That would be the only way these two giggle-boxes could have started their “Billy-hater” club. 

If you have read the story that I linked earlier, you now realize that Tipton and Mills have been spending a lot of time together.  While I have not read enough of Tipton to form my own opinion of him, it seems that he is certainly enjoying the Mills departure more than anyone.  He’s using this unfortunate and largely unclear situation to his advantage, pitting Mills against his former coach and attempting to portray Billy Gillispie in a negative light.   

 While it is certainly unfair for Tipton to continue reporting Mills’ one-sided sob story, it’s also irrelevant.  At risk of sounding crass, I don’t care about Dusty Mills.  I don’t care that he got kicked off the team.  Ramel Bradley attempted to stand up for him and get him reinstated, but Mills declined.  That should have been the end of this whole situation.   Regardless of the terms of Mills’ dismissal, he had his chance to return.  He claims that he did not want to be a distraction; while I don’t know anything to the contrary, I don’t believe that.  If he didn’t want to be a distraction, he wouldn’t be talking to Tipton so much.  This situation would be closed if not for Tipton’s desire to use Mills’ story as some sort of investigation into Gillispie’s social skills.

I’m not at all concerned with how Gillispie treats his players in practice, unless, of course, he is physically or emotionally harming them.  It appears that the three departures from this team were all related to the players’ inability to cope with Gillispie’s difficult system.  If Gillispie had a history of running off players, than maybe this would be more of a concern. 

I don’t completely blame Mills for this situation, and I don’t really understand Tipton’s motives.  For whatever reason, Tipton feels that it’s important to discuss Gillispie’s demeanor in a practice setting.  Further, he suggests that his philosophy is as combative as former Texas Tech coach Bobby Knight, at one time asking Mills if Gillispie had ever physically abused a player.  Obviously, he has not.

Until there is a mass exodus from the Kentucky basketball team, the attitude and personality of Billy Gillispie should not be in question.  Unfortunately, Tipton has hit a gold mine, and it appears that he has no intention of letting Dusty go anytime soon.