John Clay is a columnist for the Lexington Herald Leader and is the author of Sidelines. He covered Kentucky football for 13 seasons before being promoted to columnist in 2000. We recently caught up with him for a Kentucky edition of Know Thy Opponent.

Inside the Hall: It’s year two of the Billy Gillispie era in Lexington. What has Gillispie done well since arriving at UK and what can he improve upon moving forward?

John Clay: Since arriving here, Gillispie has given the impression that he’s going for it. He’s not holding back. He’s recruiting eighth graders. He’s hiring assistants (Tracy Webster) who will bring him recruits (Darius Miller). He’s taking advantage of an NCAA loophole to move Midnight Madness to a week before official practice begins. He’s paying Daniel Orton’s father, within the rules, in hopes of getting that recruit (he did). The one thing that has undercut the confidence fans have in him is the unexpected losses – to Gardner-Webb last year, to VMI this year. Kentucky is not supposed to lose to those teams.

ITH: One of the problems so far for Kentucky this season seems to be an inability to get the ball inside to Patrick Patterson. Is this problem a result of teams focusing on stopping Patterson or Kentucky’s lack of leadership in the backcourt?

JC: I’d say more lack of leadership, and ball-handling skills, more than anything else. This team has a definite point guard problem. Starter Michael Porter can’t avoid turning the ball over. Asking him to run the offense is a stretch of his skills. DeAndre Liggins, while hardly smooth, has played better, but with his trademark stubbornness, Gillispie has yet to put the freshman in the starting lineup. Even beyond point guard, this is not a team of handlers. The smalls turn it over. The bigs turn it over.

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John Clay is a columnist for the Lexington Herald Leader. He covered Kentucky football for 13 seasons before being promoted to columnist in 2000. We recently caught up with him for a special Q & A edition of Know Thy Opponent. Unfortunately, Kentucky’s first fan Ashley Judd wasn’t available for this edition of Know Thy Opponent.

Inside the Hall: The first thing that comes to mind when you think about Kentucky basketball this season is the change to Billy Gillispie. How is Billy changing the program from the way it was run under Tubby Smith?

John Clay: Gillispie appears to be a tougher and more demanding coach. He ran a “Boot Camp” before the start of drills, he runs full practices the day of games, and he has already benched a couple of players for transgressions. Freshman A.J. Stewart sat the bench the entire game against Stony Brook, then was brought out during the post-game press conference to tell the media he had fallen asleep during a team meeting. Tubby certainly would not have made Stewart face the media as he often did not allow his freshman to speak to the media until at least the second semester. And Tubby probably would not have told the media why the player sat the bench.

ITH: Alex Legion recently announced he was leaving the program and his status now appears to be up in the air. There are rumblings that defections may occur at Kentucky. Do these rumblings have any legs?

JC: I predict we’ll see one, maybe two over the Christmas break. Some if it is just the natural fallout when a coach inherits players he didn’t recruit, and vice versa. But Gillispie isn’t for everybody. And I think the players are finding that out.

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