How's your Tuesday going?

Got a injury you need help with? Tonight at 7:30p on Channel 5 in Cincinnati, we're hosting another 'Call The Docs' show. It's your chance to call in and talk with the good doctors from Beacon Sports about whatever malady you may have. Free medical advice, no HMO or co pay. Such a deal!

There's a brand new Broo View Podcast ready to download. This episode features Matt Bowen from nationalfootballpost.com. We talk about whether or not Carson Palmer is still a quarterback capable of leading a team to the Super Bowl. You can find the podcast on the front page of my web site: www.kenbroo.com.

When you're number one, you never know who'll be calling. The UK Wildcats got a big surprise today. Right after a mid day practice for their game tonight in Columbia, South Carolina, John Calipari's team got a phone call from President Obama. He was calling to congratulate the Wildcats for raising over $1 million for Haitian relief efforts. While he was at it, Obama also congratulated the Wildcats ascending to the top of college basketball. UK is number on in both major polls this week, unbeaten so far this season. Super freshman, John Wall invited the President to watch UK in person and challeged him to a game of 'horse'. Obama politely declined saying, "I don't want to lose". There's a good chance they'll meet in person this spring, with the way the UK has been playing an NCAA Championship isn't out of the question.

For the first time ever, the NFL stages the Pro Bowl before teh Super Bowl. The game is this Sunday in Miami, site of Super Bowl 44. It's a better idea than playing the game as an after thought, which has been the case forever. But more than ten Saints and Colts players elected to the Pro Bowl will now have to beg off, with the Super Bowl, of course, taking precedence. Here's my idea: play the game BEFORE the season, much like the NFL used to do years ago when the reigning champion took on a team of college all stars. Play the game in August, AFC vs NFC and use it for what it is, a glorified exhibition game.

OK, so John Calipari is the new head basketball coach at UK. Not a bad hire. But if you're a UK fan let me ask you this: why didn't you AD hire him two years ago? What made Coach Cal so attractive now? Is it because he got to the Final 4 (championship game) last season and was on the verge of signing the nation's top recruiting class this spring at Memphis? Were you scared off two years ago, because Calipari has this habit of signing 'one and done players'. And maybe that's not the way you want your basketball program to navigate?

Do you ever think Mitch Barnhart will come clean about any of this?

Calipari is a 'basketball character'. And his rivalry with Rick Pitino will make the Commonwealth one of the nation's hot basketball territories again. It's all good theatre again in Kentucky.

Who follows Calipari in Memphis? His close friendship with Xavier's Sean Miller has espn.com thinking that Memphis AD RC Johnson may be making a trip to Victory Parkway soon.

Meantime, over at cbsports.com, our buddy Gregg Doyel has this take on Calipari's move.

Opening day is this Monday. (Yikes, rain and 55*????). To fire you up, Freekbass will be in studio this Sunday night on Sports Rock on Channel 5 at 11:35pm. Enjoy this!

You get the feeling he's a Reds fan?

Good Monday Morning!

How tough can it be? How difficult is it being a college basketball coach? You do three things, basically. You recruit, you develop strategy, practice and you coach games. That’s it. You show up for a coach’s show once a week at a local bar or restaurant during the season, make nice with alums and donors, and you go home. That’s it. End of story.

So if it’s that simple, why couldn’t Billy Gillispie figure it out at Kentucky?
He doesn’t appear to be a dope. He won more than he lost. He recruited McDonalds All Americans, he developed strategy that worked more often than not. And he’s out of work.

I listened to that news conference Friday, the one the Kentucky athletic director and the school president presided over. If I’m not mistaken, the reasons they gave for Gillispie getting canned were that he was a social mutant who couldn’t sign his name. Couldn’t, or wouldn’t glad hand with the big dollar Kentucky donors and refused to sign his contract. Now I’ll admit, in this day and age, when someone is dangling the kind of money in front of you like Gillispie had dangled in front of him, you take it and run. If all it means is signing your name, you John Hancock it and call it a day. Six million to go away? Mine, take it, see you at the ranch. Gillispie apparently will get far less than six mil, simply because he didn’t sign his name.

Gillispie apparently mistreated some people in the media. Now we’re going to start worrying about the media? Do you know where the majority of people in this country place the media on the totem pole of respect? Just behind mass murderers and slightly ahead of politicians. Or lawyers. I interviewed Gillispie a couple of times. I found him to be cold and shifty He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He went 40-27 at UK. If he went 60-7, you know what? He could’ve stolen my wallet, he’d still be on the job. It’s all about winning. The rest of this stuff only surfaces when you don’t win enough games. 40-out of 67 at a place like Kentucky isn’t enough games.

Look, I’m not defending Gillispie. I could care less who coaches that team. Get paid the same if it’s Billy Gillispie coaching or Dizzy Gillispie. All I want to know is how tough can it be to coach Division One basketball. There are something like 360 ‘D-One’ teams, but only about 90 that count. If you’ve got a good big man, a guard who can distribute and a guard who can shoot, you’re going to win a lot of games in most conferences. You mean to tell me there aren’t 270-good to great basketball players in this country? If there aren’t you can’t fill in the blanks with players from Europe of China? Really?

90-teams, three good players, that’s 270-total. And a guy like Billy Gillispie coaching at UK can’t figure out how to make that happen?

And all of this talk about his lack of social skills. If you’re the head basketball coach at Kentucky, ,why wouldn’t you want to parlay that into free dinner and golf? All you have to do is tell a couple of stories, they don’t even have to be true, sign a few autographs pose for a few pictures and go home. It’s not tough. It’s not assembly line, fast food cook, door to door salesman tough.

It’s amazing that Mitch Barnhart, the Kentucky athletic director, couldn’t figure out that Gillispie had none of these skills long before he tried to hire him. Does Barnhart not have friends or informants he can trust? If it’s not that tough to be a basketball coach, how much tougher is it to be an athletic director?

This is the University Of Kentucky basketball. You got to get it right. But trust me, when you’re that big, with that much tradition, it’s not that hard to find the right guy. And it’s not that hard for the right guy to succeed. Billy Gillispie blew it. But he had an accomplice. Mitch Barnhart blew it too. And so did the UK school president. He should have fired Barnhart on Friday, too.

Two things you need to know about my sports coverage tonight on WLWT Channel 5. We'll be in the Bengals locker room today to get the latest from the team, which re-gathers for the start of voluntary workouts. And we'll check in with the Miami RedHawks hockey team, just back from qualifying for the Frozen Four.

Later today on my web site: www.kenbroo.com, I'm posting an interview I did Sunday morning on 700 WLW with mlb.com's Jonathan Mayo about the status of the Cincinnati Reds, one week from the start of the season. And Tuesday midday, look for the latest Broo View Podcast on www.kenbroo.com. My guest, NFL player-agent, Jack Bechta. Among other things, he has the inside story as to why the Bengals let all purpose offensive lineman, Eric Steinbach leave for Cleveland a couple of springs ago.

Good Luck! Get through it. The toughest part of the week is Monday. I'll see you tonight at p and 11p on WLWT Channel 5.

Billy Gillispie is out. Xavier is out. Alvin Mitchell and Mike Williams are out. Been a riotous 24 hours, hasn't it?

Who didn't see Gillispie going? His AD and school president have been more silent than Marcel Marceau on this situation. Gillispie apparently didnt play the glad hand game well enough and his players didn't like being yelled at. Oh, and losing to Gardner Webb and VMI at Rupp didn't help either. But riddle me this: how can a state struggling for money as much as Kentucky is, scrape up $6 million to make Gillispie go away? If donors raised that kind of cash, isn't the school president, or the people he answers to, responsible enough to say 'look, let's use this money for bricks and morter, or to lower tuition costs, not pay off a basketball coach.' This entire deal is wrong from word one.

Kentucky may have made a bad hire. And cutting your losses into something like that isn't the worst thing to do. But shouldn't the people who hired Gillispie, Barnhart and Todd, but held accountable here too? $6 million to pay a coach to leave town? In this economy? In that state?

I wouldn't look for Sean Miller to leave Xavier for that gig. Neither does Andy Katz, at espn.com.

My pal Gregg Doyel over at cbssports.com has it nailed about the kind of coach Kentucky should hire.

Xavier lost to Pitt for one very big reason: it couldn't buy a basket in the second half of that ballgame. You can't start a half going 0-10 from the field and expect to win. Sure, BJ Raymond and Derrick Brown delivered points. But where was the rest of the Xavier scoring? Some of those guys in Xavier white disappeared like David Copperfield in the final 20 minutes. Still, Xavier had a chance to win. It was up two with under a minute to play. The Levance Fields three point shot was crazy good. But, the bigger play was the steal that Dejuan Blair and Fields pulled off with 34 seconds left. Down one, Xavier had a chance to take the lead. But you must protect the basketball. And, at that moment, Xavier didn't.

Too bad. I think they would've given Villanova a good game Sunday.

Mick Cronin, our guest this Sunday night on Sports Rock, was busy cleaning house today. Gone are Alvin Mitchell and Mike Williams. Mitchell has been a problem for Cronin the past two seasons. He's been in and out of Cronin's dog house, suspended, frequently. Honestly, no loss there. Mitchell, in my opinion, had limited skills. As for Williams, his case was a matter of bad luck. He missed two full seasons, one here and one at Texas before transfering. His case for a 6th season of eligibility was flimsy at best. For Cronin, it's probably best to move on. His first three seasons have produced little. He needs to have a big fourth season to stick around. I'd look for a Junior College player or two to jump start this team.

My Sunday morning radio show is taking shape. Jonathan Mayo from mlb.com will join me at 9:35am EDT to talk Reds baseball. We'll hear from Ryan Fagan from The Sporting News about baseball and the Reds at Noon. NFL player agent Jack Bechta will join me at 10am. The Enquirer's Dustin Dow and bengals.com Geoff Hobson will stop by to chat too. My show airs from 9am-12:30p EDT. You can listen online at 700wlw.com.

Have a great weekend. Check out my web site: www.kenbroo.com. Brand new Broo View Podcast will be posted Friday overnight and ready Saturday morning.

Good Morning....

At least it is where I call home. How much basketball are you watching this week. And are you pacing yourself, so you don't get entirely burned out (is that even possible?) before the NCAA Tournament begins next week?

How many games does UK coach, Billy Gillispie have to win to save his job. Answer, zero. The win over Ole Miss kept the wolves at bay for 24 hours. Beating LSU is another thing, even though Xavier beat the Tigers on the LSU home floor this season. Gillispie has eight years remaining on his contract. I'm guessing he's finally signed the thing. It was still unsigned before this season. Eight years of salary to pay off, just to have a basketball coach go away, is something that just about every school and it's eager alumni will find hard to do in this economy. If Gillispie can avoid losing to bottom feeding teams next season and keep the Rupp Arena losses to a minimum (he's lost ten at Rupp in just two seasons), the heat will be off.

But I'm thinking a perfect first round NIT match-up will be UK against the University of Cincinnati at US Bank Arena, on the banks of the Ohio River. Rupp is unavailable, because of the Kentucky high school playoffs. Memorial Coliseum would work. But why not play in Cincinnati, where UK would still have the home court advantage? Just askin'....

If Xavier is a #4 seed, which I believe is best case scenario and gets shipped out (which I believe is a real scenario), the Muskies will have a tough time getting past the first weekend. 4-13 matchups are dicey. And if you win that game, you're up against the winner of the 5-12 game.

Mick Cronin says if his Bearcats can't get an NIT bid, that's it, season over. Cronin, who took his team to the inaugural CBI classic last year, says he and his AD, Mike Thomas, agree that anything but the NIT is a waste of time. Good. The CBI and another post season tournament are around this season, meaning more than 100 Division I schools will get to play in a post season. To what end? The Bearcats went to the CBI last year with a 13-18 record. Who wants to see that?

I think is 40-60 UC winds up with an NIT bid. Winning record? Yes. Losing six of its last seven? Not good for UC.

Got to admit it, I'm beginning to believe the Reds are building a very strong franchise. And that's not just at the major league level. mlb.com has this story on the top ten prospects in the the Reds minor league system. Gives you hope.

I'm talking sports again, as usual, on Sunday morning. I'm on from 9am-12:30p on 700 WLW in Cincinnati. Listen online at 700wlw.com. Among my guests, Mike Florio from profootballtalk.com and Damon Durante from betus.com. Mike's got the inside scoop from the NFL. Damon has the lowdown on who'll bet how much on the NCAA Tournament next week.

And if you're in the greater Cincinnati area, Sunday night at 11:35p on WLWT Channel 5, our guests on Sports Rock will be former UC player, Alex Mecham, former Xavier player and current radio broadcaster, Byron Larkin and former triple crown winning jockey, Steve Cauthen.

Lot of 'formers'. But then again, aren't we all at something or other?

Have a great weekend and sign up for my 'tweets' at twitter.com

Some things that have been rattling around in my head like a broken ping pong ball this weekend…is our baseball team still in business? The free agent signing period began Friday. I hear the Yankees are going to break the bank and sign CC Sabathia. I hear the Braves are hot after Jake Peavy. I hear the Reds think Ryan Hanigan is a good catcher…what?

Why do I think, if Brian Kelly walked into a dice game in Vegas, he’d let it all ride on the first roll? I love cavalier way he deals with the media. But up seven on the road and going for it on four and one from your own 30. and in the first quarter? Really? Same guy who called for a fake punt, with 30-seconds to go and up only five on South Florida last year? BK, I’m with you win or tie, but you almost lost me there brother…

I’m watching the UK-Vandy game last night, and I’m wondering: if Louisville can do it, if Ohio State can do it, if Pitt and UC can do it, why can UK have both a strong basketball and football program? I know UK has had some bad luck in recent years with injuries, but this is the best they can do?

And speaking of UK: VMI? Last year, Gardner Webb and this year VMI. What’s next year for Billy Gillispie, Slippery Rock?

None of the college football games I watched Saturday, none, held my interest. Ohio State toyed with Illinois, Georgia was never really out of control dealing with Auburn and I already told you about UK. But I’m already salivating over the prime time game next Saturday night: Number one Texas Tech at number five Oklahoma. With Pitt playing at UC for the right to go to the Orange Bowl, this time next Sunday I’ll be reporting to you with carpel tunnel syndrome.

And congratulations to Doug Ramsey and the Elder Panthers. They knocked off Colerain in double overtime Saturday night at Nippert. It was terrific high school football. Colerain is a young team, a surprise to even it’s coach, Tom Bolden. Next year was supposed to be a big year at Colerain. But this year was pretty large. If the Cardinals could have held onto the ball, they might be playing next Saturday night, not Elder. But Elder’s defense had a lot to do with Colerain’s turnovers. Elder can run and throw. And it’s a typical Ramsey defense: hit hard, attack the ball. With Anderson still alive, pursuing a back to back championship in division two and Elder in the state semi’s as well, in D-I, Thanksgiving weekend could be very, very large.

The Big Blue Faithful are getting restless. They should be. This isn't shaping up to be a great basketball season in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Tubby split for Minnesota (how could he NOT leave) where his new team is 8-1. Billy Gillespie not only has Kentucky off to its worst start in generations, he lost one of his few recruits, when Alex Legion took a hike.

At 4-5, a legitimate question today is: can UK be at least a 'bubble team' come tournament time? With another 16 team post season tournament debuting next spring, even a sub-500 record could get UK into that. But it's a far cry from the championship runs of the mid-90's.

Mike DeCourcy, the excellent basketball writer for The Sporting News has this story today on UK's struggles. If you're a UK fan, are you buying any of this? Let me know.