From Larry Vaught with the Danville Advocate-Messenger
Kentucky seniors Bobby Perry, Sheray Thomas and Lukasz Obrzut will have a special team member with them tonight when they play an exhibition game at Mercer County.
Former UK player Randolph Morris, who signed with the New York Knicks after the 2006-2007 season ended, is scheduled to be at tonight’s game.
According to the article he is planning on playing in the game and not just making an appearance. Pretty classy move by the big guy, I think. I’m sure it would have been pretty easy for him to never set foot back in Lexington again had he chose not to. You think he’s in town to work on finishing up his degree? Hope so.
Randolph racked up 4 points and 9 rebounds in 5 games with the Knicks. By the way, those numbers were totals, not an average. 
What a year for Randolph, he is the only player EVER to play in college and in the NBA in the same season. He may end up being the only player that ever accomplishes that. Plus he’s got $1.6 mil in his pocket.
Not bad for someone that’s been accused of being “lazy and ungrateful”.
Kevin Bacon trivia question of the day: Who was the athletic director that gave Billy Clyde his first head coaching job?
Answer: Hal Mumme. Yes, THAT Hal Mumme.
When Copperas Cove had an opening for a head coach, that school’s athletics director, Hal Mumme hired Gillispie. “My ex-wife was such a good drill-team coach, they didn’t want to lose her, so they had to hire me,” Gillispie jokes. “That’s why Hal made me a head coach.”
Forget small world, this is downright claustrophobic! Even without that gem, it’s a must read article on Billy Clyde and his basketball obsession.
This story surprisingly didn’t get much play in the big blue media, but that is exactly why FireBilly.com should be one of you daily visits.
Coach Gillispie is not only hot on the trail of every unsigned blue chip recruit in the country, but he also took a little personal time this past weekend to participate in the LG National Texting Championships. Unfortunately coach Gillispie couldn’t quite bring home the gold.
The Sioux City Journal has the story.
Thirteen-year-old Morgan Pozgar, of Claysburg, Pa., was crowned LG National Texting champion on Saturday after she typed “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from “Mary Poppins” in 15 seconds.
Gillispie doesn’t get mentioned in the article since he ultimately finished out of the money in fourth place in the competition. In a surprising twist he got tangled up and was eliminated when recruit Steve Tchiengang’s name appeared as his word to text in the semi-final round. Although disappointed, coach Gillispie was rumored to be considering adding Morgan to his staff as a recruiter once he heard this quote:
She estimated that she sends more than 8,000 text messages a month to her friends and family.
Here is a picture that was destined to make an appearance on this site. Feel free to leave your own caption in the comments.
Here’s your motivation.
Hat tip to ASoB and AOL Fanhouse.
Just to wrap up our coverage of the Pettigrew recruitment it looks like he is moving on. UK wanted him to wait two weeks before making a decision but he doesn’t want to do that. So does that mean Billy Clyde will have everyone he is recruiting signed in the next two weeks? We’ll see.
UK asks Pettigrew to wait 2 weeks - Kentucky.com
Pettigrew says he could “forget all about” Kentucky… - TheNewsEnterprise.com
I’m amazed, awed, and confused by what I find on this page. It’s a grading of college basketball coaches around the country and evaluates some of the coaching moves that have occurred. It’s from the site Yet Another Basketball Blog. The guy uses a homemade formula (I swear I saw the quadratic function in there) that is too confusing for my simple mind to understand but thankfully he eventually breaks it down into list style for us.
It looks like he analyzes the last five years and gives the following results for the SEC.
SEC TEAM W+A REC REG POST
Billy Donovan Florida 19 A- 2.85 3.73
Bruce Pearl Tennessee 9 6.33 0.44
Mark Gottfried Alabama 8 B -0.91 0.90
John Brady LSU 7 B- -1.10 0.55
Billy Gillispie Kentucky 6 2.80 0.49
Kevin Stallings Vanderbilt 6 C 0.24 1.48
Rick Stansbury Miss. St. 5 C 2.22 -2.19
John Pelphrey Arkansas 1 -0.05 -0.18
Dennis Felton Georgia 1 C- -1.77 -0.24
Dave Odom S. Carolina 1 D+ -1.84 -0.63
Andy Kennedy Mississippi 0 -1.22 0.00
Jeff Lebo Auburn 0 -3.07 0.00
You will need to click on over to YABB to find out what REG and POST means. And it’s Dwight Schrute style because I can imagine Dwight Schrute from The Office having elaborate formulas to decide things like this.
So who are the available and unsigned possibilities for next years team? Here’s who I’ve got.
Alex Legion - 4 star - Asked for and recieved his release from his Letter of Intent at Michigan and has reopened his recruitment.
- Possible Teams?
- Connecticut
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Michigan
- UCLA - seems to be the leader
Jai Lucas - 4 star - Donovan and Florida are pushing late and hard to get him.
- Possible Teams?
- Florida
- Kentucky - maybe hopefully leaning UK?
- Maryland
- Oklahoma
- Oklahoma St.
Patrick Patterson - 5 star - The big dog yet to be signed in this years class.
- Possible Teams?
- Duke
- Florida - Probably leaning Florida (come on Billy Clyde!)
- Kentucky
- Virginia
Stepphon Pettigrew - No stars? - Couldn’t find his listing on Rivals or Scout.
- Possible Teams?
- Kentucky - No offer
- Saint Louis
- Western Kentucky
Michael Sanchez - 3 star - Was headed to a Las Vegas prep school before Arkansas and Kentucky came calling recently.
- Possible Teams?
- Arkansas
- Kentucky - Gotta believe that if UK offers he will take it.
- Michigan
- Tennessee
Ju-Co’s - I have no idea who’s on this list. Bueller? Anybody?
Who do you want and what do you think?
The Big Blue Nation did not take Stepphon Pettigrew’s deadline demand (comment?) very well. Cats Pause posters have expressed pretty much unanimously that it’s time for Stepphon to move on because of his attitude. I believe the general sentiment is “Who is this kid to be demanding an answer from us? Doesn’t he know this is “Kentucky basketball”, and he’ll get an answer when Billy Clyde is ready. ”
On the way home from work I listen to The Sports Huddle with Chris Cross. What? It’s the only sports talk show on when I drive home from work. Plus my wife likes listening to it now as well. I don’t have to answer to you. Anyway, one of his questions of the day was asking what people thought about the demand. All the callers I heard along with Cross and Cameron thought Pettigrew was being a bratty kid and one caller compared him to Rashaad Carruth. Ouch. The problem with that is that up until now Pettigrew was a
“Kentucky kid…..without an attitude…..with the ability to score…..and the desire to be a Cat.“
One way or another Stepphon will come out of this with a full ride scholarship to college. Which college that is remains to be seen. Not a bad ending for him either way.
Kentucky Mr. Basketball Steffphon Pettigrew has set Thursday as the deadline for coach Gillispie and staff to offer him a scholarship or he is moving on. He has several other scholarship offers to consider and he doesn’t want to wait any longer. In the article he says he just wants to get it over with.
I can’t say that I blame him. As fast as Billy Clyde usually makes moves it’s looking more and more like Pettigrew is only a backup plan for the Cats. With outstanding offers out to Jai Lucas and Patrick Patterson and a team that could already be considered guard heavy it looks like the only way Pettigrew gets a scholarship offer from Kentucky is if one (or possibly both) Patterson and Lucas turn them down. Who knows though maybe those game dvd’s Billy took home from Pettigrew’s workout will change his mind.
In the back of my mind, I hope coach does make him an offer. I don’t know if this kid can play at the “Kentucky level” but I look at it kind of the same way as the coaching search. If you don’t get your big targets (in this case Patterson and Lucas), take a chance on someone that wants to play for Kentucky not someone you have to convince to come here. At least we know he can shoot.
Kerry Rupp, that is.
Today he was officially named as men’s head coach of Louisiana Tech. He’s former assistant to Rick “I love Kentucky, great food and you can speed on the highways” Majerus and Mike “But they didn’t play their starting point guard!” Davis. Coach Rupp is big buds with Karl “The Mailman” Malone, who is expected to be an assistant coach on Rupp’s staff.
I couldn’t find any link between Coach Kerry and our Adolph Rupp. But its really cool seeing the Rupp name still active (and succeeding) in collegiate basketball. Good luck, Coach Rupp! But don’t get any tips on playing Kentucky from Rick and Mike, okay?
