October 16, 2008

LEXINGTON, Ky.

Billy Gillispie wants his University of Kentucky basketball players to talk — and that’s precisely what they were doing after nearly every practice last October and November.

But they weren’t talking about how to switch men on screens. They were talking about their coach.

The new guy from Texas. The one who was snarling more than he was smiling. The one who had them talking and wondering.

Huddling on the short walk from practice to Wildcat Lodge. Sitting around the training table. Gathering in somebody’s room later in the evening, replaying the puzzling vibrations from that day’s practice.

“I think everybody had questions,” junior forward Perry Stevenson said. “I was asking if Coach really believed I was good enough to play here.”

“I wondered if he liked me, what he thought about me,” said sophomore A. J. Stewart. “A lot of guys wondered where they stood.”

“I was trying to figure out exactly what he wanted from me,” point guard Michael Porter said. “I didn’t realize he just wanted me to be more positive on the floor every day.”

The new members of Gillispie’s second UK team will change the locker-room dynamics. Fresh personalities always do that within a team. But here is what has really changed at Kentucky in Year 2 of Billy Ball:

The veteran players are no longer tuned to FM with a coach who operates on AM. There are no longer all those questions about what Gillispie is doing, thinking and trying to accomplish.

Gillispie is no longer the new guy. He is their guy. The guy who wants them to care as much as their coach cares. The essence of Gillispie can be pulled from this quote he delivered at UK’s basketball media day yesterday:

“That’s what’s great about our country. If you want to outwork somebody or outthink somebody, you can take it if you want it.”

Now Porter understands the primary thing Gillispie wanted from him was to see the body language of a guy convinced that the chance to play point guard at Kentucky is the greatest opportunity in college basketball. And see it every day.

Stewart knows that Gillispie is eager to embrace all of his players — as long as they don’t do dumb things like cut class or show up late.

“Trust me,” Stewart said. “He’ll find out if you’re late to class. He’ll always find out.”

Stevenson knows that Gillispie believes that he can play winning power forward in the Southeastern Conference. There is a trust between the coach and players that was uncertain for a chunk of last season.

Take another look at what Gillispie achieved in his second season at his first two college stops before he replaced Tubby Smith at UK in 2007.

His first team at Texas-El Paso won six games. His second won 24. His first team at Texas A&M missed the NCAA Tournament. His second reached the second round.

“This year will be smoother,” said Jodie Meeks, the junior guard who Gillispie predicts will be the Wildcats’ most improved player. “We know what he expects from us.

“Coach doesn’t have many rules: Go to class, be on time and come to practice ready to work with a positive attitude. He works harder than we work. He’s the first one here in the morning and the last one to leave at night. He just wants to win.”