John Clay's Sidelines

Richard Justice

This from Richard Justice’s terrific blog at the Houston Chronicle:

So Aggie Doug calls up 1560 the other day and makes a plea for the Aggies to bring Billy Clyde Gillispie back to run the basketball program. There’s absolutely no chance Bill Byrne would ever have Billy Clyde back, but that’s beside the point.

Within an hour, we heard from a bunch of other Aggies saying the last person they want running their basketball program – other than maybe Dennis Franchione – is Billy Clyde Gillispie.

Aggies may not be completely in love with Mark Turgeon. After all, he has been there two whole years and hasn’t been to the Final Four even once. For the most part, though, they seem happy they’ve got (a) a really good coach and (b) a really good guy in charge.

. . . One of the hot rumors out there is that Billy Clyde will land at Texas Tech to replace Pat Knight. I don’t believe this one.

Donald Sloan

Thanks to e-mailer for tip about a San Antonio News-Express blog post from Brent Zwerneman concerning current Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon, which contains a quote that pertains to ex-A&M coach Billy Gillispie.

The subject is Turgeon’s temper, and whether the coach “lets it get in the way” when dealing with his players.

Donald Sloan, the junior guard who was recruited by Gillispie, said this of Turgeon:

“Coach is a good guy, and he doesn’t take it too far,” junior guard Donald Sloan said. “I don’t think he’s as bad as what we’ve had in the past. He’s extremely good at getting his point across, and it doesn’t take all of the yelling and cursing to do so.”

Of course, last season UK players Ramel Bradley and Joe Crawford both admitted that Gillispie’s temper and sarcasm were hard to take, especially at first. But by season’s end, both players said they benefited from Billy G.’s method of coaching, which they credited with getting them to where they had not gone before.

This year, well, we’re not hearing the same things.

While Kentucky has struggled down the stretch, A&M has been on a roll. The Aggies closed the regular season with six straight wins, pumping their record to 23-8 overall and 9-7 in the Big 12.