The Southeastern Conference discovered a method to remain relevant during the NCAA tournament: Just start firing and hiring coaches. Take that, Big East.

The whirlwind of news Friday — Billy Gillispie out at Kentucky, Billy Donovan remaining at Florida, Anthony Grant taking the Alabama job — produced a winner, a loser and an */A in the SEC. Let’s recap the strangest day of SEC basketball since Jim Harrick Jr. asked his students how much a 3-pointer was worth.

* Winner: Alabama athletic director Mal Moore. Another great hire using a completely different method. To land Nick Saban, Moore remained patient and kept his faith that the then-Dolphins head man could not refuse a chance to coach the college game. And he did this with a lot of people (myself included) taunting him for blowing the process.

Less than two years later, Alabama completed an undefeated regular season.

To land Grant, the most sought-after mid-major coach in the country and a man with recruiting connections all over the South, Moore acted quickly and boldly.

While Georgia was reportedly messing around with a search firm, Moore was not shy about expressing his sole interest in Grant. He did not care if Grant publicly rebuffed his move — heck, the backlash couldn’t be worse than the Rich Rodriguez ordeal — because he knew Grant could transform Alabama into a school proud of both major programs.

Grant learned under Donovan, transformed VCU into one of the best mid-major programs in the country and, as a former recruiter at Florida, knows the right coaches at the high school level. Moore made a successful hire. Again.

* Loser: Kentucky. Look, I don’t want to defend a coach who treats people like they’re beneath him and acts, in general, like a complete jerk. I believe, and this is a personal opinion, that we’re put on this earth to treat each other kindly (no, I’m not high right now).

But this is Kentucky’s fault. To borrow a phrase from Dennis Green, Gillispie was who you thought he was. Everyone knew Gillispie blew off high school coaches, snapped at reporters for inexplicable reasons, acted smug around the administration, held difficult practices on game days and didn’t treat his players like humans.

Other than that, he’s a great guy.

But everyone knew this about Gillispie when Kentucky hired him from Texas A&M. He was who you thought he was. I’m sure Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart figured that, if the Wildcats won games, it didn’t matter if Gillispie was not a people person. And that’s fine. But what if he didn’t win games? All you have then is a jerk who refuses to sign his contract and goes to the NIT.

Kentucky can still hire a proven coach. But, for the second time in three years, it won’t be Donovan.

* */A: Georgia. Hello? Anybody there? Bueller?

Not a good day for the Bulldogs. They lose Grant to Alabama and yet are still the second choice among SEC schools with coaching vacancies now that Kentucky’s job is open.

Also troubling is this: Grant really didn’t seem very interested, to my knowledge, in Georgia. Does that reflect the perception of Georgia’s job among coaches or just Grant? Can Georgia hire one of those proven, upper-tier coaches?

I don’t know. I don’t think many people know Georgia’s plan right now.

Tech Talk