Former UNLV head coach Jerry Tarkanian has some comments about the Kentucky Wildcats on his Shark Bytes blog today. In his article today, Tarkanian says:
"I know Billy Gillispie, the former Kentucky coach, really liked UNLV’s new point guard, Derrick Jasper.
Billy told me he felt if they hadn’t lost that kid they’d have a great season in 2008-09. That didn’t work out for anybody."
Is it possible that Derrick Jasper's departure started a chain reaction that completely turned the Kentucky basketball program around? When Jasper decided to leave Lexington, the Wildcats were left with no true point guard on the roster. The team struggled with turnovers in key situations throughout the season and often appeared disoriented on offense.
The lack of point guard leadership led Kentucky to the NIT and one of the more disappointing seasons in recent memory. The below par season was not the sole reason that Billy Gillispie was let go, but it certainly made the decision a bit easier. The departure of Gillispie opened the door for new coach John Calipari. Calipari has brought a level of excitement to Big Blue Nation that has not been present since the mid- to late-1990's. It is as if Kentucky basketball has gone from the cellar to the penthouse in a little over a month.
Do we owe a great deal of gratitude to Derrick Jasper or should we practice the Japanese management philosophy of Kaizen? Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life. When applied to the workplace, Kaizen activities continually improve all functions of a business, from manufacturing to management and from the CEO to the assembly line workers. One of the key rules of Kaizen is to ask "why" five times to seek root causes. Let's apply the Kaizen philosophy:
1. Why is Big Blue Nation excited?
The team made a home run hire with John Calipari
2. Why do we have John Calipari?
The UK team struggled and Billy Gillispie was fired after the season
3. Why did the UK team struggle in 2008-09?
The key reason was a lack of an experienced point guard
4. Why did we not have an experienced point guard?
Because Derrick Jasper decided to transfer to UNLV
5. Why did Derrick Jasper transfer to UNLV?
Hmm, maybe we owe a debt of gratitude to someone else after all
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4 comments:
All UK fans are excited? I think we need a recount. Some are about as excited to see a coach change as watching paint dry. Coach Cal's tweets are silly.
I think Coach Cal would give you 12,372 reasons why his tweets are not silly. He is doing exactly what a UK coach should be doing and he has taken Big Blue Nation by storm. If you are a UK fan and you're not excited, you may be in the minority.
This looks awfully familiar...
Ah, here it is -- http://kentucky.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=1383&tid=127753404&mid=127753404&sid=888&style=2
Thanks to whoever passed the article along. I'm glad it sparked an interesting discussion! Go Cats!
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