Jodie Meeks’ father, Orestes, wasted no time in commenting on Gillispie departure in an online Lexington Herald-Leader article:

“The father of UK’s leading scorer, Jodie Meeks, welcomed the news.

“It clearly didn’t look like it was working,” Orestes Meeks said.

The elder Meeks suggested that Gillispie made it difficult for UK to maximize its potential.

“You don’t want to throw gasoline on the flames, but, clearly, a lot of things happened behind the scenes that made it difficult for the kids to play basketball and focus on winning,” the elder Meeks said.

Gillispie’s two seasons brought questions about a rash of injuries, the wearing effect of practices the day of games and the departure of several players. Perhaps most telling was the transfer of Derrick Jasper, whose ball-handling and decision-making could have made a big difference in this just-completed 22-14 season.

Jasper had microfracture knee surgery in the June before Gillispie’s first season. Then Jasper returned by late December, wearing a heavy knee brace. After that season, Jasper transferred to UNLV, where he spent the entire season rehabilitating the knee. Even late this season, Jasper was still not able to practice with the UNLV team.

Ironically, Orestes Meeks lamented the lack of a relationship with Gillispie. The former UK coach had often spoke of the importance of building relationships.

But Gillispie did not call the elder Meeks when his son set a UK record with 54 points against Tennessee.

“I got calls from every coach he ever had: baseball, basketball, all of them,” the elder Meeks said. “Except his current coach. His current coach never called. That said a lot to me.”

Earlier this year, Barnhart spoke of Gillispie needing to make “adjustments.” But during the Southeastern Conference Tournament, Gillispie would not acknowledge that the UK job contained a public component.

In his second season, Gillispie did make more of an effort to embrace the public. After snubbing the Lexington Rotary Club in 2007, thus ending a tradition of UK coaches speaking to the club that dated back to at least the 1950s, Gillispie appeared before this season.

But it was too little, too late to save his job.

“When you start placing blame, tell them that when a ship misses the harbor, do they blame the harbor?” Orestes Meeks said. “I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault but his own.””