KENTUCKY MAY BUY PRIVATE PLANE FOR RECRUITING EDGE: The LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER reports that University of Kentucky Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart is pining for a private plane to help give UK coaches a recruiting edge.

The $62.7M athletic budget that was approved by the UK athletic association last week includes a $300,000 increase in the men’s basketball recruiting budget “primarily because of a change in the way its basketball coach [Billy Gillispie] will travel.”

UK AD Mitch Barnhart: “Right now we’re examining the ability to get around privately (as the school will use) charter services in addition to using borrowed private planes.”

But Barnhart left the door open to buying a plane, saying that owning an aircraft “changes the way you can recruit, if you can be in three and four cities in one day versus commercially where you can get to one, if you’re lucky, two.”

Alabama, Florida and Tennessee all have private planes that coaches can access for recruiting purposes. With that in mind, UK athletic association “Board member Bill Gatton said he wants the athletics department to look into creating a new foundation to generate more money for the program and perhaps buy a plane for the coaches to use.“