Big Blue Madness

Down here on Tobacco Road I catch a lot of grief for being a Kentucky fan, especially now that UK has hired John Calipari, whom most ACC fans place a rung below Beelzebub and regard as a cheating scumbag. (Personally I think a good bit of the animosity has to do with the apprehension of Cal lifting Kentucky back up to the level of a basketball powerhouse once again, but that's a post for another day.)

As this blog's readers know, I still follow Kentucky basketball as regularly as someone with three small children who is immersed in ACC land can. So when I came across this gem today I have to admit I got the fever for Big Blue and had to share.

These fans are camped out in tents for blocks to get tickets to see Big Blue Madness on October 16. Kentucky fans love their basketball.

The Era of the Squid Begins

Fortunately for my company -- and any workplace in the country where there is a UK fan working -- Kentucky hired a head men's basketball coach today in John Calipari. Productivity can resume.

Calipari will bring instant credibility on the elite national level as far as recruiting and coaching are concerned. He consistently recruited the top high school talent to play for him at Memphis. So as far as competing with the UNC, Duke, UConn, and Kansas programs of the college basketball world is concerned, there probably was not a better person to do that than Calipari.

The new coach will bring a self-confidence and media saavy ambassador presence to the role that was certainly not Billy Gillispie's sweet spot. So for those fans that were concerned about getting a coach that would embrace the public aspect of the job, that concern should be put to rest.

Calipari is not without his critics. One man's self-confidence is another man's arrogance. Rival coaches do not like him, including Bruce Pearl and Rick Pitino. Rival fans are quick to bring up his associations with power brokers in the amateur basketball world. Many writers have already noted that his 1996 Final Four team was stripped of its wins because its star player, Marcus Camby, received cash from an agent under Calipari's watch (even though Calipari denied knowledge).

So like everything in life, there is good and bad with the hire. For me, an avid Kentucky fan living in the hotbed of ACC basketball, I just look forward to the Cats being back at that elite national level. And I can just ignore those UNC message board posts referencing Emery freight boxes stuffed with cash, death penalty probation, and shady recruiting connections.

Go Big Blue!

Open letter from my bosses

Date: Monday, March 30, 2009
To: Lee Todd, President, University of Kentucky
From: IBM management, Software Middleware division

Dear Dr. Todd,

We are writing you to ask you and your Athletics Director, Mitch Barnhart, to please move quickly in naming a head coach for the UK basketball team. Normally we do not mettle in affairs of athletics or higher education. As an IT company our business is technology, not basketball.

However, we have noticed a dramatic drop in productivity in one of our employees in sector 7G, cube H164 over the past few days, and we believe that drop corresponds directly with your vacant head coaching position.

After more detailed investigation it appears this employee -- a tall, lanky fellow with bags under his eyes the size of teabags and who shall remain nameless -- has been foregoing his professional responsibilities and instead sits at his laptop hitting the F5 refresh key on message boards, espn.com, and kentucky.com until his fingertips are thick with heavy callouses. As a result, no one else in our software lab in North Carolina has any internet bandwidth because this employee is using it all to see if you have named a coaching replacement.

So please understand our predicament and take our request under advisement. The employee's wife has also contacted us, asking that we send security in to pry him away from computer. And to remind him to pick up some diapers on the way home.

Thank you for your time and best of luck in your search.

Sincerely,
IBM software management team

Cutting Losses

Selection Sunday was yesterday, and for the first time in 18 years Kentucky was left out of the brackets. There has been a lot written, blogged, and "talk radioed" about the state of the Kentucky basketball program with Billy Gillispie at the helm. Much of the ranting and raving comes from the same people that expect Kentucky to win every game and make the Final Four every year. I do not count myself in that company of Kentucky basketball fanatic. But I do count myself -- reluctantly -- in the company of those that believe Dr. Lee Todd and Mitch Barnhart should cut the cord with Gillispie after a short two-year stint as basketball coach.

Let me start by saying that I was a fan of the Gillispie hire. Although I was a Tubby Smith supporter to his last day on the job, I thought if anyone fit the mold of what it takes to succeed in the fishbowl that is the University of Kentucky basketball program, it was Billy Gillispie. Here was a guy that admittedly put basketball first and foremost in his life so much so that it cost him his marriage. What better person was there to eat, sleep, and breathe basketball at one of the most storied schools in the country to appease a never-satisfied fan base.

Through his first season and a half, I still thought he was the best coach for the job despite some embarrassing losses -- Gardener-Webb, a 40-pt drubbing at Vanderbilt, VMI. But my mind began to change in January as Kentucky went on a 3-game losing streak. It was not the losses that bothered me so much -- after all, Kentucky never did develop a solid scoring option outside of Jodie Meeks or Patrick Patterson. Rather, it was the way the coach handled himself in representing the university that bothered me.

At Ole Miss, Gillispie was interviewed by an ESPN sideline reporter where he gave a condescending answer to a straightforward question. The next game, a home loss to loss to South Carolina in January where UK blew a 10-point second half lead, Gillispie chased the officials off the court at the end of the game rather than shaking South Carolina coach (and Lexington native) Darrin Horn's hand. Finally, the following week on another ESPN-televised game against Florida, Gillispie once again gave a belittling, snippy answer to a seemilngly harmless question from Jeannine Edwards, ESPN's sideline reporter.

As the losses began piling up and Kentucky's chances became slimmer and slimmer of making the tournament, articles were written that were more and more critical of Kentucky's coach. Some of those articles come with the territory when a team is losing. But when a coach's team is not winning the quirks and behaviors are less likely to be brushed aside or glossed over.

One article in particular on espn.com stuck with me as I came to grips with the fact that I may join some of the fanatics that were calling for Gillispie's head. The piece was "An inside look at a blue blood on the bubble" by Dana O'Neil where she was given "all access" to follow the team and coach through practices and games the last week of the season. The article touched on Gillispie's sarastic leadership & motivational style:

Gillispie hasn't revealed himself to be a yeller. He is more a sniper, a guy with a biting tongue who can make his point without ever inserting a curse word.

Far edgier in this practice, he reacts to a lazy lob pass with a "That's the difference between being 11-4 and 8-7 right now,'' and sarcastically asks a player if he's ready to hustle now.

If you have ever worked for a manager or played for a coach that used this type of leadership with people, you know how limited this approach is. I am a believer that you don't bring the best out in people over the long term by consistently belittling them or using negative motivational tactics. Granted, this is basketball and you don't hand out Disney stickers when a player does something good to motivate him. There is yelling and hard-nosed tactics involved with motivating 18 year-olds. But sarcasm and negativity as the cornerstone of your approach burns people out over the long haul.

Case in point, a team that features two of the best players in the country in Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson (and two incredibly quality individuals at that) loses nine of its last thirteen games down the stretch and misses the NCAA.

So I am joining the fanatics in calling for a coaching change after two seasons. After two seasons of a childish, arrogant, and ultimately non-producing coach, Billy Gillispie is not the right guy to lead the University of Kentucky basketball team.

The only caveat I will put on this is if Gillispie atones for his mistakes and changes his ways, especially with how he represents the university. But there is something about that stubborn, arrogant Texas swagger that leads me to believe Kentucky fans have to take him or leave him as he is.

If that's the case I say cut your losses right now and make a change before the situation gets even worse.

Jodie Meeks

With all due respect to the UT fans among our readers, this was taken off the Kentucky message boards today:

“Rocky Top, you’ll always be
Known for Jodie Meeks
Good ole Rocky Top
54 for 23″

Jodie Meeks unloaded 54 points on Tennessee in Knoxville last night. The game was quickly classified with "Save until I manually delete" status on the DVR.

What a night -- Go Big Blue!

Carolina Blues

I had the good fortune of getting a phone call from my buddy Mike Mankowski this past weekend with a ticket offer for last night's Kentucky/North Carolina basketball game at the Dean Dome. The reasons against attending were numerous.

The Tar Heels are the preseason consensus #1 team in the country. Kentucky is still in rebuilding mode and was an overwhelming underdog. The Cats had just suffered a humiliating season-opening home loss at the hands of Virginia Military Institute (!!). I would be sitting amongst 23,000 Tar Heel fans. The game was a Tuesday night game that would force Amy into childcare duty for all three kids at bedtime and put me at home well past midnight.

The reasons for it? Ashley Judd was going to be there -- in the Carolina student section wearing her UK gear no less. And I would get to see my beloved Cats live and in person -- no matter how down they are.

Naturally I threw reason out the window and trekked over to Chapel Hill, sat amongst the powder blue contingent, got some razzing from my friend, and watched the Cats fall behind early and never dig themselves out of the hole thanks to 28 turnovers.

Despite Kentucky's lackluster performance, the game was a fun experience. Hanging out on Franklin Street and catching up with Mike over pizza and Bells beer at Pepper's before the game is an all-too-rare occurrence for both of us dads these days.

And getting to see Carolina at its peak is a guilty pleasure for a basketball junkie. Tar Heel fans are riding the wave of success right now and it is fun to watch. Carolina's success is reminiscent of my time in school when Kentucky was at its peak in the mid nineties. UK fans were on top of the world, and Rupp was a raucous place to see a game.

There are some differences between the two most storied programs in college basketball. North Carolina's atmosphere is more "refined" than Kentucky's. The fans sport more sweater vests than flashy logo sweatsuits. And the Dean Dome has a banner for everything, including a national championship from a year (1924) when national championships weren't even awarded.

But despite the differences the passion is the same. It is what makes a fan like Ashley Judd sit in the middle of the opposition's student section with UK gear and makes a dad raised on Big Blue drop everything for the chance to see his team when they are in town.

College basketball -- gotta love it.

Cheers!

Patterson

Looks like my March just freed up. What a downer for this kid, Kentucky fans, and the slim chance the Cats had of making the NCAA tournament.

http://www.kentucky.com/276/story/333161.html

An X-ray of Patterson’s sore left ankle earlier Friday revealed a stress fracture of the medial malleolus bone. UK’s star freshman will not play again this season.

The Great Day After

Every now & then a day comes along where you just feel awesome. No matter the hurdles that are thrown at you, it's still a great day. Today is that day at the Rutledge house.

So when Owen misses the toilet and pees all over me first thing in the morning, I shrug it off. When the boys' school calls telling us that Owen has fallen and banged his nose up and that he is pretty shaken up, we take it in stride. When I hear on NPR that the Clintons are gearing up their attack machine against my guy Barack Obama, it doesn't faze me.

The reason?

Because Kentucky beat 3rd-ranked Tennessee last night in a gutty, gritty performance on national TV in front of a hyped-up Rupp Arena crowd.

And while it may be silly to let my mood be dictated by a basketball game -- the outcome of which I have no control over if I listen to my beloved wife -- I just can't help but feel tremendous excitement over last night's game. The Cats hustled, battled, scratched and clawed to get that win and are finally showing signs of progress adapting to their new coach Billy Gillispie. The feeling after the win was part jubilation over beating a very talented Tennessee team and part sigh of relief that there is still hope that this team can have a respectable season after horrendous losses to Gardener-Webb and San Diego.

So to celebrate the feel-good vibe, Amy & I picked Gus & Bruiser up from school, went out to lunch, and all attended Amy's 37-week doctor's appointment. The boys were mesmerized when they got to hear the baby's heartbeat, and Amy got a great report. We are now just playing the waiting game -- it could be 3 hours from now or 3 weeks from now when the baby comes.

So in reality the news from the doctor is probably a better reason to have a great day than a basketball game. But it's still sweet when a big win gets the Big Blue blood pumping through my veins a little faster.

Cheers!



This man finally had a smile on his face after his Cats battled back from double digits to upset the 3rd-ranked Vols. And he wears a nicer suit than his orange counterpart....

"Bruiser" Rutledge shows his evil eyes and his roughed-up nose after losing a battle with a plastic dog at Montessori school.

New Year Notes

The New Year is here. Down with the Christmas tree and plastic yard reindeer and up with the campaign banners as the caucus & primary season is underway. So many states have moved up their elections to these first few weeks of 2008 that there is a tidal wave of coverage on the races at this early stage. I have to admit that all the attention on the Presidential race has a political junkie like me excited.

With Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee winning in Iowa last week the remaining candidates are scrambling to craft themselves as the change candidate. Whatever your political affiliation, it is easy to admire both of these guys as experts at crafting and delivering a message of hopefulness that so far transcends left/right, blue/red, liberal/conservative. It is really interesting to watch.

Full disclosure -- I am an Obama guy. After reading his book, The Audacity of Hope, I began drinking the Obama kool-aid. Yes, he is light on experience. Yes, he speaks in platitudes that are devoid of many specifics on how he would change things. (As Amy says, he needs more "red meat" in his speeches.) But his vision for America to bridge differences both among people in the country and with people beyond our borders is genuine to me. I think it reflects an inclusive way of thinking -- that you have to listen to all points of view and not surround yourself with people who support your way of thinking -- that I believe is exactly what this country needs right now. His message resonated with tens of thousands of new voters in Iowa last week. We'll see if he has the staying power to take New Hampshire tonight and more states in the coming weeks. It will be fun to watch it unfold.



On the homefront, Amy is almost to 35 weeks with the pregnancy -- or as she likes to say, "5 weeks, 2 days, 8 hours, and 15 minutes until I can go 10 minutes without having to pee." She is a trooper as she waddles around the house scrounging for Honeycomb and keeping the three men in order. We go to the doctor tomorrow to get her checked out, and then it's an appointment every week from here on out. A couple of our neighbors pulled together a baby shower for Amy on Saturday which was great. Amy got to get a surprise night out on the town with her friends, and the boys got to eat pizza and roughhouse with pal Chad Guthrie.

We are still plunging forward with potty training with decent results. The boys are progressing at telling us when they need to go to the bathroom. Sometimes they tell us as they are going and sometimes right after they have gone. I'm sure you can imagine some of the mishaps so I'll spare you. Let's just say that so far the number of Fabreze bottles it takes to get the "accident" smell out of a certain two year-old's favorite pair of green lizard boots is at two and counting.

Finally, I have been receiving some good-natured ribbing from my friends here in Carolina about a certain basketball team's less-than-stellar start to its new era of basketball. After Kentucky's seventh discouraging loss to archrival Louisville on Saturday, I vowed to quit reading message boards because of the endless sea of negativity coming from the Chicken Littles among UK fans. That resolution lasted only days as curiosity got the best of me today. After reading the posts from the "This is all Tubby's fault" crowd and then posts from the "Gillispie was a huge mistake" crowd, I take solace in the calls for calm from the few sensible posters that still post on the boards. The reality is it is going to take some time for Gillispie to get his mindset instilled in his type of players. It will take time, which is never easy for a rabid fan base to accept.

The other reality is that after the second consecutive Music City Bowl victory and a win over the national champion LSU Tigers, Kentucky is a football school anyway!

Cheers!

Go for Two

Kentucky charmed the country last week with its upset of #1 LSU. The Cats try to add to their mystical run today against defending national champion Florida. The game will be a huge challenge for UK. The Cats are without their top running back, they are banged up from the LSU game last week, and they have to face an uber-talented Florida QB in Tim Tebow. The Gators had a bye week last week so on paper they should be the fresher team.

Given all those things I don't expect Kentucky to pull off the unthinkable two weeks in a row. But given the guts & character of this year's Wildcat team I'm not putting it past them either. One thing is for sure, the Rutledges will be glued to CBS this afternoon to see if they have another rabbit in their hat.

Go Big Blue! Cheers!

Storming the Field

I thought it was funny when Mitch Barnhart, Kentucky's AD, sent out an email last week with this statement regarding storming the field should Kentucky upset LSU:

Dear UK Fan:
Coach Brooks often speaks about the commitment his team has made to be successful. With his pledge to excellence also comes the responsibility of the fans to support the team but to do it with class and dignity. Everyone affiliated with the University couldn't be happier with the overwhelming support the fans have given the coaches and the team.

As a reminder, SEC and University of Kentucky policies strictly prohibit spectators from entering the competition areas at any time before, during, or after a game. UK's field surface is among the nation's best. When fans rush the field it compromises the integrity of that surface and risks the health and safety of the same players that fans are intending to celebrate. Please continue to enjoy the wins from your seat.

LSU brings the nation's number one team to Commonwealth at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, so it will be another difficult test for our team. Coach Brooks often remarks about the difference the home crowd makes for the team. Please support the Wildcats by entering the stadium early, supporting our team, and practicing patience in the parking lots before and after the game.

From the diehard fan's perspective the win over LSU wasn't just a celebration of one game. It was vindication, retribution, revenge, and exorcism of past losses -- many, many of them -- that people were celebrating. After Kentucky stopped LSU on downs in the third OT, I just jumped up and shouted, "They did it!" over and over again. I couldn't believe that Kentucky had finally overcome the years of losing this game, this very game. And I'm just a fan watching at home -- imagine if you're these players and coaches trying to undo this habitual losing mindset.

After Kentucky's monumenal upset when thousands of fans stormed the field in celebration I chuckled to myself remembering Mitch's email. In reality I think Barnhart could make one phone call to a big booster and get a $25,000 check delivered to the athletic department that day to pay these fines assessed to schools when their fans storm the field.

So I feel for Mitch having to answer to SEC and NCAA officials each time the fans storm the field. It is an issue of safety, although I would argue that it's not that dangerous now that the grounds crew takes the goalposts down immediately. Personally I think Mitch secretly could care less about fans storming the field as it means UK's football team is doing unprecedented things, but he probably has to send that email out.
___________________________________________

I have watched this video clip countless times. I love the roar of the crowd after the TD catch and defensive stop. What a thrill. Go Big Blue!

A Win Like No Other

Kentucky over LSU 43-37.....3 OTs.....upset of the #1 team in the nation.....biggest win in modern UK football history.

GO

BIG

BLUE!!!

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Hat tip to Jeff Mills for the picture. What a thrill!

Five and Oh !!?!!?!

What a very odd year in college football. For University of Kentucky fans, we are accustomed to talking basketball by this point. It is October after all. Midnight Madness is 10 days away. The Billy Gillispie era is about to begin, right? But stop the presses.

Rich Brooks has put together a 5-0 Kentucky team that has a chance to win its first two SEC games for the first time in 30 years. Kentucky has a chance to start the season 6-0 for the first time in 67 years. The Cats are ranked #8 in the polls -- the football polls. Quarterback Andre Woodson is a frontrunner for the Heisman Trophy.

This is an awful lot of early success to throw at a fan base whose team is used to losing on Hail Mary's and last second touchdown passes. We are fans of the program that has mastered the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory -- over and over and over. Yet, we Kentucky fans still tune in, still support Big Blue, still keep coming back.

As I was discussing this alternate reality we find ourselves in with my friend & fellow UK fan Dave O, we concluded that tonight's Kentucky/South Carolina game is probably the biggest Kentucky football game of our adult lives. How crazy is that! A Thursday night ESPN game which is only the second league game of the season is arguably the biggest Kentucky game in years. The only game that comes to mind that could be bigger is the Louisville game in 1994 that re-established the UK/UofL rivalry after laying dormant for decades. Either way, tonight's game is huge if Kentucky wants to make the leap into the national scene.

Our crew will be glued to the TV tonight. The boys are practicing their "C-A-T-S" cheer. Here's hoping Kentucky can win tonight so next week's LSU game becomes the biggest game in recent Kentucky football history. Go Big Blue!

BTW, the beverage of choice for tonight's game is VICTORY Hop Devil Ale. Cheers!

C-A-T-S

Kentucky football is the darling of the sports media's attention right now. The New York Times even has a piece on them. Having a chance to be 5-0 for the first time in 30 years shows how bleak things have been in recent football history. You could even say their fortunes were sealed when Bear Bryant walked away from the job because he got a watch while Rupp got a car as rewards for their respective successes.

It took 50+ years but now Kentucky may have found its answer in a football coach retread that most people wrote off after his first two years on the job. I love the sweet retribution that is allowing Rich Brooks to have the last laugh.

As for the fans -- the tortured UK football fans -- who have stuck with the Cats through the lean years, they are finally experiencing the thrill of victory as well:

“They’ve been pretty loyal through some pretty sorry football,” Brooks said in a telephone interview last night. “Some of it was while I was coaching here. They are being rewarded for being faithful.”

Go Big Blue!

Gameday

Kentucky vs. Louisville tonight. Our crew will be glued to the tele to see if the Cats can break their losing streak to the Cards. Nana and Granddaddy are in town for a visit so we're making a college football day out of it as Tennessee plays Florida this afternoon. Granddaddy is trying to teach the boys to say, "Go Big Orange." So far the boys have obliged but continue to shout "Go Big Blue!" right afterward.

Ironically enough this is probably Kentucky's best chance to beat Louisville in several years and it happens to be a year when the Cards are a top 10 team. Neither team has shown much on defense the first two weeks of the season, and both teams have potent offenses. Jane & C.E. will be tailgating at Commonwealth and yelling for the Cats to bring home the Governor's Cup.

First team to punt loses. Go Big Blue!

From Billy D to Billy G

Kentucky is set to announce Billy Gillispie as their next head coach today to replace Tubby Smith. Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart moved quickly on the search once it was apparent yesterday that Billy Donovan was staying at Florida.

I first read about Billy Gillispie a couple of weeks ago when his team was in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament. He had a great track record of building winners out of the two schools where he had coached, UTEP and Texas A&M, neither of which were basketball powers. Then I came across this article about how obsessed he is with coaching to the point of seeming unhealthy. After reading it I hoped Kentucky could either land Donovan or would go with Villanova's Jay Wright. But after following the fanatical UK fans' obsession over this coaching search -- complete with private plane tracking through the FAA website and real estate speculation about potential coaches buying horse farms -- I decided that maybe what an obsessed fan base truly needs is an obsessed coach to lead the basketball program. We'll see. Go Big Blue!

NYT: Coach's 'Unhealthy' Obsession Has Led to Success at Texas A&M

"Texas A&M Coach Billy Gillispie drinks Dr Pepper for breakfast, does not know his sister’s last name and is so tough on his players that his mother swears that she would never play for him."

------------------------------------------

"Gillispie said he feels more adjusted in College Station than he did in El Paso, here his life was so unbalanced that his house was barely furnished. When he held a selection Sunday gathering in March at his house in El Paso, the Christmas tree was still up. Still, he knows he spends more nights dissecting film than hanging out with friends."

Press conference at 12:15 ET online at http://www.ukathletics.com/.

The Pressure Cooker That is Kentucky

"He was looking forward to a new stage, a final stage I hope here," Maturi said. "We talked about a lot of things, but mostly it was about academic rates, graduation rates and that was one of the many things that endeared me to him. We didn't talk much about salary, but what he could do for young men. I know all coaches talk like that, but he lives it. That's who he is. That's why he is so revered."

--Minnesota athletic director Joel Maturi on Tubby Smith

When Tubby Smith decided on Thursday that he was ready to move on from the Univesity of Kentucky, I immediately got a sinking feeling in my stomach. My beloved alma mater had just lost a quality, high character, national championship coach to a school where hockey is as big if not bigger than basketball.

I was certainly not the only one who was disappointed at the news. But there were also many people within the UK fan base who had an opposite reaction. On the UK basketball message boards, there were 13,000+ people logged in to discuss the news yesterday. Many if not most of them were glad to see Tubby leave Kentucky.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Considering we live in a microwave society where results are expected immediately, patience is a lost art, and everyone has a voice on talk shows and the internet it was easy to see this situation unfolding over the past year or two. Couple that environment with the fact that the situation at Kentucky comes with incredibly high -- and I would argue incredibly unrealistic -- expectations, and Tubby's departure makes sense. The man was just fed up with never feeling like he was appreciated. I don't blame him a bit for his decision.

The frustrating part for me is that I don't think these fans who demand so much will really learn anything from this experience. In their minds they believe they are justified in having their wish fulfilled for a new coach and entitled to the success that they want for UK. The reality is these expectations are wildly unachievable. A Final Four every year is not realistic. Is it something to strive for? Certainly. But if the team has a great year and falls short of a national championship, that doesn't justify or entitle getting a new coach.

Tubby is an outstanding indivdual. I met him in 1998 in North Carolina at the Jimmy V charity golf tournament after Tubby had just won the national championship. He was as gracious, humble and unassuming of a person as I could imagine, especially for someone that was the championship coach at arguably the most storied basketball program in the country. But he was more than that. Tubby graduated his players, ran his program the right way, and didn't cheat to win -- something to be noted with Kentucky's checkered past. And Tubby certainly won -- an average of 26 wins per year, one national championship, two Elite Eights, and multiple SEC championships. It is a sad reflection on us as fans when such success isn't good enough.

All that said, in spite of the negative aspects of the expectations at UK there is an upside to Kentucky fans' fanatacism as well. When Kentucky plays in the SEC and NCAA tournaments their fans turn out in blue-clad droves. Amy and I traveled to Nashville a couple years ago to see the first and second round games there, and Kentucky fans filled up 75% of Gaylord Arena. Despite a fourth-place finish this year in the SEC, Kentucky fans still had the plurality of fans in Atlanta. Kentucky fans are loyal, passionate and will travel anywhere to support their team.

Pat Forde, my favorite college basketball writer, sums it up very well in his article on espn.com yesterday.

But beyond the lunatic fringe -- and it's probably true that Kentucky's lunatic fringe is thicker than most -- this was a supportive fan base during a pretty lousy season.

The proof of that was on display in Rupp on Feb. 20, when the Wildcats played LSU.

Kentucky came in reeling, having lost three in a row. LSU was in the midst of a terrible season and was playing without All-America center Big Baby Davis. This had mismatch written all over it.

Instead, LSU raced out to a 16-point first-half lead. I fully expected the UK fans to drop a chorus of boos on the home team, given its blasé performance in a must-win situation against a very beatable opponent. There were none. Zero. Instead, the fans helped energize a Kentucky comeback victory. The place roared with positive noise throughout the second half. This is what you'll get when you're the Kentucky coach: More scrutiny than you've ever had in your career, but also more passionate support.

The coming days and probably weeks will be dominated by speculation on who the next coach will be. There will be those who want Billy Donovan to bolt from Florida and those who want to return to the glorious 90's with Rick Pitino. I don't think there is a chance in the world that either one of these two coaches would take the UK job.

Similarly I think Kentucky fans have to realistically expect that some candidates may turn the job down. The pressure cooker that the fans have created is not for every coach. Some coaches will probably talk to Mitch Barnhart only to stay at their schools for more money -- the leverage game will definitely be played.

Coaches like Marquette's Tom Crean, Texas A&M's Billy Gillespie, Texas's Rick Barnes, John Calipari at Memphis, and Villanova's Jay Wright will be on the list of candidates. Personally I don't think Crean has done enough outside the Final Four run with Dwyane Wade. I think Barnes is a great recruiter but a questionable bench coach. And John Calipari left his last program at UMass in turmoil with NCAA violations, something Kentucky should be very leary of.

In the end I would be happy with Wright or Gillespie. I think both of them are good, up-and-coming coaches who have produced at schools with less basketball acumen than Kentucky. I just hope the next coach can survive the pressure cooker environment that he will face. And I hope he can hold a candle to the character coach in Tubby Smith that he will replace.

Inmates Running the Asylum

I am dumbfounded at this. What an absolute shame. Kentucky fans can expect their program to take a huge hit -- both in terms of respect nationally and success on the court -- with the loss of Tubby Smith.

Sources: Smith to Leave Kentucky for Minnesota

Tubby Smith will leave Kentucky to take over the head coaching job at Minnesota, multiple sources told ESPN.com's Andy Katz.

Smith had four year remaining on his Kentucky contract.

Smith met with Kentucky players and Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart. Smith is expected to fly to Minnesota later Thursday afternoon.

Smith called former Minnesota coach Dan Monson early Thursday and told him he was accepting the job. Minnesota is expected to pay Smith $1.8 million per year.