Named UK's Head Basketball Coach on
April 6, 2007
After some of the most dramatic
singleseason turnarounds in NCAA history at
Texas-El Paso and Texas A&M, Billy Gillispie
becomes the 21st coach of the Kentucky
Wildcats.
In just three seasons at Texas A&M, the
three-time Big 12 Coach of the Year
engineered one of the most amazing
turnarounds in college basketball history,
leading ESPN’s Steve Lavin, among others, to
christen him a “miracle worker.”
In the 2006-07 season, Gillispie, who was
a finalist for the 2007 Naismith National
Coach of the Year and Jim Phelan National
Coach of the Year led the Aggies to a school
record 27-7 record which included a school
best No. 3 seed in the NCAA’s, in which they
advanced to the Sweet 16 for the first time
since 1980.
In addition to leading the Aggies a final
No. 9 ranking in 2007, he led A&M to a top
10 ranking in both polls for 11 straight
weeks. Before the 2007 season, the last time
A&M was ranked in the top 10 in either poll
was Jan. 3, 1979, when the Aggies were
ranked 10th by the AP. The only other time
A&M was ranked in the top 10 was a four-week
run in the AP poll in 1959-60. That team was
ranked No. 8 one week and 10th the following
three weeks.
In Gillispie’s first season in College
Station in 2004-05, the Aggies were picked
to finish last in the rugged Big 12, but
shot out to a perfect 11-0 start and went on
to finish 21-10, earning accolades as the
country’s most improved team. Gillispie
became the only coach in history to lead the
most improved team in consecutive seasons.
Even more impressive, A&M went 8-8 in Big
12 play, including victories against No.
9-ranked Texas and No. 25-ranked Texas Tech,
to become only the third college team ever
to finish .500 in league play after going
winless the previous season. The Aggies won
two games in the National Invitation
Tournament, A&M’s first postseason
appearance in 11 years.
The following season in 2005-06, A&M
finished 22-9 and placed fourth in the Big
12 with a 10-6 mark, its best finish in the
league’s 10-year history. In addition, A&M
advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the
first time in 19 years.
But Gillispie was not finished yet as the
Aggies pulled off a stunning first-round
upset of national power Syracuse, then took
LSU to the wire in the second round before
losing on a three-point basket in the final
seconds. The Tigers went on to the Final
Four.
Gillispie was honored as Big 12 Coach of
the Year by several major newspapers and was
selected Texas College Coach of the Year by
the TABC.
A native of the tiny West Texas town of
Graford, Gillispie began his Division I
career at Baylor in the mid-1990s. He went
on to successful assistant coaching stints
at Tulsa and Illinois before becoming UTEP’s
head coach in 2002.
The Miners finished 6-24 in his first
season, but went 24-8 and advanced to the
NCAA Tournament in 2004, an incredible
18-win improvement that ranks among the best
in history. As a result, Gillispie was named
district coach of the year by the USBWA,
Texas coach of the year by the TABC, and was
a finalist for national coach of the year
honors.
The Miners captured the 2004 Western
Athletic Conference title, its first in 12
years, after being picked to finish ninth in
the preseason poll. UTEP became only the
third WAC team in history — and the first in
35 years — to win a league title after
finishing last the previous year. In the
exhibition season, the Miners ended the
Harlem Globetrotters’ 288-game winning
streak with an 89-88 victory.
The Miners completed a 16-1 home ledger
and built a huge following in El Paso,
averaging 10,282 fans per game and ranking
first in the NCAA in increased attendance.
UTEP had eight sellout crowds of more than
12,000.
A tireless worker, the 47-year-old
Gillispie has built a deserved reputation as
one of the country’s best recruiters. His
prowess was reflected in his first
recruiting class at UTEP, which featured a
pair of first-team junior college
All-Americans — Filiberto Rivera and Omar
Thomas — and earned a top 25 ranking.
Rivera was the 2003 national junior
college player of the year, while Thomas was
the all-time leading scoring in junior
college basketball and was the only JUCO
player ever to score 2,000 points with 1,000
rebounds.
At A&M, Gillispie signed three straight
top-25 recruiting classes. Prior to being
hired at UTEP in 2002, Gillispie served
eight years as an assistant coach at Baylor,
Tulsa and Illinois. He was a member of Bill
Self ’s staffs at Tulsa from 1997-00 and at
Illinois from 2000-02. Self is now the head
coach at Kansas.
Gillispie was part of a coaching unit
that recorded 85 wins over three years, the
second-highest total in the nation in that
period, and captured four consecutive
conference championships — two in the Big
Ten and two in the Western Athletic
Conference.
When the WAC title at UTEP is included,
Gillispie was a part of conference
championship teams in five of six years, a
record matched by few others.
In addition, Gillispie was a member of
the only coaching staff in NCAA history to
lead two different schools to the Elite
Eight in successive seasons — Tulsa in 2000
and Illinois in 2001.
Tulsa registered a 32-5 mark in 1999-00
and Illinois fashioned a composite mark of
53-17 in 2000-01 and 2001-02, winning
back-to-back Big Ten titles for the first
time in 50 years. The Illinois staff became
the first since 1913 to win Big Ten titles
in each of its first two seasons in the
league. Illinois advanced to the Sweet 16 in
the 2002 NCAA Tournament.
Tulsa earned a No. 9 national ranking in
the final coaches’ poll in 2000, while
Illinois was rated No. 6 in 2001 and No. 11
in 2002. His efforts on the recruiting trail
helped Illinois land one of the nation’s top
10 classes in 2002, featuring All-American
Dee Brown, James Augustine, Aaron Spears,
Deron Williams and Kyle Wilson.
Gillispie was the top assistant and
recruiting coordinator at Baylor from
1994-97 under head coach Harry Miller. The
Bears notched 18 victories in 1996-97 after
consecutive nine-win seasons the previous
two years. Baylor’s 1996 recruiting class
was ranked as high as No. 6 in the country.
A 1983 graduate of Southwest Texas State
with a bachelor’s degree in Education,
Gillispie got his start in coaching as a
graduate assistant at his alma mater from
1982-85.
From 1987-93, Gillispie served as head
coach at three different high schools in
Texas — Copperas Cove, New Braunfels Canyon
and Killeen Ellison. His last prep team at
Killeen Ellison recorded a 32-6 record in
1992-93 and set school records for winning
percentage and points scored while finishing
the year ranked No. 4 in the state.
Gillispie joined the JUCO ranks from
1993-94 as an assistant and recruiting
coordinator at South Plains Junior College
in Levelland, Texas.
Born in Abilene on Nov. 7, 1959,
Gillispie was the middle of five children
and the only boy. When he was in second
grade, the family moved to Graford (pop.
578), located 65 miles northwest of Fort
Worth. He played point guard at Graford High
School and was a two-sport athlete in
basketball and baseball at Ranger (Texas)
Junior College from 1978-80.
Gillispie attended Sam Houston State for
one year, where he was a student assistant
under coach Bob Derryberry, then transferred
to Texas State, where he served three years
as a graduate assistant for Derryberry. He
received a degree in education from Texas
State in 1983.
Gillispie is a member of the NABC, TABC,
Texas High School Coaches Association and
the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
Highlights
