Billy Clyde Gillispie Has Gone Off The Deep End. Again.

Over the weekend, bizarre reports surfaced that Texas Tech Red Raiders head coach Billy Gillispie had a mutiny on his hands. No, it wasn't caused by the Dread Pirate Leach. Then it was revealed that Gillispie was hospitalized due to severe pain--where he remains--after experiencing symptoms resembling a "stroke or heart attack."

Something is rotten in the state of Lubbock, and it's not hard to identify the Claudius. Last night, CBS Sports' Jeff Goodman published a scathing article accounting for all of Gillispie's alleged misdeeds.

Among them:

• Promising jobs to potential assistants or staff members, only to keep them in limbo and subsequently renege on the agreements.
• Breaking NCAA rules by not adhering to practice limits.
• Causing a player to cry in practice after forcing him to continue running with identified stress fractures in his legs.
• Keeping players in scholarship limbo and forbidding them to return to their homes for fear of losing their scholarships.
• Running off players from the program, including this year's star recruit, Wannah Bail.
  
• Bullying of everything and everyone to the first degree.
• Upon hearing all these complaints, continually muttering: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

After successful stints at UTEP and Texas A&M (Acie Law vs. Kevin Durant!), Gillispie looked poised to take the ultimate step in his career after landing a job with Kentucky in 2007. Instead, his boozing, womanizing, standoffish, and--most importantly--losing ways got him booted from the Bluegrass after just two seasons. The best quote to come out of the whole mess? "Billy Gillispie is a mind ninja."

When current Texas Tech Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt took the job in 2011, he was looking to make a splash hire in men's basketball. There was reason to expect that Gillispie, returning to his roots in Texas, would once again become a successful head coach. Those dreams appear dead, and odds are good that Gillispie is no longer the Texas Tech head coach when the team takes the floor in November. From Double T Nation:

All this should take from the administrative perspective is for Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt to confirm just one of these accounts and if this is true, then Gillispie should be terminated immediately. If Hocutt can confirm that the team practiced for more than the prescribed four hours each day and the assistant coaches were present, then they should be terminated too.

[...] Just like any other abuse case, it is a shame that the players are the ones that have to voice their concern. I am sure that Gillispie is a dominating figure, but once a coach has put a player's well-being in harm's way, then I'm done with you. If you knowingly turn your eye, then I'm done with you. This is not about a coach being tough on his players. This is not being tough. This is abuse. Anyone involved with the program that witnessed this behavior needs to be terminated.