Kentucky Hires Gillispie As Basketball Coach
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) – Kentucky’s restless fortnight is over. The new leader of Big Blue Nation has a heart as big as Texas, and he’ll need it to help restore some of the luster to college basketball’s all-time winningest program.
Billy Gillispie was hired as Kentucky’s sixth coach in the last 76 years on Friday, a person familiar with the search process told The Associated Press. He’ll replace Tubby Smith, who spent a decade under the glare of college basketball’s brightest spotlight before bolting to Minnesota two weeks ago.
Gillispie, who led Texas A&M to the NCAA tournament’s round of 16 this year for the first time since 1980, will be introduced at a 12:15 p.m. EDT pep rally at Memorial Coliseum followed by a 12:45 news conference, said the person who spoke on condition of anonymity pending an official announcement.
The Wildcats turned to Gillispie after another Billy – Florida’s Billy Donovan – decided Thursday to stay with the Gators. Texas’ Rick Barnes also indicated Thursday he wasn’t interested in the job, but it was never formally offered to any candidate other than Gillispie.
Gillispie replaces Smith, who left the Wildcats after 10 seasons to take the head coaching job in Minnesota last month, despite having four years left on his contract.
Gillispie is 100-58 in five seasons as a head coach. He spent the last three years with the Aggies, molding the longtime also-ran into a Big 12 power. Texas A&M went 27-7 this season.
His success with the Aggies made Gillispie a hot commodity. He was approached by Arkansas after Stan Heath was fired, but decided to stay with the Aggies, agreeing in principle to a new contract worth $1.75 million that would have made him among the Big 12’s highest-paid coaches.
The 47-year-old Gillispie, however, never signed the deal and he didn’t hesitate when Kentucky came calling. Texas A&M athletic director Bill Byrne gave Barnhart permission to speak to Gillispie on Thursday night, and by Friday morning the Wildcats had their sixth coach since 1931.
Gillispie served as an assistant coach to Bill Self at Tulsa and Illinois before moving on to coach UTEP in 2002. He coached the Miners for two seasons, surviving a 6-24 season in 2002-03 before leading the Miners to a 24-8 record the next year.
Texas A&M lured him to College Station in 2004, and Gillispie didn’t waste time turning around a program that went winless in Big 12 play the year before his arrival. Texas A&M made it to the NIT his first season and the NCAA tournament the next two.
Behind the play of senior point guard Acie Law, the Aggies spent most of the 2006-07 season ranked in the top 10. They finished 13-3 in the Big 12 this season.
Gillispie’s finest moment came on the Rupp Arena floor in Lexington. He guided the Aggies to wins over Penn and Louisville in the opening rounds of this year’s NCAA tournament.
The Louisville game was unique because it featured Smith’s predecessor, Rick Pitino, coaching against Smith’s successor, Gillispie on Kentucky’s home court.
— AP Sports Writer Will Graves in Louisville, Ky., contributed to this report. (Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
