All speculation leads to tomorrow being Billy Gillispie's last day at Kentucky.

(As you recall, Billy Gillispie never signed a contract. Here’s his Memorandum of Understanding.)

If I wanted to link up every story which indicates how uncomfortable Billy Gillispie has been at Kentucky, how much he doesn’t fit in, how arrogant he is or how badly fans have grown to just want him to get the. hell. out., I might be able to create an entire Gillispiepedia site about it all.

But UK lost to Notre Dame last night in a completely forgettable quarterfinal NIT game. This, by most accounts, was the last game Gillispie will ever coach at Kentucky.

Immediately after the game, UK president Todd Lee temporarily tried to keep this story as tame as possible (yeah, right), declaring no decision on Gillispie’s job would be made until Friday.

There’ s also the issue of Gillispie and the PR nightmare he’s become. He doesn’t fit in, doesn’t want to fit in and, slowly but surely, Kentucky is seeing its relationship with ESPN (which it values) getting sanded away. You’ve seen Gillispie act like an ass, so, with highly valued recruits being tougher and tougher to get for this school, getting rid of Gillispie also seems like a no-brainer in that respect.

The Louisville Courier-Journal’s Eric Crawford recently reported on how Gillispie tread ESPN feature writer Dana O’Neil when O’Neil flew to Kentucky to do a piece on the program:

>She doesn’t report this in her story, but O’Neil came to UK at its invitation upon the promise of “All-Access” to UK’s locker room and practices, team plane and meals. She spent four days with the team. Gillispie spent only 8 1/2 minutes talking with her. She was kicked out of the locker room several times. I’m told that there was a sharp exchange when Gillispie got wind of some of the questions she had posed to Patrick Patterson’s mother.

Not exactly what AD Mitch Barnhart had in mind, you’d assume.

So does Kentucky have a choice in keeping Gillispie? Many think that question was answered a month ago. Then, when the school doesn’t reach The Tournament for the first time since it was put on probation, it fails to perform in the SEC tournament and your new coach — who’s admitted many times over he’s a Texas boy — isn’t up to playing the game or just being, you know, a nice guy to the media or locals, there seems no alternative. The buyout would, reportedly, be around $6 million, and while that may not play well nationally in these economic times, the school and boosters can make phone calls to get that money in half a day. Easily.

— Rick Bozich of the Courier-Journal thinks Billy Donovan gets asked again, and if that fails, Travis Ford — a former UK player — is the second choice.

— Many believe Patterson and Meeks are absolutely gone if Gillispie stays. But why would they stay if a new coach comes in? Meeks is a possibility, but Patterson seems absolutely done.

Gillispie must go. There’d be no bigger upset in March if that didn’t happen.