knows best.

That’s good.

BCG would really like to avoid another Alex Legion type dismissal. After all if he has to dismiss too many of his recruits then it also reflects poorly on his recruiting ability.

His comments about Liggins’ performance is one of the reasons why I take what BCG says with a grain of salt. His perception of things seemingly always are the opposite of what a lot of people see with their own eyes. I think Liggins made great strides against WVU and no doubt he will continue to improve. Lord knows with a good point guard UK will be much better.

Gillispie the coach will take some heat for “caving” to his petulant point guard once, but Gillispie the man won’t accept being anyone’s bitch twice, especially not a player pining for attention.

Sheesh, how do we know what he will do? For that matter, how do the OTHER players know what he will do? …and that my friends, is the issue.

I will say I was very disappointed and perplexed in Liggins decision to sit the bench Friday night. But none of us know what goes on in practices or off the court when this team gets together to relax. I do know that Liggins worked his butt off to qualify academically.

I am glad that Coach took the situation to the team and let them decide whether or not Liggins played Saturday. We all have heard about the family atmosphere the team has this year and that means a lot to these players and Coach. Even though Coach has no children of his own, his players have always been his sons so to speak. Yes, he is tough in getting the best from his players, but he does have a genuine heart and I see no problem in taking this mistake from Liggins and letting the young man mature further. I am sure he will learn from this error in judgement.

We will never know his punishment but I would not want to be in his position at practices this week.

I fully trust BCG to handle anything that arises.

The whole situation seems impossible to call from beyond the computer screen. The whole situation seems odd, who knows why Liggins acted out and what went on behind closed doors. I assume the coaches and team captains talked some sense into him. His refusal may have not even been an outright act of rebellion, it could have been just a immature hissy fit of sorts. Regardless, it seems to have worked itself out. Its hard to judge without knowing all the details….. but hey, thats not stopped us before right?

Coaching a team sport really requires two different hats that are often incompatible with each other.

The first is coaching the individual as an individual. That part of the job requires a lot of empathy and a rather touchy-feely skill set to go along with the tough approach. Gillispie has the tough-guy act down, but that isn’t always the appropriate response to a bad decision by a team member. I have had several coaches in my life from everything from sports to sales, and the “Spare the rod” approach doesn’t work nearly as well one-on-one as it does one-on-many.

The other role is that of the team coach, which is essentially defined by the philosophy that each coach wants to instill in his team. Tough teams require tough coaching — there is just no way around it. Tough coaching is not always successful at the individual level, but it is often much more successful at the team level because one of the objectives of that style is to promote an “us against the world” mentality. Unfortunately, if there is no “us,” i.e. a group of individuals who value each other and their contributions to the team, the approach breaks down.

Typically, if a team member misbehaves in a way that hurts the team, the first-blush reaction would be to discipline them. We do not know if Liggins was disciplined or not, but I think it is safe to say that he likely was. What we do know is that the discipline imposed was not the bench. There are probably repercussions for Liggins from rejecting the order from the coach to go into the game, but college coaches have many tools at their disposal for discipline, only the most visible of which is the end of the bench.

Since I don’t know what passed between Liggins and Gillsipie, I can’t pass a cogent judgment on Gillispie’s actions. It isn’t as though DeAndre were acting in a Carruth-like deception, agreeing to play but then unilaterally and apparently without any thought of team consequences failing to do what he did best, i.e. shoot the ball.

Liggins was obviously upset by something, and part of it could have been being unceremoniously yanked from the game in front of all his friends, family and peers from Findlay Prep (remember, Liggins was playing in front of a lot of guys he had just been to high school with). Gillispie evidently concluded after speaking with him that benching Liggins would have damaged the young man’s self esteem to no productive effect. Instead, he most likely decided to play him with the admonition that if he makes a fool out of himself, he has no one to blame but himself. It seemed to work.

Tough love can be had in a lot of ways. I remember whenever Cliff Hawkins or Antwain Barbour would screw up, Tubby Smith would yell at Chuck Hayes — if Hayes hadn’t done anything wrong, Smith would just make up some slight to justify a tirade. That’s because he knew that Chuck did not suffer from fragile self-esteem, and could take anything. So instead of turning the bright light of his frustration and potentially hurting the team more by yelling at guys who just couldn’t take it very well, he used Chuck as a reflector for his passion, a way to get his point across without doing more harm than good.

Now, many will suggest that toughness requires tough love and the more introverted team members just have to learn how to take it. That one-size-fits-all approach does not even work for armed forces, where it is most often used, except as a method to cull those who are incapable of teamwork at any level. The fact that these athletes are here is clear testament to the fact that they can function in the team concept, but smart coaches understand how far to push. I may be giving Gillsipie more credit than he deserves here, but I chose to believe until otherwise demonstrated that he simply did what lots of good coaches have done who are not insecure in either their methods or their job.

does anyone know the line on tonights UK game..?

I can’t find it anywhere….

who coached the Cowboys to Super Bowl wins. He was very public that he had different standards for star players and role players.

of mentioning this to the media.Sometimes,you are better off to keep things like this “in house”.Unless there is another angle I am missing.And like the old saying,“Don’t worry about WHAT happend,just see what happens NEXT”.We shall see.