Too many questions, not enough answers

Get through this year as best as possible.

Many have commented that "this season is a train wreck" or they have said so far "Gillispie at UK has been a train wreck."  the first is true the later is ignorant.

However, if this season is a trainwreck, when did the train derail?  I would argue the train started off the track at least four years ago when Tubby Smith began recruiting players who did not bleong in the SEC, much less in a UK uniform.  There is no arguing that Tubby Smith failed to recruit consistantly or that he failed to bring in a depth of top tier talent.Tubby never signed a player that has played in a Final Four.

Now that the train wreck is in full view we are all stopping to view the carnage.  It is ugly.  It is disgusting.  There is a new engineer who has been hired to put the train back on the track and move it fll steam ahead.  Yet he is left with a wrecked train incapable of going full steam ahead.  It is not even "the little train that could." Yet the passer-byes, the rubberneckers look at the new engineer and the scream what the hell is he doing?  Why isn't this train moving faster?

Enough of the analogy, you get the point.  Complaining about BCG 11 games into his tenure is ignorant.  He did not derail the UK train, he is picking up the pieces and doing the best he can with one lousy piece of machinery.

I once thought UK fans were knowledgeable about basketball.  What I know realize is they let emotions overtake reason and reality and we are back to the days when everyone was screaming "J.B. hall ain't no coach."  Unbelievable.

Fans that are leaving the caravan aren't the true fans and we can do without them....I wonder if any of them are in the lower level of Rupp and willing to part with their tickets?  I am in Frankfort and can be anywhere in the state in 3 hours or less if lower level season tickets are available......

So, those fans can go cheer for somebody else....my Cats will come back.........they always do.

It's Joe Crawford and Ramel Bradley, two UK players with some of the lowest basketball IQs I've seen in some time.

And sorry, but the problem is also in the lack of recruiting a few years ago that is coming back to haunt us.

And some of it is bad luck. Injuries have played a huge part of this mess. But really, how many freshmen walk-ons come into Rupp and go 4 for 4 on threes? Tell me Vaden is going to be that hot again all year?

And who knew Lofton would be this good? Sure, Tubby was the only person in the state of Kentucky that didn't see his value, but who knew he'd turn out to be such a good player?

Luck and timing, folks. I agree with the first poster. Just get through the season as best you can...hopefully we'll be at full strength and ride a little momentum in a weaker than normal SEC.

I think UK fans are just frustrated.  I know for myself, I long for the days when UK played good hard-nosed basketball.  I watch Memphis and North Carolina play and remember when UK use to play so flawlessly.  To watch this team play soooo horribly is just gut-wretching.  Never did I ever think that a UK team could ever play so poorly.  I just want to days of glory to return.  Sadly, it will take 2-3 years before that will happen. Unfortunately, patience is not one of my virtues.

"You can't handle the truth!"  UK fans want to believe these current players, this current team, is better than it really is.  No, with this roster, UK should not be dominating any team on its schedule, I can accept that adn i realize it is not Gillispie's fault it is you know whose fault.

What Gillispie is doing is very clear to me.  He is testing the material he has to work with.  Trying different combinations, seeing how players play and react in different combinations.  He is preparing, planning and developint the future.  This is the right course to take but it is understandably difficult to accept for most.

Why did Meeks only play in the 2nd half?  Against Houston Meeks looked like he was going to pass out from exhaustion; he is only good for 1/2 full speed right now.  Good God people use some common sense.  I am just waiting to hear the "Gillispie ain't no coach."

we fans just don't know whats going on.We have no knowledge of whats going on at practice,and in particular no knowledge of the pre game practice and its consequences on players like Meeks and Jasper,and Crawford,who many seem to forget,is coming off knee surgery.
What we do know is the tid bits of information we pick up from game announcers about how hard the pre game practice is,and finally,what we see on the floor during the game.Maybe Coach Gillispie is using these pre SEC games as a training ground for the real battle which is SEC Conference play.
Who really knows? Hopefully Coach Gillispie!

After yesterday's loss and reading Tru's on-target and level-headed analysis, I feel compelled to let my feelings be known (as if anyone really cares, but oh well).  I've been a Kentucky fan all my life and will continue to be no matter what.  However, I certainly can understand some of the criticisms raised against Coach Gillespie at this point and I don't buy into the idea that criticism at this point means you aren't a loyal fan. There are some things that I think are missing from the debate, though.  The first of these is what appears to me to be the simple fact that our new coach simply is not media-savvy at all.  When it comes to dealing with anyone in the media, Coach Gillespie simply has little to no skill.  This became apparent to me early in the season when he would jump all over Tom Leach in the pre-game show when Leach had the audacity to mention the injuries to Jasper and Meeks.  BCG would interrupt Leach and tell him that those were just excuses and he wasn't going to make excuses.  Now, here we are some time later and we hear those same "excuses" coming from the mouth of our coach in multiple instances.  The you see the run-around he gave the media in the post-game press conference and we just have to live with the fact that no matter how smart the guy is with X's and O's, he doesn't understand how to deal with the media.  At all.  This is a failing that will continue to haunt him regardless of his W/L record at Kentucky.  I think we as fans were somewhat spoiled by the Rick Pitino practice of airing the team's dirty laundry publicly at every turn and his penchant for using his own media comments as motivational tools for his players.  Tubby Smith was the antithesis of this and it cost him from a public relations standpoint.  Gillespie seems to fall a little closer to Smith than Pitino in this area.  Even though he'll call out a lazy Joe Crawford, he won't go any further than vague generalities in describing the problems or any solutions.  Long gone are the days where Ricky P would give you a blow-by-blow of how bad a basketball player Rodrick Rhodes is in a press conference.  You might ask why this is relevant.  The reason is that unlike most other college programs, Kentucky fans truly believe that they are a part of the team.  We are not merely spectators or "fans", terms like that are an insult to us.  We are the mythic "sixth man".  We are an integral part of Kentucky basketball - without us there would be no "Empire" to add to the "Roman."  Our status as fans is represented by none other than our own Everyman Bill Keightley.  The sight of Keightley sitting there on the bench is representative of each one of us in a way.  He represents the common everyday Kentuckian who bleeds blue and will follow this team to the death.  Therefore, we have every right to know even the smallest detail about this team, 24/7/365.  Somehow Pitino understood this from day one.  And he gave us unparalleled access to the team, or so we thought.  During the high points, he told us what a great coaching job he and his staff had done and what great kids he had.  During the low points, he gave up the dirt on who wasn't pulling their weight and what he was doing to fix things.  He treated the job to a certain degree as if he were accountable to the fans.  Tubby Smith, in contrast, let us know up front that he was his own man and that he wasn't accountable to us.  That was fine for a while, especially after the '98 championship, but it became clear in later years that the job was too much for the man, despite his unarguably solid character and honesty.  Gillespie, much like Smith, is creating the perception that fans can like him or not but he's here to do a job and by golly he's going to do it.  His bumbling interactions with the media are doing nothing to dispel this perception.  So we as fans are left once again feeling left out in the cold and (dare I say it) - HELPLESS.  And that in my opinion is the source of much of our current angst.  We are watching a dear loved one die and we can't do a damn thing about it.  I would submit to the UK fan base that if coach G were giving us more information to go on we would be in much better shape.  If he would just come out and tell us that he's having a hard time getting the team to give up a selfish style of play because his two seniors can't seem to give it up themselves, we would understand and be supportive.  If he would tell us straight up that he can't get around to coaching offensive sets because the boys won't listen to simple instructions on basketball fundamentals, we'd thank the Heavens for our coach and tell him to keep on those good-for-nothings.  If he would simply say that with there are some on this team with an over-inflated sense of just how good they are and they won't be coachable until that idea is beaten out of them, we would hold our head up high and be proud of our 5-6 record.  But he doesn't say those things and he's not going to.  Like it or not, we are on the outside looking in and therefore any of our prognostications are guesses at best.  Therefore, Bluegrass Faithful, we're going to have to have some faith.  It wasn't that long ago that Rich Brooks should have been run out of town.  Now I'm not saying that Gillespie is Brooks or isn't, I don't know.  But the only criticism of him that makes any sense to me right now is simply that Billy Clyde is being too tight-lipped about what's going on and it's hurting him.  Not only is it hurting him, it's hurting us.  And even though we're not Mitch Barnhart or Lee Todd, we're pretty damn important too.  If anyone out there has any sort of influence with this coach or athletic department, I beg you to encourage Coach Gillespie to trust us enough to shoot us straight.  Tell us what the plan is.  Tell us what to look for in your substitution patterns.  Tell us how you're going to take us back to the promised land.  You don't have to call any kids out on the carpet the way Pitino did, but you can certainly be more forthright than you have been.  Let us be a part of the process, or if you can't do that at least let us maintain the illusion that we're part of the process.  It will make both of our lives better, I promise. Sorry folks for the long comment, I needed it.  (Ah....catharsis....)

A lady friend and fellow Cat fan from Atlanta asked if I had your email addy. If you have no problem with sharing it, send it to me and I will pass it on to her. Mine is:

djoeanddebby@zoominternet.net

This team is bad, but should have had enough talent to beat GW and San Diego.

I can appreciate sticking to your guns, but if the guns are shooting blanks?

I just wish there was some type of adjustment during the game - change defense, something.  I am tired of watching this team allow one person to beat them every game.