Kentucky will not be playing in the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 17 years.
March 22, 2008
By Josh Herwitt
CSTV.com
JOSH HERWITT
Josh is CSTV.com's men's basketball editor and writes a weekly national column. E-mail here!
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- This wasn't exactly what Billy Gillispie had in mind when he made the journey from College Station to Lexington last April.
No, the former Texas A&M coach didn't think he'd be heading home before his former team.
But the reality is, Gillispie and his Kentucky squad are the first ones to go from the NCAA Tournament, while the Aggies are in the second round, faced with a large task at hand in No. 1 seed UCLA.
So maybe Gillispie is really wishing he was back in the LoneStarState, pacing the sidelines while sharpshooter Josh Carter drains three after three and 7-footer DeAndre Jordan blocks shot after shot.
Maybe he's wishing he wasn't in the BluegrassState, where the expectations to win are arguably greater than anywhere else in the country.
Still, Gillispie believes that it was the fans -- the Big Blue nation -- who helped turn things around for a club that went just 6-7 during the non-conference season.
"I've not seen a greater effort from a group of fans to be able to help you as much as they helped us when they definitely knew that we needed the help," the first-year coach offered. "You have a great administration that understands the importance that it has not only on the school and to the players, but to an entire state."
Ask Gillispie to sum up his first year at Kentucky, and he'll tell you it wasn't all bad.
"It was better than I expected," Gillispie said, reflecting on the season. "It was fantastic."
Then you look at losses early in the season to Gardner-Webb, UAB, Houston and Cinderella story San Diego, and you know that Gillisipie couldn't have expected that from a program that has won the second-most national championships -- seven behind UCLA's 11 -- and the most games in NCAA history.
"As far as wins and losses, no," he continued.
Yet after a 74-66 loss on Thursday to Marquette, it's the Wildcats who are done in the first round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 17 years, while Texas A&M has now earned three straight wins in the Big Dance, the longest streak in school history.
"I came here to win," Joe Crawford said glumly after dropping a game-high 35 points on the Golden Eagles in his final collegiate game. "That's what I wanted to do. I feel like we had a good chance."
"Kentucky has every single thing that you need to win a national championship," Gillispie added. "They've won a lot of them, and hopefully we'll win some more."
That will have to wait until next season without the services of Crawford or Ramel Bradley and even possibly Patrick Patterson, who missed the last three weeks of the season due to a stress fracture in his left ankle after putting up 16.4 points and 7.7 rebounds during his freshman campaign.
Whether Patterson won't be tempted by the luxuries and payouts of the NBA has yet to be seen, but the Wildcats certainly won't have the same kind of personnel that Gillispie relied on heavily down the stretch this season.
And with Alex Legion booking it to Illinois in the middle of the season after transfering from Kentucky, Gillispie will have to rebuild and reload what looked promising last spring when he took the podium as the program's new head man.
"If you are a player at Kentucky, you are the most special person in the world," Gillispie remarked. "It's just you are a special person if you are associated with Kentucky basketball."
But there's nothing special about an 18-13 overall record, a No. 11 seed in this year's tournament and, of course, a first-round exit.
"Losing...that's not what we're all about," Gillspie explained. "I definitely thought we could win it all. I know that sounds crazy, but that's the way we thought."
Crazy is right, but not for the Big Blue nation and its coach.
So while his former Aggies return to the Honda Center Saturday for big-time brawl with a UCLA team trying to reach the Final Four for a third consecutive season, Gillispie will be watching the rest of the tournament from the comfort of his home, hoping that next year will ultimately be a different year.
"For a basketball nut like myself, I don't think it could get any better," he maintained.
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