Kentucky Sports Radio
[Moderated by Matt Jones, Drew Franklin and Tyler Thompson]
[Moderated by Matt Jones, Drew Franklin and Tyler Thompson]
Tuesday, Drew Franklin and I are embarking on one of the more bizarre decisions of our lives. We are both going skydiving with the US Army Parachute Team at Fort Knox. For reasons that I am still trying to fully figure out, we both eagerly accepted the Army’s invitation to jump out of planes on Tuesday. We will be joined by a group of other locals, including Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer. The jump occurs early in the morning and will likely conclude (hopefully with both of my feet hitting the ground safely), just as the radio show is beginning at 10 am. When I was invited to do this back in April, it seemed like the best idea imaginable. Any time someone from the Army asks you to do something interesting, you have to jump on it and if I were ever going to skydive, this seemed like the time. In theory, there cannot be a safer group than the US Army Parachute Team and thus if I am going to be even slightly reckless, this is the safe way to do it. But now the time is here, and I getting slightly nervous. I don’t particularly like heights and I know that it will be difficult to handle when we jump. But it is supposed to be exhilarating, and George HW Bush did it when he was 85. So we will go for it on Tuesday, with KSR’s own version of “Point Break.” Pray for us…
To the news, on a terribly slow weekend:
— Most of the news (such as it was) coming out of Lexington over the weekend concerned the NBA Draft. The consensus is building that Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is likely projected toward the Wizards with the #3 overall draft pick. With Davis going first and Bradley Beal/Thomas Robinson catching Charlotte’s eye at #2, MKG to the Wizards gains more likelihood every day. The combination of Wall and MKG will immediately make the Wizards THE team of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the first (potentially of many to come) to have two Calipari players at the same time. MKG seems to be a good fit with Wall, as both run the floor well and both play hard on a nightly basis. The Wizards will still have scoring woes, but if you are a franchise in turmoil (which the Wizards surely have been), these cornerstones, plus the power of the Big Blue Nation, couldn’t hurt. I hope this scenario plays itself out as I think it would be the best for MKG and it keeps him out of what would be his worst scenario in my view, Charlotte.
— The 2013 recruiting frenzy is likely just a couple of weeks from really kicking in and it is already clear that John Calipari will have an abundance of riches to choose from in 2013. Even if we assume that Calipari is behind on Jabari Parker and Julius Randle (at this point it would probably be a mistake to project either to UK), Kentucky has five top 10 players that they likely would be considered the favorite to land. The Harrison Twins, James Young, Chris Walker and Wayne Selden are all players that Vegas would put Kentucky as the morning line favorite to land, with the Harrison Twins nearly off the board for taking bets on other teams. Calipari should be able to ensure his fifth straight #1 recruiting class by fall, if he so chooses. UK already has Derek Willis, who has seen his stock drop significantly over the past year, but the summer will shake up the rankings quite a bit as the players get their best chance to make an impression. Kentucky has only offered six players in the class by my current count. The Cats could probably get four of them by September. Whether they offer others and when the stars pull the trigger, will be the biggest mysteries of the summer to come.
— If you didn’t hear Mike Pratt’s conversation on Billy Gillispie on Friday, it is well worth a listen. We had a post up here on Friday detailing the specifics and you can get the podcast on iTunes or on TalkRadio1080.com. While we have focused on the more salacious details over the weekend, one comment that keeps getting asked to me is, “how did Billy Clyde slip through the cracks?” Or to put it a different way, how did Mitch Barnhart and UK not realize earlier that he was a train wreck. Two answers to this question seem most likely to me. One, and most importantly, they were on what they felt like was a time crunch and they were worried that if they didn’t get Clyde, an obvious other replacement didn’t exist. Billy Donovan had struck down UK’s offer, they weren’t willing to chase Calipari and other second tier candidates (Barnes, Jay Wright, etc) weren’t obviously interested. Without Gillispie, it might have been headed toward true unknown areas, or worse, Travis Ford. The excitement of getting it done, probably trumped true due diligence. Second, it is also important to remember that nearly EVERYONE (outside of Mike Pratt) was hoodwinked. Gillispie was very popular early on and ANYONE who questioned him was shunned. This even extended into his second year, when legends like Kenny Walker were absolutely obliterated for daring to suggest he was the wrong guy. ON a personal level, I went from skeptical in between the first two years to a critic after the VMI loss and ensuing player treatment. The vitriol with which I received then was only really matched by my daily treatment from line-bearded UL hooligans. Simply put, until the very end, Billy was pretty popular.
What we did learn however is that in the future when there is a coaching search, and one day there will be one, all of us should be a little less quick to name a hire Amazing or terrible on day one. The mob mentality can cause warning signs to be ignored, checkups to be overlooked and funerals to be attended as Phil Shipley. Billy Clyde is a warning case for the next big coaching search, and as Mike Pratt made clear on the show on Friday, remembering where we screwed up then will prevent a repeat in the future.
This is a week of movement around these parts as our UK recruiting coverage for basketball truly kicks in. Stay tuned all week and get ready as we jump out of planes and parachute UK knowledge in throughout the days ahead. And until then, just be happy that Katy Perry hangs with UK fans:
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Bill Keightley Report : Never to be forgotten.
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June 10th, 2012 at 11:09 pm
The biggest UK news of the weekend was the lack of NJT on Friday.
June 10th, 2012 at 11:19 pm
Biggest news of the weekend: That dweeb got that chick? How? Did he trick her with Katy Perry tickets? Thats gotta be it.
June 10th, 2012 at 11:21 pm
He look like BCG’s son.
June 10th, 2012 at 11:43 pm
One thing that happened which is never mentioned, Mitch had a source high up in the A&M athletic department who gave Mitch a good recommendation of Billy. In the past, Mitch had let this source’s son go in a previous athletic department, thus his source likely screwed him on purpose.
Obviously Mitch could have done more due diligence, but he thought he could trust his source at the time.
June 10th, 2012 at 11:44 pm
Not enough “due dilligence” the time before Billy G., either. (That’ll get Matt going.)
June 10th, 2012 at 11:45 pm
kind of curious as to why Chris Walker hasn’t gotten an offer yet. theories, Matt?
June 10th, 2012 at 11:47 pm
What about Tyreke Evans and Boogie in Sacramento?
June 11th, 2012 at 12:09 am
What about Pat Riley?
June 11th, 2012 at 12:15 am
Hey Matt, how about a little credit? I’ve been telling you to go jump off a plane for years now.
I don’t care if she is sucking it in, that body on the right is just not fair!
June 11th, 2012 at 12:17 am
What about….? What about the a$$ on that chick?!?! The “fun bags” aren’t bad either. No, they’re great!
June 11th, 2012 at 12:23 am
Mitch & the admin at UK got nervous & impulsive when Donovan turned them down, and they fired on the 4th best person standing. Everything happens for a reason; as a caller mentioned the other day, if we would have hired Cal & Rose would have come to UK, even if Cal could have had no way of knowing, UK would have gotten put on probation, and what has happened the past 3 years wouldn’t have happened. Having to pay the price of Billy G was more than worth the price for getting the last 3 years & the future.
The scary thing; if coaches weren’t eager to take the job after Tubby leaving, imagine having to take over & walk in the foot steps after Cal leaves.
June 11th, 2012 at 12:27 am
Everybody should remember that, even if Barnhart hadn’t picked Billy Clyde, there is no guarantee that whoever they would have gotten would have been any better. The “big names” had already turned down UK when they turned to Billy Clyde. It’s easy to criticize Barnhart for hiring Billy Clyde, but really, once Donovan turned down the Cats, there were no obvious choices out there. Hindsight is always 20/20, but at the time, Billy Clyde may have been the best of the available candidates. Who’s to say that whoever they would have hired besides Gillispie might have done just as poorly!
June 11th, 2012 at 3:43 am
Matt will barf so much just going up in the plane (with the circles they fly to go straight up atypical of the flight patterns that your familiar with). They will cinch down the harness until you can’t breathe but they assure you it’s necessary.
Your face will feel white like Powder’s and you will feel like the blood in your body has been drained.
Ha, and you haven’t even jumped yet! lol
June 11th, 2012 at 4:16 am
Check out this 2013 mock draft: http://nbadraft.net/2013mock_draft …. obviously just for kicks and gigs, but it has Noel to the Wizards and Poythress to the Hornets.
June 11th, 2012 at 4:27 am
You denigrate Billy Clyde now more then you wrote about him when he was coach. That is one reason I visit this site less and less.
June 11th, 2012 at 6:42 am
wow! that body is smokin’
June 11th, 2012 at 6:46 am
If you wash off that 3 lbs of make-up off Katy Perry, you’ll actually see Russell Brand.
Chick on the far right- banging. Bet she can throw down on it..
June 11th, 2012 at 7:00 am
yeah that body is stupid
June 11th, 2012 at 7:12 am
It’s awesome that those two UK fans got a picture with a spooky ghost from the early 1900′s.
June 11th, 2012 at 7:34 am
Couple of posts suggest we could have done worse than Billy Clyde. Can someone help me out and tell me who could have been worse ?????
June 11th, 2012 at 8:22 am
I went skydiving for the first and last time in 1979 when I was a sophomore at U.K.
They didn’t do tandem jumps like they do now so I didn’t have a guy strapped to my back (like you will). This was a static line jump with an old U.S. Army surplus parachute. 10 of us went from Blanding 1 and everybody walked away from the experience except me because I broke my leg just above the ankle. Think about that when you’re hanging out of the door at 2,500 feet.
And, yes, that body is bangin’.
June 11th, 2012 at 8:42 am
So when Matt jumps will he be a top or a bottom?
June 11th, 2012 at 8:43 am
She’s little in the middle, but she’s got much back. Yes, I like big butts.
June 11th, 2012 at 8:49 am
but can she cook?
June 11th, 2012 at 8:51 am
“I could have dwounded, Gilbert!”
June 11th, 2012 at 8:52 am
Who was that last possibility for the 2012 class?
June 11th, 2012 at 8:53 am
…and the gal on right is not a UK fan.
June 11th, 2012 at 9:00 am
Sky diving is cool guys but have you ever gone two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chew ?
June 11th, 2012 at 9:58 am
A UK fan who’s actually taking a picture without the 3-goggles? Wow. At least someone in that classless state knows how to take a picture.
June 11th, 2012 at 10:48 am
What a lame, ficticious account of what actually happened regarding the hiring of Billy Gillispie. Matt’s statement that UK “didn’t want to chase Calipari” is non-sensical at best and in fact, perpetrates a known lie. A lie that should Jones know better to tell. That makes you a liar Mr. Jones for protecting your presumed buddy Barnhardt. I guess now that you’ve become a UK “insider” you have to tow the line in order to keep your press credentials. But don’t try to pull this garbage over the eyes of people who know what really happened. Todd and Barnhardt both had indicated from the get go that they would not even consider Calipari for coach given his previous “reputation”. Barnhardt being the incompetent he was, had put all of his eggs in Donovan’s basket and when he backed out, he had nothing to fall back on. He took Gillispie without having done any due diligence, or worse yet, ignored what many people knew about him but made the decision to protect his oversight of the coaching search process. You’re full of it Jones, and you’ve lost the respect of many knowledgeable fans for spewing this crap.
June 11th, 2012 at 11:39 am
15- Aww, I know! I can’t stand the way they constantly put down Good Old Billy G! The man who took us to an NIT, recruited NAIA level players, lost to Gardner-Webb, and sued us! What a good, kind, loyal, hard-working man he was! Indiana needs to hire him pronto!
June 11th, 2012 at 12:31 pm
If Matt had used call instead of chase would you be ok SteveM ?
June 11th, 2012 at 12:52 pm
#3 Haha! That’s the first thing I thought when I saw the picture, after reading part of the article, that the picture was going to say something about Billy G’s kid still loving UK or something!
June 11th, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Jezuz gawd, over 2 years later and KSR just can’t let it go. This is truly an obsession by these jerks on KSR. Why not visit the Tubby era and see what he left bcg with? at least bcg’s players learned how to play the game, unlike the flubster. give it a rest.
June 11th, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Pratt knows, but won’t say, that BCG “slipped-through-the-cracks” because Barnfart DID NOT do his homework. All the major media in TX had repeatedly reported BCG’s abnormal behavior toward his players – both at TX El Paso and A&M. Barnfart should have been shown the door at the same time as BCG…but, “Clueless” Lee Todd didn’t have a “clue” and the program suffered. For those of you still enamored w/Barnfart, get in the “Joker’s-A-Great-Coach” line.
June 11th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
Who is the stud in the UK shirt?
June 11th, 2012 at 5:15 pm
I would like to submit “People’s One”: the photograph above as evidence of Butterface. As you can plainly see here, everything is nice, but her face.
Defense: Objection!
Judge: Over-ruled.