A number of weeks I posed a simple question to the A Sea of Blue Community: Should Gillispie be fired?   This was before many of the events of the season transpired, but still just short of 400 votes were tallied.  In the end, a small majority said Gillispie should be retained.  More telling than the actual result, however, were the reasons supporting removal of Gillispie.

Reading through the comments, not one person mentioned any sort of mistreatment of fans, players, media or officials as the reason for firing the coach. Contrary to reasoning mentioned by Barnhart, fans quite justifiably siezed on Gillispie's on the court results.  So the question arises: are Barnhart and Todd valuing a principle that is not held in high import by fans?

In the end, Barnhart cited not Gillispie's record for his dismsal but some sort yet-to-be fully elucidated "philosophical disparity."  Barnhart's words are either profoundly telling or extremely poorly chosen.

A philosphy implies a deep-seated belief.  Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do." Either Barnhart, when interviewing Gillispie, failed to probe deeply into the coach's views (i.e., philosphy) or, less likely, he hired Gillispie knowing a gulf existed between the philosphy of UK (apparently determined by administrators) and the philosphy of the would-be-coach.  Regardless, Barnhart did not discover the "philosophical disparity" at the point of intiation of employment.  This is either gross negligence or gross indifrference or an absolute derilection of duty.

The absolute failure to expose the "philosphical disparity", calls into serious question the capacity of Mitch Barnhart and Lee Todd.