Monthly Archive for February, 2008

Barf!

Published
by
The Fake Gimel Martinez
on February 29, 2008
in Billy: Year One and Current BMOC
. 3 Comments

For real? Mannnnn….

River City Ransom Kick

Edit: For those of you non-Kentucky fans who might visit the site, Patrick Patterson was our primary option on offense. As a freshman this year, he played like a junior, averaging 16.4 points per game and 7.7 rebounds per game. He could be compared to Jamal Mashburn in his freshman season, who’s talent and abilities enabled the 1990-91 Wildcats to be dynamic.

This season has been crop full of disappointments and bad injuries for the Wildcats. This may be bigger than the Gardner-Webb loss, considering the Wildcats had pulled themselves into NCAA consideration. Win two of the last three regular season games, the Wildcats would have a projected RPI in the 40’s and a strong SOS.

Watch out, Tennessee. You may see some very desperate Wildcats in Knoxville on the Lord’s Day. Or some players who act like they’ve been jumped-kicked in the back of the head. Ugh.

Edit 2: I was reminded that Patterson’s formerly-anointed footwear has failed him.

How To Get Far In Basketball In The UK

Published
by
The Fake Gimel Martinez
on February 27, 2008
in Billy: Year One and Random
. 1 Comment

(The topic title was a search term used to find an article at my friends’ blog. If you’re not going there, you’re missing out some great commentary about Univ. of Kentucky Basketball and Football. But I wanted to answer the question posed in the query here.)

  1. Listen to the coach.
  2. When they pull a knife, you pull a gun.
  3. Try not to be strung up by a ribbon on a ceiling fan.
  4. Take care of business these last 4 games.

Hell, a win at Tennessee would do amazing things, which is entirely possible. Knoxville is historically friendly to Kentucky, giving us 4 wins in the last 6 years.

Its funny how the ultimate fate of this Wildcat team was sealed so completely before January. I’m proud at the way our Wildcats have clawed their way back into the NCAA Tournament talk. Our turnaround has been amazing. But the team can make it phenomenal by getting into the Big Dance. It would be a fitting reward for the hard work they’ve put in all season long.

4 games, starting tonight. Continue to make us proud, Wildcats.

Bring the Shame or Shut Up: Seth Davis Edition

Published
by
The Fake Gimel Martinez
on February 26, 2008
in Current BMOC, Rumors and The Internets and eBays
. 4 Comments

In his latest column, SI.com’s Seth Davis drops this little nugget:

I hate to disappoint Kentucky fans, who have every reason to be excited about their team’s run of eight wins in its last nine games, but I’m hearing Patrick Patterson is seriously considering turning pro.

O RLY?

Honestly, I wouldn’t blame Patrick for going pro. He’s performing miracles in the paint despite teams double and triple-teaming him. And I’m not mad that Seth Davis wanting to share what he hears from anonymous sources; I am pissed that all he wrote was one little sentence about it, without any evidence of fact-checking presented to the reader.

At one time in my life, I was an editorial editor for the Kentucky Kernel. They needed somebody to manage the editorial page — letters to the editors, opinion columns, the Kernel’s official Editorial piece, etc. The other sections of the paper had to maintain a high level of fact-checking and cite sources.

Honestly, I don’t understand what’s allowed for anonymous sourcing in professional journalism. I wasn’t a journalism major and I never took a journalism class. It was my understanding from my working experience at the Kernel that the information from an anonymous source needs to be confirmed from more sources. It seems to me that you have to give your anonymous source a little check — and you need to inform your reader of your check.

Maybe Seth Davis did his check. But hell if we know. All we know is that he expects us to trust him with what he’s hearing. Leaving out some of the details of his fact-checking — not including a follow-up call with Patrick Patterson himself — means that Davis decided to print what he’s hearing unchecked.

Instead, Seth Davis expects us to trust him. But its not his job to be trusted! Its his job to take what he’s hearing, question the validity of it, and present it as factually-based, incorrect, or unmentionable. That is what I thought the professional media — those who are supposedly better than blogs — are supposed to do.

I really hate this kind of shit reporting. Its no better than message board posters reporting rumors about Coach Gillispie’s off-court behavior. The only difference is that Seth Davis gets paid to tell us what he thinks about basketball, and to report basketball news. And it appears he’s not fulfilling his job duties by reporting to his readers the validity of his sources.

Of course, since I’m a blogger, my standards are different. So believe me when I say that I’m hearing Seth Davis just decided to jump on the “Patterson is Leaving” bandwagon early with this comment. My sources tell me that if he’s wrong, nobody but a few Internet trolls will remember; but if he’s right, he can say, “as I first reported in February…” until he’s blue in the face.

Seth, when you decide to present to your readers a fact check on your Patterson leaving rumor, I’ll reveal my sources that says your full of shit. Deal?

Well, the Lord Hates A Coward

Published
by
The Fake Gimel Martinez
on February 22, 2008
in Billy Clyde News and Billy: Year One
. 0 Comments

Untouchable Coaches

Previously, I had hoped that Billy would follow-up with a little more detail regarding Dusty Mills’ comments. Jerry Tipton’s latest article expands on his previous article, and includes more comments from Billy about his coaching style, and more comments from previous players.

I think Billy’s comments were right on — without addressing the players who have left the team, Billy spent time talking about his coaching style and why he thinks it works. The seemingly harsh treatment as stated by Dusty is spun into a tough-love “my way or the highway” approach that is common in college basketball. Coach Gillispie and the PR folks in UK Athletics should be commended for taking this approach instead of either ignoring the issue outright or turning it into a nasty “he said, he said” media war.

There is some other great stuff in Tipton’s article. He interviews Alex Legion and Legion’s mom regarding the coaching environment. Acie Law IV and Josh Johnston, a former walk-on at UTEP who followed Billy to Texas A&M. The whole article is a well-fleshed out version of Tipton’s previous article, and does a great job of showing us Billy from several folks with differing opinions of his coaching style.

I’m not going to go over every little detail of the article here. But I did want to highlight some of the more funny points. Like this quip of another coach complimenting Gillispie:

When Kentucky played Florida International in late December, FIU Coach Sergio Rouco voluntarily defended Gillispie, his friend and former boss, by saying the UK players had to adjust from a “mild-mannered man” (Tubby Smith) to “Baby Saddam.” The intended compliment drew laughter from reporters at the post-game news conference.

Haha, our rivals are going to have a blast with that Baby Saddam nickname. What I think is the best is this description of the coach from the coach himself:

Gillispie likened himself to the character played by Sean Connery in the movie The Untouchables. When Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) tries to add the tough Chicago cop to fight organized crime, Connery has a question:

What are you prepared to do?

“He kept asking that question,” Gillispie said. “I really believe that’s relevant to what we do as basketball players. What are you prepared to do? … Everybody wants to be an NBA player. But what are you prepared to do to make yourself become one of those guys.

“That’s just my whole philosophy, basically.”

(Here’s the scene referenced by Coach Gillispie.)

Honestly, I don’t know if UK Athletics’ PR team came up with this statement, or if Billy did. Its too perfect. It fits his answers for his no-nonsense approach with a reference to a fairly popular late 1980’s violent movie. It fits right in with our tradition of naming teams prefixed with “un”. Honestly, if I was back in college right now, I’d be ordering a new poster to replace my Scarface poster. And I’d be dressing in a sharp suit and taking fake Tommy Guns to the ERupption Zone.

But I wonder if they forgot that Sean Connery’s character gets assassinated? That’s not a good omen, is it? Does that mean Coach Cyp is Eliot Ness or George Stone? I’m so confused.

Mom! Billy Made Dusty Cry!

Published
by
The Fake Gimel Martinez
on February 20, 2008
in Billy Clyde News, Billy: Year One and The Internets and eBays
. 6 Comments

Dusty Mills is gone. That much we know for certain. The devil’s in the details, though.

In normal cases, a player asked to leave or who requests a transfer shows grace publicly. I can understand Dusty wanting to tell his side of the story. But look at the wording Dusty used in Jerry Tipton’s article:

“He bashed on me pretty much,” Mills said. …

“It was like he had a total power trip on me,” the walk-on said. “Instead of explaining things, he decided to use intimidation. ‘You’re below me. This is how things are going to be.’ ” …

“He cut me off and just went berserk,” Mills said. “He cussed me out. Just basically said he didn’t care what I had to say. Said he was sick of me. That was a quote. He actually said he was sick of me.”

Why does Dusty want to share this kind of information with us? To make Billy look bad, of course. Dusty’s statements is a parting shot, an airing of dirty laundry. It reminds me of Rashaad Carruth fighting with Tubby through the media. That worked well for Rashaad, Tubby and the whole team that year.

This act of revenge further illustrates the disconnect — and the resulting problems from the disconnect — between our coach and the media/fanbase. Here is the entirety of Gillispie’s comments in Tipton’s article:

After UK beat Georgia Tuesday night, Gillispie said he gave Mills that chance. “They all get chances,” the UK coach said. “He (Mills) was a real good member of the team for a little bit.” Gillispie denied using profanity in meeting with Mills.

Tru at ASeaofBlue.com is quite upset by Tipton’s article, which focuses heavily on Dusty Mill’s interview concerning his release. After receiving confirmation that Tipton researched both sides of the story, Tru still sees Billy as a bully:

I’m all about supporting our coach, but the latin proverb goes, “Qui tacet consentire videtur.” He who is silent is understood to consent.

I can’t believe this is all Billy had to say, given that Tipton later states, “Gillispie invited Mills to tell reporters of the meeting, Mills said.” It seems to me that Billy didn’t expect Dusty to give vivid allegations to Mr. Tipton; otherwise Billy would have given Tipton a more through response. I wonder if Dusty threatened to go to the media about his dismissal and the coach didn’t take the threat seriously. Or either Tipton was holding back with the details of what he learned from Dusty (which is bad journalism ethics), or Billy didn’t want to address it publicly (which is bad media management).

Whatever the case, Coach should take a minute and address Dusty’s comments this week. An issue with a walk-on doesn’t go away in this day and age; especially with a fanbase that is obsessively fanatical in their devotion to the program. Not fully commenting on a raised issue only leads to speculation & distrust.

This, like the Oklahoma State rumors, is just another crazy curve in this wild winding road of a basketball season.

Not Even the Younglings Survived

Published
by
The Fake Gimel Martinez
on February 13, 2008
in Billy: Year One and Postgame
. 1 Comment

Little did the Kentucky Wildcats know that Emperor Stallings had issued Order 66. Poor Princess Judd could only watch in horror as her defenders of the Big Blue Nation were mowed down with cold, heartless precision.

After their performance in Lexington, Vandy decided to raise their game, and they did so with sickening results. Major props to Kevin Stallings and his Commodore Crew. They played aggressive defense — often without penalty from the refs, much to our chagrin — and completely ran us out of our defense.

I’m sure we could make a case that the team that we had before January seemed to show up off the bus. That tenacious D that has given us a puncher’s chance in most games wasn’t there. Hell, nothing really was there. I don’t blame Kentucky fans for feeling angry and not finding a silver lining in the cloud.

So now we’ll have the media playing up this game as the worst loss of the season. However, the most important part of this game depends on how Kentucky plays the next game. And the game after that. We already took one game away from Vandy this season, which is something a 41-point loss can’t erase. We’re not out of getting the #2 seed in the SEC Tournament.

Let’s hope that Vandy just assassinated the last of the Bad Basketball Wildcat Jedi tonight.

They Chose the Latter, Perhaps? (Updated)

Published
by
The Fake Gimel Martinez
on February 11, 2008
in Billy: Year One, Fake Gimel give Real Truth and Rumors
. 4 Comments

A few weeks ago, I asked all the rumormongers talking about Coach Gillispie’s ballyhooed wild personal life to show evidence of these rumors in a credible form. Since then, I have found very little rumoring and no credible evidence. No embarrassing videos found through Google or MySpace. Nothing on Google News. Even Billy Reed, who compared Gillispie to Charlie Bradshaw and suggested that Gillispie should be sent on his way, now says that Gillispie is the front-runner for SEC Coach of the Year.

In fact, the only recent rumor I found was on the Tennessee VolNation message board, which supposedly cut-and-paste’s a post from “catspause.com“. I looked high and low for that post on the House of Blue and Rupp’s Rafters message boards, and couldn’t find it. Sounds like sour grapes from some Vol fans who were a little bitter. (If you saw the post — allegedly made by BlueSteel — let me know and I’ll update the information.)

It turns out that the rumor referenced by VolNation was posted on WildcatFanReport.com:

I was told yesterday by a friend with pretty good connections to the athletics department that Billy Gillispie will not be retained as coach after the season. My source said it had nothing to do with the on-court product, meaning it has everything to do with off-court issues. He also said that the main focus of the coaching search would be John Calipari.

Yet again, we have the unnamed “source”. Yet again, a reference to “off-court issues” without specific accusations. Specific details about an unlikely replacement — anybody with two bits of common sense knows Calipari isn’t leaving the set up he has in Memphis. Granted, the rumor is posted with the “take this with a grain of salt” disclaimer, but it still fails to be credible or worth anybody’s time.

Really, that was it, or at least all I could find. Go look for yourself. If you find a gaggle of Wildcat fans still in a tizzy about the allegedly hard-drinking wildman of a coach, please let me know.

What’s happened since then and now? 8 wins (5 in a row), 4 5 losses. Now everybody is talking bubbles. Its amazing how the Big Blue Nation’s righteous anger seems to be less about the personal life of the coach and more about the letter L. And happily, for the rest of this season, we’re forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air.

Update February 12th: That first sentence was a little unclear; I wanted to make sure that I was claiming for credible evidence, not necessarily for shutting up.

Update February 13th: Hubbs of the always-awesome Blue Goggles pointed me to the WildcatFanReport.com article that published the rumor that was referenced at VolNation. Also, I updated the losses to include our asskicking given to us by Vandy. I wonder if losing by 41-points will start the rumor mill back up again? Probably.