Alex Byington sez -- Get used to losing, Big Blue Nation

Alex Byington, Assistant Sports Editor for the Kentucky New Era, has an editorial today of some 500 words that essentially says this:  "Kentucky sucks, and get used to losing."

Well.  Tell us what you really think, Alex.  The reason I am bothering to address this is that Alex believes that we will not only be bad this year, but for the foreseeable future:

So let me get this straight -- Gillispie can turn around non-programs like TAMU and UTEP in one year, but not the most storied basketball program in the land?  Damn, ladies and gentlemen of the Big Blue Nation, we have been hoodwinked!  All along, I thought that a coach who raised two programs from the proverbial tomb in only one year could surely do the same for a real program like Kentucky in at least a comparable time frame, didn't you?  Mitch Barnhart, line 1 -- Big Blue Nation calling, and they don't sound happy.

With all due respect to Alex, Gillispie doesn't have 3 years.  He may have two.  I think if someone were to walk up to Gillispie and tell him that he was going to be bad for two years, he would laugh out loud.  Gillispie is a winner, that much I do know.  If we are 6-7 next year at this point in the season, Gillispie might as well change his name to Joe B. Orlando Smith, because the kind of pressure he will be under is a combination of what Hall and Smith went through, added together and squared.

But wait -- Alex isn't done making us feel bad yet:

Well, there you go.  We might as well surrender our allegiance and come back in 3 years.  We can all become Minnesota fans in the interim and sing Kum Ba Ya with the Smith family and make up for all the perceived slights we committed against him while he was here.

Look, I understand thinking that Gillispie is inflexible.  I didn't exactly invent the idea, but I fleshed it out before Alex did to much discussion and even some derision.  Even though some people thought my piece was negative, it wasn't, and I aught to know, I wrote the thing.  Of course, I didn't warn of two to three years wandering in the desert of futility, either.  

I understand why some people may think like Alex, but that isn't only wrong, it's facile.  It is obvious that most of the problems this year adapting to Gillispie's system are coming from returning players who saw lots of time under the former regime.  They also happen to be two of our very best, and being seniors, the area from which you would least expect difficulty.  But old habits are hard to unlearn, and nobody knows how hard it is to teach old dogs new tricks than an old dog like me.  However, hard doesn't mean impossible, and I believe they will eventually come around, even kicking and screaming.

Sorry, Alex, I hate to bash you, but really ... do you actually believe what you wrote?