Gillispies future

Billy Gillispie's next basketball job will be at a down-and-out university, but one that has a chance to get good. That's what he's good at. In El Paso we know that.

No way, in these times, are the athletes at the Kentuckys and other "good-every-year" schools going to put up with Gillispie's coaching style. That is, being relentless on the players on and off the court. Handling great players beats coaching great players at the acme of sports:

Joe Torre in baseball, Phil Jackson in basketball.

Yankees, Cowboys ... and the Kentuckys in college basketball. That's the top.

Gillispie was successful at UTEP because he inherited a down program. He was successful at Texas A@M, which was down.

You can ride players who haven't been winning games. You can't ride the players with the high pedigrees.

Long ago the Vince Lombardi style of "treating everyone equal, like dogs," went out. Even Don Haskins mellowed a whole lot his last 15 years in Utepia.

Billy will be a millionaire for life now. But his heart beats because he coaches basketball. He'll be back on a lower level, and he'll be successful there.

Comments

[Pick Ax]

There's already a blog on the Houston Chronicle encouraging the hire of Gillespie to University of Houston.

Look, I believe he will take a year off before deciding where to land. I believe he will have many suitors out there. What about this scenario.

Say Barbee is on the hot seat next year (I believe he should be). If he doesn't get this team into the NCAAs or even NITs, do you even want Gillispie back? We know he had success here and would definitely duplicated it again. Then again, I doubt coaches want to come back to the same places to coach (i.e Rick Pitino) but just throwing it out there.

Pick Ax

[Aristotle]

Why is Joe commenting on this? Oh that's right; he comments on things that he knows the LEAST about.

[Maven]

Just say "NO" to BG. The Miners have a coach who isn't leaving at the drop of a hat.

Let Houston have this guy if they are foolish enough to take him.

[Tom]

Good lord! Clyde is not coming back to UTEP. I did not know that Penders was on the hot seat at U of H. Maybe Billy will replace Pat Knight at Tech.

[Jay Smith]

Hey Joe, you still suck! So does BG.

[Jay Smith]

Ju Steel Csuck!

[30 yrs of watching BIG BLUE NATION]

Bcg is a good man, and a decent coach who if given one more season, would get his 5 players and maybe make sweet 16. They would win at least 1 game in ncaa. He would't buy in the old money bullshit around uk and Lex. He will have title win he find a school that fits.

[Jon]

Coach Barbee is on no Hot Seat. Not even close.

Actually the seat is very cozy right about now.

Can't fire a coach that just had a 20 win season and who's teams have imrpoved every year he has been here. Tony Barbee IS UTEP's coach.

As for BG, he will find another job but don't expect him to go to a non BCS conference team. Look for him to go to a school in a major conference not known for winning much like a Texas A&M.

Also, he will never come back to UTEP.

[javi]

Joe is an idiot why do you people even respond to his blogs? GO MINERS!!!!!

[BOOGIEMAN]

Wrong, Billy never signed his contract at Kentucky either, much like he's done at every stop he's made!
There will be some kind of settlement, but not the six million he thought he would get!
And you thought you were so slick didn't you, Billy?
Pay backs are hell aren't they, Billy!
Can you say, comeupance?

[CLEOFITZWITZ]

Houston fans want Penders out. They feel they are going in circles with him.

Barbee is not on the hot seat but he will be hot. When the Miners improve their record again next year, he will be on the for-hire list.

Billy G. is a very good coach and will find himself in another high paying job at a big school.

[Raul]

how about SMU, or Memphis. That's when Coach Cal leaves for Kentucky.

[Derby]

A general observation. There's more to being a good coach than just winning games. There's the teaching/teacher aspect, setting an example aspect, and acting with the best interest of the university, community and team in mind aspect.

BG, a good coach? Maybe. Great coach? Nah. Worthy of a top job like the University of Kentucky job? Ask the folks at UK...

[RJ]

Raul:

Coach Cal is not leaving Memphis anytime soon, the guy has 2 of the top 5 recruits in the country coming in next season (possibly 3 if John Wall signs)

He makes about 2 million a year, another million because of Nike's contract with the school.

He can schedule anyone he wants out of conference, dominates CUSA, and is always a 1 or 2 seed come tourney time.

Give all that up to go coach at a school with unrealistic expectations.
I would be shocked.

CUSA needs Coach Cal, i dont even mind the fact that Memphis dominates because the other teams in the conference need to get better.

And who cares about BCG anyway, he was at UTEP like 4/5 years ago, get over it.
The only scenario where i would care about him is if he lands at SMU or UH. Then its an issue, but he wont because he is too good of a coach to stay out of the BCS level.

GO MINERS, beat OSU! I wish I was in EP for those games, hopefully the DHC sells out.

[C. Stanley, utep '87]

An earlier post already touched on what I wanted to say but it deserves underscoring ...
Billy works UTEP into a winner (never signs his contract; you know, keep your eyes on the future)
Billy works A&M into a winner (never signs his contract; you know, keep your eyes on the future)
Billy works at Kentucky (never signs his contract ... oops! ... guess he didn't keep his eyes on the future)
I'm not slamming his ability. He can win. But he went into a different situation at UK: win BIG or be gone.
And so he gets the big adios. Minus a huge buyout clause that was no doubt in his UK deal.

[Joe]

Arizona will likely open up and will be Gillespies most likely destination.

[javi]

Billy is not coaching at Houston or SMU hes only gonna coach at BCS schools period.

[Austin]

FYI fellas, the "Joe Sucks" comments provide no value to this blog. If you don't agree with what Joe says, and want to express why, take the 5 minutes out of your day to write a comprehensible response that attempts to make a point. It's called not being an idiot.

As for Joe's post, I completely agree with it. His practice of completely working his players to death didn't work at a place where the recruits wanted to be pampered and handed wins based purely on their own talent. BCG is universally known as the hardest working coach in college basketball. If you ask me, Kentucky's loss will be another programs gain. The guy is a born winner who will get a job at a school in a major conference.

If he could take UTEP into the NCAA tournament (Yes, UTEP of the CBI fame), then he obviously knows what he's doing. If he could take A&M from an 0-16 Big 12 league record to the Sweet 16, he knows what he's doing. He will never go back to UTEP, though, but people around here seem to like not running an offense, winning 20 games against the weakest teams in America, and playing in a tournament where you have to advance $60 grand for the right to play and hopefully recover the cost. Yes, you have to pay to play this tournament. Billy G had UTEP challenging Maryland in the tourney. Barbee has UTEP playing undisciplined garbage basketball. Amazing what a win against Northeastern will get you, at UTEP, it gets you job security and $10,000 or so for the program. Maybe enough to cover office supplies for a month.

Ha.

[Miner Charro]

Joe like Billy but doesn't like Barbee.
Joe is a Ripofflican = KKK

[skyhook]

I think the experience of UTEP/A&M/KU where there's no signing of a contract by the coach speaks volumes about a guy who keeps one foot in and one out of the door. He was lucky enough to get one of a handful of premier jobs at Kentucky and pissed it away by not being cognizant enough to understand that coaching is more than telling 5 players what to do on the basketball court.

I also think there was a certain amount of embarrassment caused by his actions. And the whole recruiting of 8th grade kids is just nasty business. (To say it's right because a person can do it, doesn't necessarily make it right.) There's also some buzz about off-court antics, which, if true, are not something an organization can be proud of.

I understand he made some noise at UTEP, but for the most part, he did it with players that were already here. Billie took off before we would see just how good the team would be with just his recruits and under his direction. Funny how that works, because we know the senior record of that class, and it was not that good under another coach. That could be Sadler or it could be who he recruited. We'll never know if Billie took off because he knew the players he recruited wouldn't get it done. Similarly, when Billie went to A&M, he had the nucleus of a pretty good team, much like he had at UTEP. Two years later, he's off to Kentucky. The difference? Kentucky didn't have the ponies to start to start with. And with that being the case, Billie was just a mediocre coach after all.

The jury is still out on Barbee. Even so, I'd take him over Billie any day.

[BOOGIEMAN]

Who cares about that little weasel, Billy!
Enough already, he can go to hell for all I care!
Let him fade into the sunset, good riddance!

[BILL]

We are giving alot of press to BG, we need to concentrate on Utep Athletics. One last point on BG, he brought Utep back from the dead, so Thank you and wish you the best. Good job Utep on the CBI tournament although I am not sure this was the right decision. Utep should be pretty good next year with the players coming back and more experience. This will be the HUGE test for the program next year, If Barbee is successful will he jump ship? I personally think he will, although he may not deserve it.

[CLEOFITZWITZ]

The big rumor this morning is Coach Cal to Kentucky. He's in talks. So where would this leave CUSA and UTEP? Would Memphis and Arizona flip flop coaches? Would Billy head to Arizona and Memphis start a national search? If Barbee had a better year, he would have probably been the #1 Memphis candidate.

[RJ]

Andy Katz reports Coach Cal is leaning towards UK right now, meeting w Memphis officials right now to discuss UK's offer.

This would be devastating for CUSA.
He is the face of college basketball in this conference, hopefully he's just meeting w/ the Memphis AD to try and up the anty on their offer.

I dont get why he would leave though...

And I doubt Barbee gets any consideration, maybe Billy G. No!!!!!

[RJ]

If you guys get a chance, check out the Memphis blogs, they are in a state of depression right now, and Barbee was mentioned as a possible replacement even though Mike Anderson seems to be the guy most of their fans want.

I hadnt really thought of this, but if Cal does leave then we really got a nice shot at possibly winning thee Conference next year...think about it, Coach Cal will likely take one or two of those top recruits with him, Evans and Taggert likely go pro....

UAB lost all their top guns, and hopefully Jordan at Tulsa leaves for the League.

No one else then really compares to our talent and the guys we have coming in(Caracter, Strong, Williams, Ruppell, Polk).

UTEP then makes it to the Sweet 16 and Barbee leaves for bigger and better things, Hell...i'll take that for one magical run next season.

Barbee watch starts now!