There has been quite a controversy brewing in the last few days here in the Big Blue Nation over a couple of interviews that Marc Maggard of Kentucky Ink did with the parents of two of Kentucky's youngest and most recent verbal commitments -- Vinny Zollo and Michael Avery (Note:  The Howard Avery interview is about 30 minutes long, and the relevant part does not appear until near the end).  In these interviews, Maggard asked the mother of Zollo and the father of Avery to talk about the interviews Jerry Tipton of the Lexington Herald-Leader had with them, among many other things.  Their answers created a firestorm of criticism and invective directed at Tipton and the Lexington Herald-Leader that have set the on-line blogs and message boards ablaze.

At this point, I think it is fair to warn you, Dear Reader, that this is going to be a long piece, essentially an essay.  I am going to carefully examine this issue, and if you don't have the time to read it, stop now.  Still here?  Good.  Here we go:

The facts of the case, as best I can glean them from Maggard's website, his interviews with Avery and Zollo's parents, and reading the numerous threads about the subject are these:

1. Jerry Tipton interviewed the parents of Zollo and Avery about their commitments to UK.  In them, he asked the usual questions about why committing so early, why Kentucky, etc.  The sort of stuff that one would figure newspaper reporters would normally ask.
2. In addition to 1 above, Tipton apparently asked both parents (and we do not know the wording of these questions) something along the lines of,  "Are you concerned about the fact that Gillispie is considered to be arrogant and hard to play for?" and asked Avery something along the lines of, "There have been injuries at UK that some have attributed to the more difficult and numerous practices Gillispie holds, does that concern you?"
3. Tipton allegedly mentioned or asked a question to Zollo's mother about "rumors" surrounding the coach, apparently including his two earlier arrests for suspicion of DUI.  This allegation is a bit fuzzy in the recorded record, but Marc Maggard has insisted that Zollo's mother was more candid with him off the record about this subject, and even included an intimation that Lexington was a bad place to live.
   
4. Mr. Avery explicitly denied that Tipton ever mentioned any drinking or womanizing rumors, or discussed Lexington's suitability.
   
5. Both parents suggested that potentially negative aspects of Coach Gillispie's personality were discussed -- i.e. how "hard" he was on players, that he was arrogant, etc.
6. Both parents stated that they were "uncomfortable" with some of Tipton's questions, ostensibly because of their perception of them as negative.  Both of the parents declined to discuss the Tipton interview in detail, citing a desire to keep most of the details private.
   

First of all, let me say that I am not disputing anything Maggard is saying about what he was told.  I don't know Marc, but I am familiar with his work and read his website and I think he does a fine job over at Kentucky Ink, especially when it comes to recruiting.  With that said, I must point out that Marc Maggard has made it abundantly clear that he does not like Tipton, and considers him a threat to Kentucky's recruiting.  I will have more on this point later, but the reason I mention it now is that we must accept that Maggard has chosen a side here against Tipton.  That doesn't change Marc's facts in the least, but we do have to separate the facts he presents from his conclusions.  Second, let me point out that I am not unbiased, either.  I am not a journalist, and I don't play one on the Internet.  Like Marc, I am a UK partisan, and anything that hurts UK recruiting is very much "Not OK" with me.  Keep these two things firmly in mind while reading the rest.

Now that the disclaimers are out of the way, I want to examine the whole "hard and frequent practice creates injury" thing.  First of all, the medical side.  Here is a description of stress fractures from eMedicine.com:
Now, we know that Tipton wrote an article on his blog about questions asked of Gillispie about whether or not his famous hard and frequent practices could be responsible, in part, for the injuries suffered by Harris, Meeks and Patterson.  Predictably, Coach Gillispie didn't think he was pushing too hard, and said that his earlier teams did not suffer stress fractures.  But consider these facts:

1. Kentucky suffered 3 stress fractures this year, and abnormally high number.
2. Kentucky, by acclamation of various sources, practiced much harder under Gillispie this year than last -- game day practices, "boot camp," etc.
3. Stress fractures are caused by "overuse."
4. Gillispie's practice habits constitute an increased load on the bones in question that had not been experienced before by the players.
   

Is it logical to conclude that the additional frequency and intensity of Gillispie's practice routine produced the stress fractures?  No.  Is it logical to conclude that those same practice habits may have produced, or significantly contributed to, the overuse that cumulatively resulted in stress fracture?  Absolutely.  Can you connect Michael Porter's concussion to these practices and their frequency?  No -- concussions are a part of basketball that can occur anytime -- Just ask Ramel Bradley.

So while we don't have a straight "connect the dots" cause-and-effect conclusion, we do have what is essentially strong evidence that the team may not have been as physically prepared for the additional stress as Gillispie thought, and the stress fractures may have been partially due to that increased workload.  Does this cast aspersions on Gillispie's character or his judgment?  In no way.  There is no way a reasonable person could have foreseen these injuries, and no thinking human being in Gillispie's position would knowingly risk injuries like this to his best players.  But medically, and logically, it is possible to conclude in hindsight that UK's new tougher practices could have been a contributing factor.  I encourage any medical professionals who read this blog to correct my reasoning if they see a flaw.  To me, Tipton asking this question to the two new Wildcats' parents does not seem over the top.  Tipton would be incorrect to suggest a straight-line logical conclusion that Gillispie's practices were the cause of the injuries, but it isn't at all clear from the record available to me that is what he did. 

Moving along to the suggestions by Zollo's mother that Tipton discussed "rumors" with her that were "negative," I can only say this -- If Jerry Tipton asked about Gillispie's record of previous DUI related arrests, that is fair game.  That is public record, not a rumor, and not subject to dispute.  It is also public record that Gillispie was not convicted either time, so if he mentioned the arrests without also mentioning the lack of conviction, I would consider that a problem -- as I have pointed out before, Tipton sometimes writes articles that lack balance, and in almost every case, UK's or Gillispie's mitigating factors are the "balance" that gets left out.  That could be Tipton simply being a curmudgeon and writing "defensively," i.e. he would rather be seen as a critic than a "homer," or it could be (and I don't believe this is the case) evidence of some kind of anti-UK agenda on Tipton's part.

The Herald-Leader editor Linda Austin defended Tipton in this post on the Herald-Leader's "Behind the Headlines" blog.  In it, she denied that Tipton had asked Robyn Curry (Zollo's mother) about rumors surrounding Gillispie, or commented in any way about Lexington as a place to live.  What we appear to have, therefore, is a conflict between off-the-air series of comments Marc Maggard claims Curry had with him (and I see no reason why Marc should dissemble about that) and Tipton's side of the story as related by Austin.  While it is not out of the realm of possibility that any person in this chain of events is just flat lying, what is usually the case is that there is some sort of a misunderstanding or miscommunication between the parties.  I think this is the strongest probability here.

So what are UK fans to make of all this?  Well, I don't blame Kentucky fans for being angry.  Even if we assume that Austin's defense of Tipton represents the objective facts and that much of this is a misunderstanding (which, by the way, I do), Tipton asking recruits' parents about injuries in this manner does not make me happy.  As Cat fans, we don't want to see the potential negatives of our program, especially when the connection to the facts is not indisputable, paraded in front of the people who have the most influence on where their sons or daughters matriculate. 

Marc Maggard recently said in a post on Kentucky Ink,  "I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that Tipton is UK enemy #1."  I can understand why he thinks so, even if I would demand a lot more proof of that statement than has been supplied so far, and from more than one verifiable source saying so without equivocation.  Is Tipton deliberately setting out to sabotage Kentucky's basketball program?  I don't believe so, but then again, I can't and won't attempt to prove he isn't.  If he is, he is violating every tenet of journalism I know of, and probably should be disciplined by the Herald-Leader.  If he isn't, which I believe, his questions are still a good reason for UK fans to be angry with him.  While the injury thing is out there, it is far from being a cause-and-effect slam dunk, and I can't see why it should be mentioned in questioning for an article.  In fact, Curry denied in the podcast that Tipton had asked any questions along the lines of "have you heard that Gillispie works his players to the point of injury."  With respect to the rumors, I am dismissing that as a misunderstanding -- Curry did say that Tipton asked if she had heard any rumors about Gillispie, but that other reporters had also asked her the same thing.  Avery flat out denied any questions about rumors from Tipton.  With respect to Gillispie's "hard" attitude, I suppose that is a fair question, and we should just let that pass.  Other coaches have had to endure similar, and nobody could mistake Billy Gillispie for Mother Theresa.

Kentucky fans over at Kentucky Ink and The Cats Pause have gone so far as to demand Tipton be fired, and are trying to organize a boycott of the Herald-Leader's advertisers.  Quite frankly, I think that given the facts that we have to work with, and notwithstanding Maggard's admonition that Tipton is "UK enemy #1," that is over the top.  Unless someone can provide verifiable evidence that Tipton is actively trying to sabotage UK recruiting (and folks, despite what some will tell you, what I have seen so far doesn't qualify), I see nothing professionally or ethically wrong with the questions Tipton is asking these people and the pieces he writes for the Herald-Leader.  He is certainly not endearing himself to me by doing what he is doing, but when it comes to people who's jobs are to write stories about objective facts, it is hard to justify such extreme action just because we don't like the questions they are asking -- especially when those questions relate to issues that are not rumor and not innuendo.  If Tipton legitimately believes the injury thing is an issue, I guess it is fair to ask about it, although I think the evidence supporting it is less than totally compelling.

In the final analysis, I think what we have here is a couple of things:  Tipton has been asking questions that probe issues most UK fans would not want probed.  Further, I question whether some of these issues are really solidly grounded enough in fact to be considered issues at all, but that is a judgment call that is certainly within the province of the reporter to make.  I think from listening closely to these interviews that Tipton's reputation is preceding him in at least one of them (Robyn Curry), and that makes me question whether or not some anti-Tipton bias may be responsible for some of the comments made by Curry in particular.  Curry stated in her interview that Tipton first called Zollo's high school coach, who subsequently called her and warned her Tipton was "an ass."

In the end, though, what I think we will wind up with is what we have had for a long time now -- Kentucky fans at odds with Jerry Tipton, and to some extent, the Herald-Leader.  That is nothing new.  We at A Sea of Blue have taken media types, Tipton included, to task many times and will continue to do so when circumstances warrant.  But what I have seen so far about this situation is a lot more heat than light.

Update [2008-5-8 15:17:24 by Truzenzuzex]:  Matt Jones holds forth on the Tipton controversy.  Interesting read -- don't miss it.

Update [2008-5-8 19:18:38 by Truzenzuzex]:  Fake Gimel strikes!  If you haven't read this post at Firebilly.com, drop what you are doing and get thee hence.

Update [2008-5-8 19:23:41 by Truzenzuzex]:  UK Wildcat Country has thoughts.  No shrinking violet, this guy.

As all college team bloggers sometimes discover upon a review of the events of the past few days, this morning I found that there was pretty much no uncovered ground in Kentucky football, basketball or even baseball.  In case you missed my update below, Kentucky defeated Florida in the rubber match of a three game home stand yesterday to claim a 2-1 victory in the series.  That should help Kentucky's national ranking, as the Gators are ranked #24 in the country.  Great news, and despite their rather pedestrian record in the SEC the Bat Cats are starting to come out of their recent ... well, it's hard to call it a slump ... two weeks of slight under-achievement.

But beyond that the spring football game is over and, we are mostly waiting for word -- from Josh Harrellson, Paul McCoy, Maurice Sutton, Ater Majok, Morakinyo Williams, Derrick Jasper -- word on what is going to happen next in their futures.  I don't like writing over and over again about recruits and players waiting to take some kind decision.  I find it monotonous.

So instead, I thought I would look at a few of the things going on around the basketball and football universe today.  First off, we have a short piece from the Philadelphia Daily News talking about a new attitude for the U.S. Olympic basketball team.  If Jerry Colangelo lives up to his word, things could indeed be different:

Well.  Now that is definitely lip service to a change, at the very least.  It remains to be seen if this is real, or just more posturing.  There is also this article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution which goes into a bit more depth on the issue.  If you believe Jerry Colangelo's words when discussing the U.S. Olympic team's performance in Athens in 2004, there may be some meat on this bone:
Heh.  "The attitude," eh?  You mean the, "This is a darn nice vacation, and who cares if we win" attitude, Jerry?  Or the, "I'm not takin' a chance on hurting my knee for this crap" attitude?  Take your pick, I guess.  If Colangelo can actually scape together a team that truly cares about winning in Bejing, it would be a minor miracle, and definitely won't include the likes of Carmelo Anthony, who doesn't even seem to care if he kills somebody driving around in his car.  I'll keep my own counsel on this until I see more.

Next, we have the Saban Rule.  "What's that," you ask?  Well, the NCAA enacted a new rule forbidding college football coaches from showing up at high schools and "bumping into" coveted recruits.  Apparently, Nick Saban used this tactic to such an effect, the vast majority of NCAA coaches felt the need to level the playing field by passing a rule against it.  What does Nick Saban think?  He's agin' it.

In the SEC, the two main "offenders" on this have been Urban Meyer of Florida and Nick Saban of Alabama.  Naturally, the papers of Florida and Alabama have little good to say about the rule.  But Nick Saban being Nick Saban, he is determined to find another way to get into the hearts and minds of recruits, and with the help of Fox Sports Net South, he has found television a great way to peddle his wares, even in the off season.

You have to admire determination like that.

Finally, we revisit this recent blog post of mine talking about members of congress from a few states that felt the sting of the BCS this year.  Kyle King of Dawg Sports has a great piece about why he thinks investigating the BCS is bunk, and there are several interesting editorials ridiculing the resolution and using it as an excuse to rail against the BCS.

But the most fascinating article I found on the subject was this one; not because I agree with it, but because part of me is in complete shock that anyone would actually make this argument and post it on the Internet.  Predictably, somehow, it comes from WRAL in the Raliegh-Durham area.  The author, one Barry Jacobs, argues that the BCS is great.  Why?  Because if the current petition for three more bowl games are agreed to and no other bowls are discontinued, college football will have almost 60% of its D-1 schools participating in some bowl or other.

He goes on to explain why this is good  -- because "35 teams will end their seasons wreathed in triumph. Even if the financial payoff from some of these games is relatively small, the rewards in satisfaction, prestige, extra practice time, new experiences, and coaches' bonuses are not to be minimized."  He goes on to rip college basketball's post season, lamenting the fact that, including the NIT and the CBI, only 113 out of 341 teams get to participate, and "of all those participants, only three teams go home on a victorious note."  Oh dear.

Without engaging in bitter, pointless sarcasm at the remarkable silliness of that suggestion, I can only imagine that Vince Lombardi, should he read this piece, would roll over in his grave and curse the fact he can't regale Mr. Jacobs with tales of competitiveness, and what a truly competitive nature is all about.  Unfortunately, I don't think Mr. Jacobs could handle Coach Lombardi's truth.  You wonder how guys like this ever get to write about sports.

I found this link on TCP, which made me smile.

First, Seth Davis all but assures us that Patrick Patterson is headed to the NBA.  Now, he is convinced that Oklahoma State has Gillispie on their radar, and can pry him away because T. Boone Pickens, the gazillionaire, is an OSU alum.

Oh, yeah, it's all about the money to Gillispie.  No doubt, the first second-tier college in the middle of nowhere with a billionaire booster will be able to scoop him right up from the most storied program in America.  Hey, Seth -- sometimes, money isn't the only thing.

Seth is a funny guy.  I think also just a few beers short of a six-pack.  Or perhaps, he's just missing that plastic thingy that holds it together.

This is an open thread.  Talk about anything Wildcat related.

Kentucky is finally getting a fair amount of sweet love from the national media.  After you go on a 10/12 rampage, even the haters have to surrender a modicum of respect.

I don't know about you, dear reader, but this season has been a very trying one.  From the Days of Darkness when everyone was doubting everything about Coach Gillispie and the players on this team, hating on Smith for leaving us such terrible players, passing rumors about underage love affairs and carousing.  I have not forgotten going to bed after the Florida game at the O-dome, so incredibly frustrated I got almost no sleep.  It is doubly fitting, therefore, that the latest victory against Florida is the "cherry on top" of one of the great in-season turn-arounds in NCAA history.

So let's get to some of that sweet, sweet love, shall we?  Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News:

Well, I suppose I can't blame him for doubting we're in, that is a legitimate difference of opinion.  But I love Kentucky being compared to Freddy Krueger or Jason.  I loved Freddy -- Jason, not so much -- but the metaphor leaves me wanting more.  So here is more from Gary Parrish of CBS Sportsline:
Oh, yeah.  There is a bit o' honey for ya Billy.  Well earned, I might add.  Next, we go to Andrew Skwara of Rivals.com, writing for Yahoo:
Now, we're getting somewhere.  From "more work to do" to "Coach of the Year" to "serious threat to make a run in the tournament."  Still need more?  Spencer Hall, a.k.a "Orson Swindle" of EDSBS fame, has a little something over at The Sporting News:
Heh.  Well, somebody had to mention the Big Blue Nation and our expectations.  Finally, via Chris Diggs at the Courier-Journal UK fan blog, some weirdness from Florida after the game:
You just gotta learn to hold your ears right, fellas.  And it's Jasper, Nick -- a name I am quite certain you will come to know much better than you would like.

It's been a while since I went around the Internet to see what people are saying, so I though I would do that this afternoon.

But before I get to that, have you noticed the shiny new icons we have here at A Sea of Blue?  No, those were not done by me.  My graphics skills are unfortunately very limited and crude.  The shiny new graphics were done by one of our readers, Tre Pryor.  Tre lives here in Louisville, and he and I met a few months back to chat about the Wildcats and the blog and just to meet face to face with somebody you get to read about.

Tre is the one responsible for all these nice new buttons you see over on the left.  I had been wanting to add some nice new visuals rather than just the crude stuff that I have done, and Tre was kind enough to oblige me.  Tre is a Realtor here in Louisville, and if you happen to be looking to buy or sell a home in the Louisville or surrounding area, you might give Tre an email or a call.  The best way to get all his particulars is by visiting his website, www.TrePryor.com.  Conveniently, if you need some freelance graphics or website work done, you may even be able to engage his services in that area, also.  Thanks again to Tre for helping us out here at A Sea of Blue.

Moving on to the Wildcats.  I rarely link an article from Jeff Goodman that doesn't include a disparaging remark, but his latest is at least not totally disrespectful of Kentucky and so I will link the good as well as the bad.  Money quote:

I think he is right.  I believe by virtue of their victory last night, UK validated their performance at Tennessee and is now firmly in the tournament.  That isn't to say dropping two games in a row might not put them right back on the bubble, but now, I think the NCAA bid is Kentucky's to lose.

A big question now becomes, "Whither the Gators?  To the NCAA or the NIT?"  David Whitley of the Orlando Sentinel says that reality is catching up to the young Florida team.  I think that the Gators could greatly help their NCAA cause by beating UK on Saturday (which I hope doesn't happen), but if they lose, I believe they still have a shot by winning two games in the tournament.  If UK beats them, they will have an extra game to play, but that may not be a bad thing.

For Kentucky, I think a loss to the Gators only knocks them out of the NCAA if they lose the first game of the SEC tourney, and even that isn't for sure, but it would really make us worry on Selection Sunday.  If the Cats lose to Florida and win two SEC tourney games, I'd say they were in for sure.  Winning only one is tougher.

The Washington Times' college sports blog also thinks the Cats are rising:
USA Today reminisces about their favorite five NCAA tournament games.  It's a pretty good list.  The Kentucky Kernel's Jonathan Smith has a piece today that argues this Kentucky team has no business being in the position it is in right now.  I disagree.  I disagreed earlier in the year, and I still think that the Cats aught to have been this good all year long.  It is understandable that they had some tough times due to injuries, and some are still likely.  But what we are seeing now is what I expected to see back in December,

Readers are loving on Gregg Doyel for his article the other day about Billy Gillispie and other coaches' work on pediatric cancer:
Heh.

Finally, there is this article from the Daily Orange that looks at Kentucky's tortured journey this year, and extensively quotes the players.  The money quote comes from Ramel Bradley:
There is no doubt in my mind either, Ramel.

That's right, Big Blue Nation.  You can't handle the truth, or so that's what Seth Davis thinks.

TheFakeGimelMartines (yes, the one that blogs here, can there really be more than one?) writes over at FireBilly.com about an article by Seth Davis where he regrets to inform us that he is hearing from some unnamed person that Pattrick Patterson might be considering going pro.

Well, I suppose we'll have to hear from these unnamed sources (probably the same ones who were doing the rumormongering about Gillispie earlier) until the end of the season.  I suppose it comes with the territory, and if Patterson went into the ranks of the professionals, we could hardly blame him.  I frankly think he isn't ready for that yet, but maybe the scouts, who get paid the big bucks to know, think different.  At this point in the season, I guess we just have to smile and say, "Up yours, Seth Davis.  You can't even get the facts corect when they are right in front of you, and we are supposed to trust you about this?"  Bugger off.

Jerry Tipton is says on his blog that UK got a mock bid from CollegeRPI.com.  Here is a little bit more about that particular fact, and we even had 3 AP voters pick UK for the most recent top 25, which is as many votes as Florida got and 2 more than UAB.  I would guess, at the moment, we are firming up a real shot at an at-large bid, and a win over Ole Miss at home may not help a lot, but it will help a little.

I think Arkansas sports writers are just nuts.  After one article whining about the officiating last week, here comes another.  But this one goes much further, assuring us that Gillispie is just a crush, and won't be around long at UK:

I suppose I just have to say, "What the heck, over?"  It must be nice to be able to write fiction like this couched as "opinion."  I guess that makes a lie OK, right? "Hey, it's my opinion, and I got a right to it!"  Got facts, like support for your suggestion that the "morals clause" is what's keeping Gillispie from signing his contract?  "Who needs facts, it's my opinion, and I got a right to it."  I thought so.  Thank God the Arkansas fans and bloggers have a touch of class about them -- I don't see a whole lot of whining from that department, but the MSMers?  Wow.

But I wonder where the author thinks Gillispie is going to take his act after UK?  I mean, there is no "up" from here, unless you are talking about the NBA.  But the tricks he uses to "fix" programs in college will not work whatever in the professional environment.  We have had numerous disciplinarians try to succeed in the pros, and every one without any exception has failed utterly.  The pros just don't have to put up with it.  College kids do, or they get to take their act elsewhere.  Levers can only move large objects when you have something to act as a fulcrum, and in the pros, there is precious little.  I just knew we would hear about this dumb contract ad infinitum, and fortunately, Matt Jones addresses it in detail on his blog today.  Maybe some of the MSMers writing this tripe will take a minute away from their "opinion" and try to read it.

Finally, I don't know if you saw this article by Rick Bozich at the Courier-Journal this morning, but he accuses ESPN of falling in love with the ACC, and I think rightly so.  I won't go in to all the depth he does, but suffice it to say that Barad Dûr's list of the 25 greatest players in college basketball history are conspicuously missing several players from UK and U of L who were arguably better than many of the ones they chose.  Color me shocked.

Well, well.  I have been away from the computer most of the day today, which is why I haven't updated the news section and what-not.  But over at his blog FireBilly.com, Fake Gimel has pointed me to the latest Jerry Tiption article on the tough-guy coaching tactics apparently employed by the UK men's basketball coach.

In my earlier missive, I took great umbrage with Tipton for a lack of balance in his article.  Evidently, he took that criticism to heart (maybe not from me -- lots of others have made the same point about his earlier piece).  Unlike his earlier article, this one had excellent balance throughout, and did not bury the good side amongst the bad.  I think it paints a picture of a coach who lacks a certain amount of "people skills," as Dusty Mills said in a quote in the article, but also of a man who understands that to excel at anything, you have to be willing to be taken out of your comfort zone.  That is what it takes to really go to the next level of anything, and Gillispie seems to have a complete grasp of that fact.  Most people don't like to be forced out of their comfort zone -- that's why they call it a "comfort zone" -- and Gillispie is going to do it, whether you want him to or not.

Gillispie's curt style is not for the faint of heart, and it may rub many the wrong way.  I am not backing down on my earlier remarks about how he handled the Mills situation, but Tipton does a very good job in this article giving us a look at the gruff, no-nonsense coach from a perspective that is not nearly as inimical as his earlier report.  In Tipton's latest, we see Gillispie not only through the eyes of the disgruntled Mills, but also through the eyes of young men who would crawl over broken glass to play for him.  That brings us around to the other side of the argument that was missing from Tipton's first effort, and the picture now doesn't look nearly as dire and unforgiving as before, when we only saw the ugly parts.

This is a classic example of how a good writer will create balance without minimizing honest criticism:

That is very well done.  A bad situation is balanced by another young man who overcame the very same scenario, and was so enamored with Gillispie's coaching style he followed him from one school to another as a walk-on.  It doesn't force you to draw the conclusion that Mills is a crybaby, but it does make you wonder what the other guy had that Mills didn't.  The two situations are exactly analogous, and nicely prevent the implied negative of Mills from being the only thing you have to think about.

In my humble opinion, and I am by no means an expert, this is one of the better pieces I can ever remember Jerry Tipton writing.  He took the time to detail all sides of the issue and the editors gave him the freedom to explore it to the depth necessary to get it right.  For my money, this is a nice piece of sports journalism, and I am very glad Tipton wrote it.  My opinion of him, which had nose-dived after his last article is now back were it was.  Redemption can come in many forms, and nothing is sweeter than redeeming oneself after a mistake.  Tipton probably doesn't think of it in those terms, but I do.

So kudos, Jerry Tipton.  You done good in this one.  It is an honest, no-holds barred look at the coach with the balance such an essay requires.  It's good journalism, and in my book, praiseworthy.  More, please.

Update [2008-2-22 17:31:33 by TheFakeGimelMartinez]: Fixed the broken link to my article.

Tipton is a negative ninny.  We know this.  But there are limits, and he may well have exceeded them with a recent article.

Matt Jones and some people over at TCP and around the Big Blue Nation have laid eyes on a Jerry Tipton article about Dusty Mills getting kicked off the team that painted Billy Gillispie in a very negative light.  That article, as of this moment, is not anywhere on the Herald-Leader's pages, but it can still be read here.  However, following the breadcrumbs leads to a blank page.

Perhaps it's just an oversight or a programming error by the IT staff over at the H-L, who knows?  As to the substance of the article, it paints Billy Gillispie as essentially a dominating liar who won't even consider reason for one second, just his own private power trip.  It is disturbing in the extreme.

I won't pretend to know what happened here.  Kids tell tall tales, especially kids who feel they were wronged.  But in my opinion, this article requires some kind of response from the coaching staff.  Nobody can tell Gillispie how to run his team, but this is one of those unfortunate things that can't be pushed under the rug.  It directly impugns Gillispie's character in a way that will be used against Kentucky by other programs, and casts the University in a poor light.

There is no way Tipton should have printed this article without doing more legwork.  This, in my opinion, is tabloid reporting at its worst, giving only one side of the story and doing so in such a way as to tarnish the reputation of the Kentucky coach.  It is shameful, and disturbing.  Unfortunately, it now requires an explanation from either Tipton or Gillispie or both.  I don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill, but the mole that made this one must have been of the Jurassic Park variety.

Update [2008-2-20 10:15:53 by Truzenzuzex]::  John Clay just emailed me and assured me that this article has not been pulled.  It is apparently now where it is supposed to be.

John also said that Tipton did do his legwork on the article, and Gillispie just chose a limited reponse.  Unfortunately, given all this, we must all draw our own conclusions, at least for now.

My conclusion is this:  Gillispie looks like a bully.  No frills, just the way I see it, and if this is all we get, it lowers my opinion of Gillispie significantly.

I'm all about supporting our coach, but the latin proverb goes, "Qui tacet consentire videtur."  He who is silent is understood to consent.  So be it.  My opinion of Tipton is also significantly lower.  The article, however well researched, is written from such a one-sided perspective that it has the look and feel of a political hit piece.  Burying comments from the coach under a fusillade of incriminating quotes from Mills is just unacceptable.

If you have time, head over to The Cats Zone and join the chat.

Have your questions for the coach ready.

Tonight around 7:30 PM for those who are interested, I will be discussing the Cats on SportsTap.  For those who have better things to do, I will post a link to the segment tomorrow sometime.

In the news, Coach Gillispie said today that Jodie Meeks went through most of a full practice and is apparently approaching 100%.  Jasper practiced, but less intensely and his status for tomorrow is still somewhat in doubt.

Tennessee posts coming up soon ...