Billy Gillispie

I am one defending the fact that this won't ever happen, I'm not in the holier than thou crowd but just looking at the facts. It would be tough to hire a guy who took our best player right from underneath our nose, wouldn't it?

It would be a significant upgrade. I would much rather have the guy who takes all-Americans than the guy who loses All-Americans as our coach!
 
I'm not so sure about that. If he has the Big East player of the year with Pat Patterson. They might not be as good as they are this year with Cal, but they still would be a top 10 team.
Wes would still have sat out last year. You think Kentucky was going to hang on to BillyG after last year on the hope that Wes turns out to be a national POY candidate?
 
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Oklahoma State was once in a similar predicament when they decided to hire Eddie Sutton. I don't think that you will find many OSO boosters that are unhappy with how that hire worked out.
 
Wes would still have sat out last year. You think Kentucky was going to hang on to BillyG after last year on the hope that Wes turns out to be a national POY candidate?

maybe, if the athletic department knew what they were getting. I don't think that Cal leaves Memphis if the NCAA wouldn't have been putting so much pressure on them. I still think Cal will leave Kentucky within 7 years. Soley based off the fact that he has shown he get to the final 4, but he can get them removed just as fast.
 
It would be a significant upgrade. I would much rather have the guy who takes all-Americans than the guy who loses All-Americans as our coach!

I agree. I give him a free pass at Kentucky because that is a program where everything is a circus all of the time. At ISU it is completely different for a coach. Maybe we need to find some A&M boards and see how they felt about him leaving to go to Kentucky? Were they glad to see him go? Were they ****** he left? Were they sad that he left? I am guessing they were not too happy to see him go after he had taken their program to new heights. Rest assured, if he came to ISU and had success there will be very few big time programs that would take a chance on him after what happened at Kentucky.
 
Oklahoma State was once in a similar predicament when they decided to hire Eddie Sutton. I don't think that you will find many OSO boosters that are unhappy with how that hire worked out.

Now his son on the other hand..... That was a bad choice. LOL.
 
Billy Gillespie is a good coach. I just liked him better the first time he coached at ISU. When his name was Larry Eustachy.
 
The idiot is strong in this thread

Thank you for your compelling argument.

For all those bring up the Wesley thing, he was obviously very willing to listen. It takes two to tango and obviously something wasn't totally right here.
 
Billy Gillespie is a good coach. I just liked him better the first time he coached at ISU. When his name was Larry Eustachy.

Larry could never recruit like Billy.
 
I agree. I give him a free pass at Kentucky because that is a program where everything is a circus all of the time. At ISU it is completely different for a coach. Maybe we need to find some A&M boards and see how they felt about him leaving to go to Kentucky? Were they glad to see him go? Were they ****** he left? Were they sad that he left? I am guessing they were not too happy to see him go after he had taken their program to new heights. Rest assured, if he came to ISU and had success there will be very few big time programs that would take a chance on him after what happened at Kentucky.

I can't say I did extensive research, but I seem to recall the concensus being that the aTm fans on the message boards were somewhere between disappointed and mad. I don't think anybody was glad to see him go. As has been stated in this thread, I don't think he was wildly popular as far as being the approachable good-guy that was fun at golf outings, but he won so nobody cared.

I don't know if the anti-Gillispie faction in this thread realizes what he did at aTm. They were beyond awful and barely an afterthought on the campus. They ranked behind, football, spring football, high school football, and baseball on the priority list in College Station. He took them from a winless record in conference to the upper echelon of the Big 12 and a top 25 PROGRAM in one recruiting "cycle" (freshman to seniors). This at a place where hoops didn't matter. What could he do in a place where the groundwork and fan support is already there but the expectations are within reason? I too give him a pass on Kentucky. If he truly has his demons under control, he'll make somebody that takes a chance on him a helluva coach. Of course it won't be us because not enough people will see him in church on Sunday.
 
I think he did a pretty darn good job. Put LE at A&M or Kentucky, and then tell me he couldn't recruit on the same level.
A&M was a football school with no tradition of basketball success until Gillispie arrived.
 
People tend to forget that it wasn't that long ago that Texas A&M went 0-16 in conference.

I don't think this will happen, and I don't think it will be something we pursue if Greg is let go. Too many fishy things around the Wesley situation. No doubt it would be an immeasurable kick to Mac's groin if it happened. With that said, despite really liking McDermott, I think it'd be hard not to be excited about the hire.
 
Some of you seem to think we are hiring this guy to babysit your kids. That is incorrect. We are hiring him to coach basketball.

I guess the holier than thou crowd who rip on anyone who has ever made a mistake don't like him.... but lets be honest, who cares?

The rest of us are just looking for a good basketball coach, not a role model or someone we can use to brag about how clean our program is while we finish at the bottom of the Big 12 year after year.

Gillespie would be a great hire. If only your looking for a coach with zero baggage, we'll end up with another Gmac who consistenly goes 4-12.

Take off your desperation-colored glasses and reflect on the situation for a minute...

You remember how things turned out the last time ISU hired an alcoholic coach...a couple years of great...followed by a few stinky years...followed by an ugly national scandal. We really don't want that again.

Billy Clyde is fresh out of rehab and there is no indication that he has his alcoholic problems under control. One trip to rehab doesn't magically make everything better. It's not a "holier-than-thou" issue, or an issue about ripping on someone who's made a mistake. It's an issue of common sense. It would be foolish to hire a coach that does not have his alcoholism under control, and right now that is in question with BG. So here's the question...where is Billy now, and what he is doing? One poster here as already provided some insight into that.

These sentiments of "Billy will be very motivated to succeed if given a job just to show everybody that he can coach, or to show up UK" are hogwash. If the booze is still controlling him, the booze will take precedent over any job. Coaches can't keep serious private issues from affecting their coaching. LE couldn't do it, Lute Olsen couldn't do it, and Billy Gillespie won't be able to do it.

Secondly, a college MBB coach has to be part baby sitter. College kids do silly things, and sometimes those "silly" things get kids and teams on probation. Coaches need to be watching over that to some extent. Thirdly, the coach has to be someone that the players will respect.

It's like some people here didn't learn a thing from a nasty event that happened to ISU less than ten years ago. This is not about finding a coach with zero baggage or about denying people a second chance. This is about not hiring a coach that might still have 100 pounds of concrete chained to his ankle...
 
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A&M was a football school with no tradition of basketball success until Gillispie arrived.

I wouldn't say none at all. 11 conference titles and 10 post season appearences. Even you say they were totally devoid of any b'ball success, I still think A&M is an easier place to recruit to than ISU.
 
Take off your desperation-colored glasses and reflect on the situation for a minute...

You remember how things turned out the last time ISU hired an alcoholic coach...a couple years of great...followed by a few stinky years...followed by an ugly national scandal. We really don't want that again.

Billy Clyde is fresh out of rehab and there is no indication that he has his alcoholic problems under control. One trip to rehab doesn't magically make everything better. It's not a "holier-than-thou" issue, or an issue about ripping on someone who's made a mistake. It's an issue of common sense. It would be foolish to hire a coach that does not have his alcoholism under control, and right now that is in question with BG. So here's the question...where is Billy now, and what he is doing? One poster here as already provided some insight into that.

These sentiments of "Billy will be very motivated to succeed if given a job just to show everybody that he can coach, or to show up UK" are hogwash. If the booze is still controlling him, the booze will take precedent over any job. Coaches can't keep serious private issues from affecting their coaching. LE couldn't do it, Lute Olsen couldn't do it, and Billy Gillespie won't be able to do it.

Secondly, a college MBB coach has to be part baby sitter. College kids do silly things, and sometimes those "silly" things get kids and teams on probation. Coaches need to be watching over that to some extent. Thirdly, the coach has to be someone that the players will respect.

It's like some people here didn't learn a thing from a nasty event that happened to ISU less than ten years ago. This is not about finding a coach with zero baggage or about denying people a second chance. This is about not hiring a coach that might still have 100 pounds of concrete chained to his ankle...

Well said and I agree.