and then transferred somewhere out west. His third year if he got one was going to be a total nightmare.

What would've been hilarious was to see Mitch Barnhart, a pretty buttoned-up, conservative guy, getting his first glimpse of Gillispie's personality when he got to Lexington.

[Joneslab]

That story is Oscar Combs favorite UK basketball "conspiracy theory" (for lack of a better term). When he had his podcast series a few years ago (which was outstanding, BTW) on every show with a guest who was in anyway involved with that team he would talk about it. Swears Anderson was absolutely ready to play.

The episodes with Jim Host are fascinating.

Host goes in depth on how Pitino was hired, and maybe more interestingly gets into how P.J. Carlesemo almost became Kentucky's coach. It was only when a booster called Carlesemo's hotel room and instructed him to cut his beard that Carelsemo knew he was in over his head.

There are a couple of books that I highly recommend that get into behind-the-scenes stuff with UK basketball. If you can stomach it, the book about the Duke/UK game in '92 called The Last Great Game is great because it gets into how Pitino recruited all the players on that team. There are some truly mind-blowing things in there about Jamal Mashburn and how he even got to Kentucky. Also the book Raw Recruits, written in the '80s, gets into what exactly happened to land UK in probation during the Sutton era. There's also a good book called Outside Shot, which isn't about UK but is about Scott County High School basketball, but it gets into some interesting stuff about Dakota Euton and his troubles with some UK fans during the Gillispie era.