Josh Harrellson confirms a couple of the Billy Gillispie coaching stories

Josh Harrellson was just one of the players last year for UK that no one could really understand the way he was handled by Billy Gillispie. Darius Miller, Kevin Galloway, and DeAndre Liggins, among others, joined the crowd as well.

Stories about those players’ interactions with Billy Gillispie are pretty much common knowledge at this point, so much so that a book probably could be written about them. It’s hard for me to come up with a better word to describe Gillispie’s coaching approach than “irrational”. “Irrational” should not be a word descriptive of a basketball coach.

Well, there’s no book yet, but Jerry Tipton has written an article about Josh Harrellson that confirms a couple of the stories. Harrellson does a good job of politically expressing his thoughts on Gillispie, but in his quotes, you can sense that Harrellson failed to understand much of what Gillispie did:

Harrellson’s most memorable struggle surely came at Vanderbilt last season.

Then UK Coach Billy Gillispie ordered Harrellson to listen to the halftime instruction from a bathroom stall.

“The bathroom was connected,” Harrellson said in trying to downplay the significance of incident. “I still listened to the game plan. I still watched what he (Gillispie) was doing.”

Harrellson acknowledged feeling humiliated “a little bit,” but added that the banishment inflicted no lasting damage.

“I didn’t take it any way,” he said. “I just knew he (Gillispie) was frustrated because of what was going on. Nobody playing hard or good at the time.”

Gillispie, an unabashed Bob Knight fan, might have been mimicking his coaching career. He certainly made a Knight-like move after the 77-64 loss at Vanderbilt by ordering Harrellson to ride back to Lexington in an equipment truck and not with his teammates.

“That’s because I had a class at eight in the morning, supposedly,” Harrellson said. “Because the equipment truck was faster. Something like that.”

When asked if that explanation should be believed, Harrellson said, “Nope.”

I think it’s fair to say that Harrellson deserves to have some positive in his basketball career after a season rife with negative. John Calipari has been quick to praise Harrellson, so his role could be much more significant than expected. It’s a compliment in and of itself that he managed to survive the roster purging that happened when Cal took over.

Above all, Josh is a kid who loves basketball, loves playing at UK, and loves his teammates. Whether he’s a starter or the 13th man, he’s the kind of presence you want on your team.