"He was a commander at the position," the UK coach said. "That’s the best we’ve seen, maybe, in the two years I’ve been here." Liggins provided "an offensive and defensive presence we probably had not had in two years for a good portion of the time," Gillispie said.

I've now read about 27 stories on the DeAndre Liggins mini-controversy and each time, Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie is back-handedly praised for getting the most out of his disgruntled player while allowing a freshman -- albeit a 21-year-old freshman -- to walk all over him.

I'll admit that at first glance Gillispie's move is a strange one. For a widely acknowledged disciplinarian, letting such a flagrant flouting of the unwritten rules of a team go not only unpunished but seemingly rewarded is baffling. What's to stop someone else from giving Coach the bird from the bench when they don't get their milk and cookies next time?

I suppose the answer is: nothing.

And yet, what do players want as much if not more than coaches? To win, and to look good doing it. This is evidenced by the players' apparently unanimous vote to keep Liggins on the team and in the regular rotation. And sure enough, with him stripping opponents of the ball and driving the offense the Cats stormed back from seemingly dead to grab a huge "gut" win over West Virginia in Las Vegas.

Gillispie is a stubborn guy, but he's not a stupid one. He knows that Kentucky's season hinges on Liggins' development into a 30-minute player. So does Liggins. So what you're seeing in Gillispie's quotes and dealings with the skeptical Kentucky media is a clear example of coaching through the paper.

We should be used to it, having had Rick Pitino, one of the game's master media manipulators, honing his dark art for eight years. Though his successor was about as inept at it as his power forwards mostly were at blocking out. But I digress...

Anyone watching at home honestly believe that Liggins "provided 'an offensive and defensive presence we probably had not had in two years'"? He was good, and way better than anything seen this season, sure. But that four-point, two rebound second-half performance was hardly the second coming of Deron Williams. That's just coachspeak.

But good coachspeak. And necessary. Because the leash is short. Coach has to know it, and hopefully Mr. Liggins will remember it. Because one more moment of childlike over-indulgence from his 21-year-old freshman will likely be the last one. 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.

If you're like me -- and unless you're super attractive and always right, then you are not like me -- you probably feel basically pretty miserable right now, a few hours before Kentucky visits No. 1 North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

In part, of course, this is because of that atrocity last Friday. I figured VMI would be a weird matchup, but that a hyped-up Kentucky team and a scoring Meeks would get us through. I did not account, however, for Mike Porter's "Coury Cold Opening" impression, nor for the Lofton-esque shooting theatrics from nearly every visiting player.

But this misery also because, quite frankly, I just don't get that joy anymore I used to get. It's been beaten out of me by a season (now plus) of struggling to score on nearly every possession under Gillispie, and that on top of two years of Tubby's Tabby's doing their best impression of a St. Johns team in blue and white unis.

I believe the word you were looking for, Billy, was "AAARRRGGGHH."

I guess I can be accused of being a fair-weather fan, and it's been easy to with the sort of weather we had for so long. We got used to winning, and took it to mean that it was a birthright. But those of us old enough to remember other coaching changes should have known better. The Tubby title transition was the exception, not the rule.

Pitino's circumstances were obviously different, but no other new UK coach has had a completely easy go of it in his first two years. Gillispie is no different. And much of what is transpiring now is the hangover of the two years preceding his arrival, when UK got by with a lot of mediocrity and fans got used to last second squeakers over the VMIs of the world, at the expense, maybe, of some hard-earned lessons and better development.

When you play just to not lose you aren't playing to win, a corny college coach might say.

None of that is to imply that I'd somehow have preferred to lose Friday. But maybe we, as UK fans, will just have to get better about something we have been absolutely terrible about as a rule: patience.

It will not be easy. Gillispie's defensive schemes take time, and require players to be in maximum condition to close out after collapsing in to stop the dribbe-drive. And these guys, while probably better conditioned than many of their opponents, are probably not there yet, footspeed-wise.

Additionally, with Jasper transferring and Liggins still adjusting, there are effectively no experienced elite athletes at the point position on the floor or on the bench. Porter is what he is, but a star athlete he is not.I assume Galloway is still on the team. Someone let the FBI know if you see him.

We'll see, of course. Maybe tomorrow we'll all be talking about where UK should be in the top 25. Or maybe we'll be trying to figure out how many losses we'll pile up. Who knows.

All I know right now is I feel like locking myself in a dark room for a few months.

Anyone else having this much fun, too?

Multiple news sources now reporting that five-star 2009 center Daniel Orton has verbally agreed to join the Kentucky program.

Orton, who is in Lexington this weekend attending Big Blue Madness, chooses UK over Kansas, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

Rivals.com lists Orton as the No. 3 center prospect and the No. 22 player overall in his class. The commitment is a big one, as it shores up UK's interior in the event of Patrick Patterson's departure to the NBA or gives Kentucky a potentially dominant interior with Orton, Patterson, incoming transfer Matthew Pilgrim and JUCO transfer Josh Harrellson.

More to come.

Maybe it's the jokes, or the lineage or something altogether indescribable that makes Kentuckians -- and Kentucky fans in general -- such a sensitive bunch. Or maybe it's just the ad revenue generated by a legion of angry Big Blue denizens linking to and clicking frantically on any article that supposedly disrespects their beloved collegiate basketball team.

I have a message for the Big Blue Nation, however. Far from trying to shame or guilt or shout down the rest of the world into accepting that Kentucky is the greatest program in the history of the game, it's time to take the polar opposite approach and embrace the hate.

It won't be easy, of course. Lashing yourself to the mast in a storm seldom is. But just think how liberating it will be to no longer worry about some ESPN guru's random rankings, or the collective short-sightedness -- almost an annual event -- of the SEC coaches and media as they annoint _____(fill in name of other lesser program here)____ as the new king of the hill.

Who is it this year, Tennessee? Yeah, OK. Go ahead. Whatever makes you cuddly at night, John Q. Nobody.

No, it's time to rethink all this thin-skinned reactionism. It's for the best, really. It's also completely justified. Let's review, shall we?

It was never going to happen with Tubby Smith at the helm. Let's face it, when you have arguably the nicest human being in college coaching and one of the most respected African-American coaches in the country and you still can't get love from the press, when exactly is it coming?

But now we have Billy Gillispie, a firebrand, a pugnacious brawler type whose notoriously wicked practices are based all around out toughing the opponent -- heck, even your own players if need be. Sounds perfect for Operation: He Hate Me.

And the makeup of the current team? Tough. Patrick Patterson is an All-American tough guy, a bruiser, and a good one. The flashiest player is probably DeAndre Liggins, the Chicago freshman who sacrificed his scoring to help his prep team nearly capture the national title. Fits just fine on Team Ignored.

Go down the list: Meeks, Porter, Harris, Galloway, Harrelson, Stevenson. JUCOs, forgotten recruits, leftovers all. Heck, one of those guys is from freaking Alaska! I don't see any winking coming from Razor Ramon, though, do you?

Billy knows you don't need the rest of them...

See, it's really quite simple. If you turn off the spigot of jealousy, eliminate the craven wanting for attention, you can focus on your own team, not some other school, not some other coach, not some other ranking. Yours.

Try it. Think about Rupp Arena without caring about Andy Katz's contentment level with the place. Forget Dick Vitale's meandering rants, even if he occasionally graces us with moments of lucidity. Forget Jeff Goodman's little piques and whomever is writing for CBS Sportsline this week's idea of wit.

It feels pretty good, don't it?

Because what makes us feel good about our team, anyway? Adulation from a Florida grad somewhere sweating into his Mountain Dew while he vlogs? Sweet words of love from some failed coach calling a WAC game three time zones away? Fugg 'em.

You know, as I know, that Billy Gillispie didn't come to Kentucky to pad his bank account. I mean, he doesn't even have time to spend that money (though I'm guessing he doesn't mind the nest egg). He didn't come here to get a nice new track suit. Can get that anywhere.

No, he came to win. And win big. And he will. Because he won't sleep, eat or stop punching walls until he does. That's why he was hired, and it's clear. He coaxed last year's bunch of Wildcats -- a team so devoid of cohesion and balance they effectively had no junior class! -- into an NCAA berth. He turned Joe Crawford back into an NBA player.

And for those fans out there who remember so fondly, as we all secretly do, those days when Rick Pitino's teams can swaggering into 5,000-seat SEC arenas ready to bust some serious ass, we were never loved. Feared? Sure. Respected? No choice but to when you're looking at the butt end of a 20-point deficit. After one half.

We're poised to return, folks. But it can't be a one-man show. It has to be all of us. We have to turn off the little switch in our brains that makes us want affection and turn up the gears on the throttle that says "Step on his neck."

We have to embrace the hate. After that?

I believe Guns N' Roses said it best when they wrote: "They'll won't catch me, cause I'm f*cking innocent."

When Kentucky basketball coach Billy Gillispie offered a scholarship to eighth-grader Michael Avery of Thousand Oaks, Calif., and he accepted, the NCAA recruiting world flipped its lid.

Nevermind that other schools have done the same thing, nor that Avery was already playing AAU tournaments across the country, like many kids from ages 10 and up. No, somehow this was the straw that broke the Camelot's back.

This isn't to say there aren't reasons to look more closely at the situation, or to legimiately questions the system. It's just that it seemed a little convenient that Kentucky was the lightning rod for criticism. So be it.

Back to the task at hand, though, what is the kid up to?

Avery, who had not as of his commitment to college decided which high school he was going to attend, settled on Crespi High in Encino, Calif. Thus far, Avery seems to have fit in nicely in his new home.

Avery scored a team-high 19 points, including 17 in the first half, of a Crespi win in a loaded summer high school tournament in Los Angeles, the Nike/Fairfax of Los Angeles tournament.

He followed that up with 14 in a loss in the fifth-place game.

Summer before his freshman year and he's alreayd in the spotlight. It's a long time until Mr. Avery (the younger) sees the floor in a Wildcats uniform, if he ever does. It'll be fascinating to see what happens between now and then.

This is the first in a series of guest commentaries from world-renowned authors and statesmen on some of the most memorable moments in Kentucky sports history ... Today: UK 60, UL 58. December 18, 2004.

"It wasn't always this way. What began far afield before -- in smaller gyms, in front of smaller crowds -- had come full circle. It was here, now. This moment. This man.

He had been born for it. Raised among the flat land and dying coal mines of Western Kentucky, the boy had grown up now, lost the look of home and of the soft familiarity of innocence. No, he had seen it now, the best and the worst, the exodus and the glory each.

The ball felt light in his hands.

What had started in bitterness, obscurity and some unrequited love, had now turned, a bulb in full bloom, a heart laid bare on the battlefield. No more rain, no more slow march. This was why he'd made the sacrifices, the lonely nights.

The roar of the masses was silence in his head.

Second chances. The revival after the tumult and now he was here, and it was good. A sea of blue, punctured by blood red. How far had he walked? How many steps had he taken? It did not matter. Nothing mattered except the long night and the rain on the roof and the ball in his hands like a child in need of deliverance.

It is his time.

What they would say about him, remember. The only thing he could give back was everything. The moment you pray for, and dread, and cherish all. Those forgotten nights at the gym, with the rain pounding the old roof, the smell of the dust in your nostrils and the knowledge, deep-seated, innate, that the moment will come, and you must be ready when it does. And so he was.

The sly grin and then the turn to face forever, immortality. The ball just another part of his calloused hands, the fear gone now, replaced by thoughts of the end. And the rush. The slowness and the fluid shot. The net does not move. It sits silent.

One more moment to go, and it's all over.

There were times when it seemed too far away. When old dreams were replaced by new ones, by acceptance and even newfound pride. And then it all changed, and uncertainty returned to his life, the boy now a man in his own right, no longer just the coach's son, the gym rat, the one too slow, too small and too far down the trail of displaced dreamers. But he was here despite all that, or because of it. It was what he was made of, an only thing. A sublime piece of the soul, his grandfather might have put it back then, on those humid days along the low-lying rows of corn and soybeans. All the heat, and dreaming of being alone no more.

But the lonely nights mattered. They had to. In the end, they were all that was true, and the continuity became his reality, so much so that where and when no longer mattered. Only the feel of the leather, the smell of the dust and the slow pound of his heart as the final shot goes through.

And then he heard it. Slowly at first, then all-encompassing. It took him over. And it was there, the dream fulfilled, realized in that roar once more.

Oh, God. That roar."

Hey there,

Lots of changes, obviously ... and while there are notes on the main page about who to contact with issues, it's sort of confusing, I know.

So if you have questions, suggestions, issues that you want addressed, post them here and we can pursue them vigorously...

ISSUE #1:
REMOVE Duke ringtones as ad on KENTUCKY SITE...for the love of jiminy...if htey can't control this, they got problems across the network ... rivalries are what college sports are all about!

Various internet sources now reporting Kentucky has secured a verbal commitment from ... wait for it ... AN EIGHTH-GRADER.

Michael Avery, a 6'4" combo guard out of Southern California, joins the nascent UK Class of 2012.

Seriously.

Clark Francis, the infamous recruiting guru, has Avery ranked as his No. 8 player in the class, No. 2 at his position, inexplicably listed as power forward.

A brief writeup from an AAU event in which his team went undefeated among strong competition...

Marc Maggard spoke to Michael's father about the commitment on his latest podcast, which I recommend. Great way of hearing how some of this stuff goes.

Avery recently spent time playing with Indiana Elite, the top flight AAU team which brought the world Greg Oden and Mike Conley, among others, and which currently boasts Stephen Van Treese, another UK target.

Avery also has played a level "up" on teams with players such as Duke commit Mason Plumlee and Treese, meaning this kid is getting into some very heady company recruit-wise.

More as it comes...

  [ED NOTE]...

For all of those folks talking about how sad this is, or how somehow we've crossed a line, what did you expect?

I'll address this in a future post, but you can't have it both ways. If you want elite talent a la UNC, Duke and Kansas, you have to be willing to play the game. We had a coach who was "above" such tactics. And it landed us more Mike Williamses and Sheray Thomases of late than it did Tywon Lawsons.

It's admittedly new ground for the program, but Billy Gillispie has a crack staff who is extremely visible on the AAU circuit. This trend, at least for now, of taking super early commitments is ahead of the curve. Maybe eventually, the game will change. But for now, I'd rather have a coach willing to play the game, short of cheating or shady street agents, than one who is above it and slowly fading into the woodwork.

End of brief rant...