Posted on Sun, Apr. 13, 2008

NOTEBOOK

Recruits yawn over OSU rumors

SPECULATION ON A GILLISPIE MOVE DOESN'T CAUSE ANY WAVERING; CRAWFORD, BRADLEY IMPRESS

By Jerry Tipton

HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

Mark Cornelison | Staff

Joe Crawford, left, and Ramel Bradley have made good impressions in the Portsmouth Invitational for college seniors in Virginia. Bradley had 22 points and six assists in one game, and Crawford scored 19 in his one game. NBAdraft.net reported that Crawford missed the rest of the games with an injury. File photo by Mark Cornelison | Staff

Even with a boost that comes from a mention on the Final Four television coverage, the speculation about Kentucky Coach Billy Gillispie going to Oklahoma State hasn't left the launch pad.

There had been talk for months about Oklahoma State firing Sean Sutton. Backed by deep-pocketed oilman T. Boone Pickens, OSU could flash enough cash to command any coach's attention. If Gillispie did not like life in Lexington (for instance, he can seem uncomfortable with the job's high visibility), maybe he'd leave for a job that did not include the trappings of celebrity and self-styled empire maintenance.

A quiet check with people in Oklahoma, Texas and Kentucky revealed ... next to nothing.

Gillispie's interest in Oklahoma State and Oklahoma State's interest in Gillispie was unclear, at best. The two DUI arrests in Gillispie's past had to be a concern for Oklahoma State, which had to deal with Eddie Sutton's well-documented alcohol problems.

Then on Friday, the coach at the College of Southern Idaho, Barret Peery, said UK assistant Jeremy Cox told him not to believe the speculation. Gillispie would remain Kentucky's coach, and two Southern Idaho prospects, Kevin Galloway and Juan Pattillo, should make recruiting visits to UK this weekend.

This fell in line with the general ho-hum attitude of other recruits or prospects tied to Kentucky's future. None seemed to believe that Gillispie might leave.

"I'm not concerned about it at all," said Brian Miller, whose son Darius led Mason County to the state championship last month. "We pay it no attention."

Like many people (blush), the elder Miller found a Kentucky-to-Oklahoma State move hard to understand.

"Why go backwards?" he asked.

It should be noted that Oklahoma State has a rich basketball tradition and usually contends for the Big 12 championship. Since 2000, Oklahoma State's 10-6 record in the NCAA Tournament is comparable to Kentucky's 14-9. The Cowboys' .625 winning percentage is better than UK's .609.

UK's other incoming freshman, DeAndre Liggins, has a concern, but it's not Gillispie's coaching address. He continues to try to gain his academic eligibility. Liggins took a college entrance exam this weekend in hopes of gaining a passable score, his coach at Findlay Prep in Nevada said. While noting that helping athletes become eligible lies at the heart of his school's existence, Mike Peck voiced his confidence that Liggins will become eligible.

"Anybody who knows us knows we're driven to succeed and meet our goals," Peck said. "That's a goal that takes priority over everything else."

The speculation of Gillispie and Oklahoma State did not merit consideration.

"We've not made any plans or had any discussions," Peck said. "When anything's final, we'll address it. Right now, it's business as usual."

Crawford/Bradley

Through Friday night, former UK players Ramel Bradley and Joe Crawford had made a favorable impression at the Portsmouth (Va.) Invitational Tournament.

Bradley had scored 32 points on 11-for-25 shooting in his first two games.

NBA consultant Chris Ekstrand said Bradley played especially well in scoring 22 points and handing out six assists in one game. "He was pretty much all over the floor," Ekstrand said. "It was like he was shot out of a cannon in that game. His man couldn't breathe."

Crawford had played in only one game, scoring 19 points. Ekstrand graded Crawford's performance a "B." The consultant noted passing opportunities missed when Crawford drew the defense on drives.

Players who had caught Ekstrand's eye included Saint Joseph's Pat Calathes, older brother of Florida's Nick Calathes. In one game, the elder Calathes had 16 points, 10 rebounds and four assists. In another, he had 15 points and eight rebounds.

Kentuckian Chris Lofton of Tennessee had made 12 of 29 shots (six of 18 from NBA-length three-point range) going into Saturday but rebounded with a game-high 25 points on 9-for-17 shooting overall and 5-for-10 from beyond the arc in a consolation game. "A small guy who's really not a point guard," Ekstrand said. "He'll sink or swim on how well he shoots."

Lexington rates No. 1

Lexington rates as the top market for college basketball, according to The Media Audit.

Its 2007 National Report says that 65.7 percent of adults in Lexington follow college basketball. Among all U.S. adults, 35.8 percent follow college basketball. Lexington was also ranked as the top market in 2006.

Among the top 10 markets were:

• Raleigh-Durham, N.C., which ranked second in the survey with 61.8 percent of adults who follow college basketball.

• The rest of the top 10 were Louisville, (60.8 percent), Tucson, Ariz. (58.5), Columbus, Ohio (56.5), Cincinnati (55), Columbia-Jefferson City, Mo. (53.6), Eugene-Springfield, Ore. (52.9), Syracuse, N.Y. (52.9), and Columbia, S.C. (52.4).

Rounding out the top 20 markets are Memphis (51.4), followed by Madison, Wis. (48.8), Charlotte, N.C. (48.1), Indianapolis (48), Little Rock, Ark. (47.6), Greensboro, N.C. (47.5), Dayton, Ohio (47.5), Spokane, Wash. (47.3), Kansas City, Mo.(47.1), and Grand Rapids, Mich. (46.5).

Other findings from The Media Audit, which surveyed 91 markets, include:

• Of those who follow college basketball, 60 percent are male.

• College basketball fans have an average household income of $74,264.

Statue of Keightley?

Reader Thomas West offered an idea of how to remember longtime equipment manager Bill Keightley.

"Having met Mr. Keightley many times and, dare I say, had a few cocktails with him in Anaheim, Detroit, South Bend, and Atlanta the evenings before Kentucky played there, I think a fitting tribute would be a life-size bronze statue of Mr. Wildcat outside the entrance to Rupp Arena," West wrote in an e-mail message. "That smile and those open arms would make even the most hardened rival fan feel welcome at the temple of college basketball.

"I always find it interesting when I visit other SEC schools, and even that one from the Big Least Conference just down the pike from UK, that they have statues of great athletes who embody the spirit of their programs. We don't really have that at UK, at least not where our games are played. Who better than Mr. Wildcat to show the spirit that embodies UK Basketball?"

West, a senior planner for a company in Indianapolis, asked that any grammatical mistakes in his e-mail message be corrected.

"It would make me look better to Alice Shelburne, my high school English teacher in Danville, where I grew up and my parents and brother still live," he wrote.

West does not consider himself a mere fan of Kentucky. "I am a religious follower of UK!" he wrote.

Rocky, MJ and Keightley

Reader Rob Coney offered two ideas for memorializing Bill Keightley.

Coney noted the "1962- " on Keightley's retired jersey.

"I hope they don't add in '2008,' " Coney wrote in an e-mail message. "He'll be Mr Wildcat forever, so the date should stay open-ended like it is now.

"As far as a tribute, how about a bronze statue? Joe Nuxhall's got one. MJ (Michael Jordan) has one. Even Rocky. They're all icons. So is Bill. Something nice that people could have their pictures taken with, and a good-luck charm that people could touch on the way into games."

Coney, 55 ("the new 35," he wrote), works in customer support for Big Ass Fans. He lives in Madison County and has cheered for UK basketball, he wrote, "since the days of Cotton Nash."

Memorial service costs

Lexington Center Corp. and UK's Athletic Association will share the cost of Bill Keightley's public memorial service, said Bill Owen, the president and CEO of Lexington Center Corp.

As of last week, Owen was collecting data on the "significant" overtime involved in staging the service in Rupp Arena. Owen did not expect the costs to come close to the expenditures made for a concert, basketball game or other major event.

Posthumous popularity

Bill Keightley's Guest Book has become the most popular in the Herald-Leader's online history. As of late last week, his Guest Book has received 3,174 entries and 53 photos.

The second most popular Herald-Leader Guest Book was for Janet Gschwender, who received 849 entries and two photos. Her Guest Book was posted in March 2005, and her family members continue to regularly submit entries.

The Web site Legacy.com counts the postings on all Guest Books. Keightley's ranks as the 35th most popular of all time, and the third most popular so far this year.

As of late last week, the Guest Books for victims of the Northern Illinois University shootings on Feb. 14 had almost 5,500 entries and a Guest Book for victims of a school bus crash in northeastern Canada in Jan. 12 had more than 15,000 entries.

Legacy.com Guest Books receive an entry, on average, every 2.5 seconds (or more than 700,000 a month). Three-quarters of all Legacy.com Guest Books receive entries, and each Guest Book receives an average of eight entries.

Florida update

Florida lost a second sophomore this past week when Jonathan Mitchell announced his intention to transfer. That follows Marreese Speights entering his name into the NBA Draft.

Without those two players, Florida's roster will include one senior (Walter Hodge), one junior (Dan Werner), five sophomores and five freshmen.

Happy birthday

To Michael Bradley. The former UK big man turns 29 on Friday.

After playing in the NBA, Bradley is in his second season in Europe. He played in San Sebastian, Spain, last season. "It was a small beach city on the Northern Coast," he wrote in an e-mail message. "I had a good year there and then in the summer I signed a contract with a team in Berlin, Germany. I played there for three months then switched to a team in Lithuania, and after a three-month stint, signed with my team now in Granada, Spain."

The here-there-and-everywhere nature of Bradley's European adventure is not unusual.

"It is very different over here," he wrote. "Players switch teams very often."

Bradley isn't sure about his plans. He's thinking about playing another season or two, then perhaps exploring the possibility of college coaching.

Bradley and his wife, Ellen, have a 2-year-old daughter, Taylor Rose, and Ellen is expecting another daughter in July.

And, Bradley added, "We are currently in the last stages of an international adoption from Ethiopia and this will be finalized in May. It has taken approximately a year and a half. This is also a little girl. So I will be the proud father of three little girls soon!!!"

Bradley met Ellen while both were attending Villanova. Bradley transferred there after his sophomore season at UK. Coincidentally, Ellen is from Fort Mitchell.

"I'd guess she was the only student at the school from Kentucky, and that's who I found!" Bradley said. "She played varsity tennis, so we always knew of each other. But we met right when we were both ending our studies. We dated for a year long distance and got married the next summer."

Like so many former UK players, Bradley mourned the death of Bill Keightley.

"This was a tough pill to swallow ..." he wrote. "We hit it off right off the bat when I came to UK. We would talk school, girls, baseball, you name it. He was just so down to earth and a great listener. I would always feel welcomed in his room.

"We stayed close for the years that followed and he even surprised me by showing up at my wedding in 2002. He was the main attraction, needless to say, and of course in his blue blazer! He will always be in my heart, and has left such a positive impact on me I can't even explain. He was the truest gentleman, and I will always remember his great stories and even better character."

News researcher Lu-Ann Farrar contributed to this article.

Jerry Tipton covers UK basketball for the Herald-Leader. This article contains his opinions and observations. He can be reached at jtipton@herald-leader.com.