Odd couple: Virginia opens 2023-2024 season against Tarleton State, and its slimy coach

You have to wonder who it was that convinced paragon of college hoops virtue Tony Bennett to schedule a game with outlaw among outlaws Billy Gillispie, the coach at Tarleton State.

Gillispie, who was too slimy for even Kentucky to want to do business with, is bringing his team, which somehow features 16 newcomers, into JPJ on Monday night for the teams’ season opener.

You’ll have to wonder which of a couple of teams Gillispie will actually have in uniform. A report in the Times-Dispatch has it that in addition to the 16 newcomers, Tarleton State also has five returnees from last year’s team, which finished 17-17, though, according to the report, Gillispie only expects to have eight scholarship players available Monday night.

Billy Clyde, to his admirers, earned an early reputation as a quick fixer, turning around UTEP (6-24 in his first season, 24-8 in Year 2) and Texas A&M (7-21 in the year before he was hired, 21-10 in his first year, three 20-win seasons in his three years there).

This is what attracted Kentucky to him, but he’d only last there two years; UK cut bait with him after two middling seasons (40-27 overall) because he wasn’t a “good fit,” Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart said.

Gillispie wasn’t a good fit, either, at Texas Tech, where he lasted one season, which included a NCAA violation slapped on the coach for violating the 20-hour-a-week practice limit, and allegations of player mistreatment – 15 of his players left the program in his brief tenure.

He then moved on to coach the JUCO program at Ranger College, where his 2015-2016 team had to forfeit all its games for using an ineligible player.

This is the guy that Virginia is doing business with on Monday night.

Seriously, you feel dirty just reading about the guy.

This one is what you call a “guarantee game” – the big-name school paying the little guy a good chunk of change, usually in six figures, to fill out the schedule – but don’t expect Gillispie’s team to just roll over.

Tarleton State played Arizona State tight in its 2022-2023 season opener, before losing 62-59, then blew out Boston College, 70-54, in a game before Thanksgiving.

Gillispie is going to want to get a signature win Monday night so that, who knows, he’s 63, he’s had health issues, but maybe an upset in an ACC gym could get him one more shot at the big time.