Tubby Smith to Minnesota

[CincyRedsFan30]

Still details developing, but appears he's out and headed to Minnesota.

[CincyRedsFan30]

Sounds like he resigned but was possibly told his services were no longer needed.

News spreading like wildfire here at UK and it's hard to keep track of what's true and what isn't.

[ATLien]

Can't say I blame him.

[CincyRedsFan30]

Can't say I'm upset either (read the sig).

Andy Katz: "According to sources, Marquette coach Tom Crean, Michigan State's Tom Izzo, Memphis coach John Calipari, Gonzaga's Mark Few and Notre Dame's Mike Brey are expected to be candidates for what is one of the few premier jobs in men's college basketball."


Here's the initial story from the school paper I write for:


Tubby expected to leave UK for Minnesota job
Reports indicate UK head coach Tubby Smith has left for the job at the University of Minnesota.


UK Athletics is expected to release a statement tonight regarding the status of head basketball coach Tubby Smith. Local media are reporting that sources close to Smith and the team have said he is resigning to accept the head coaching job at the University of Minnesota. Minnesota is expected to have a news conference tomorrow morning.

The Cats' basketball season ended on Sunday with the second-round loss to Kansas in the NCAA Tournament. The Cats finished the year 22-12, and it was the second season in a row that UK exited the tournament during the first weekend with double-digit losses.

In 10 years at UK, Smith had a record of 263-83. He won a national championship in 1998 and had five Southeastern Conference titles.

In the final weeks of the season, speculation about Smith's future at UK prompted two statements from Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart, but after the loss to Kansas on Sunday, Smith said he "expected to be" UK's coach next season.

[realmofotalk]

Mark Few isn't leaving home. About Mike Brey I have to agree with nyjunc that Coach K's ex-assistants can't coach.

[BnGBleeder]

Andy Katz: "According to sources, Marquette coach Tom Crean, Michigan State's Tom Izzo, Memphis coach John Calipari, Gonzaga's Mark Few and Notre Dame's Mike Brey are expected to be candidates for what is one of the few premier jobs in men's college basketball."

Of course the coaches of programs of that caliber are canidates for any opening,you don't have to be a basketball guru to know that.

[Retro16]

KU's expectation was wayyy higher on Tubby his first season.

[ATLien]

ESPN reporting that Tom Crean is at the top of the list, and Tubby was told to choose between his job & his assistants and he left.

[rockin500]

eh, tubby doesnt need kentucky. he shouldnt have had to resign but when you have a bunch of dumbass alumni/boosters who refuse to be satisfied it should be expected that this happened.

[CincyRedsFan30]

Yeah, I had heard for a few weeks now that Tubby was told to lose the assistants.

I think he didn't want to and has also maybe heard some negative news regarding some or all of Morris returning next year and the the possibility of getting Patrick Patterson and Jai Lucus for next year.

[CincyRedsFan30]

eh, tubby doesnt need kentucky. he shouldnt have had to resign but when you have a bunch of dumbass alumni/boosters who refuse to be satisfied it should be expected that this happened.

More like UK doesn't need Tubby.

Nor do we want him.

The expectations are high. That's all.

Some schools have lofty goals academically and athletically, some care about only one or the other and others care about neither.

UK basketball is not too far behind academics on the totem pole.

[CincyRedsFan30]

Tubby blew it with Wildcats; what chance do Gophers have?
March 22, 2007
By Gregg Doyel
CBS SportsLine.com National Columnist

Don't feel bad today for Tubby Smith, who woke up Thursday as the coach at Kentucky but will wake up Friday at Minnesota. That's a ghastly career arc, but Tubby did this to himself. Kentucky fans didn't help the situation, but they aren't the losers here. Tubby is.

Tubby had one of the best jobs in college basketball and drove it right up to the side of the cliff. He didn't drive Kentucky over that cliff -- that would have come next year, assuming junior center Randolph Morris turns pro -- but he had this monster of a basketball program creeping right up to the edge.

Tubby couldn't figure out how to fix it, so now Tubby is gone to Minnesota, and I've got news for the good folks at Minnesota who clearly haven't been paying attention to the details at Kentucky: Unless Tubby changes his ways, he'll flop at Minnesota. I mean, he'll be a complete and total failure. If he couldn't attract marquee players at Kentucky -- Kentucky for God's sake -- how is he all of a sudden going to bring them to maudlin Minnesota?

Kentucky is one of the top three coaching jobs in college basketball, right up there with North Carolina and Duke. And Tubby recruited like he was at, well, Minnesota.

Now he is at Minnesota, which isn't one of the top three coaching jobs in the Big Ten. Or one of the top six. In the Big Ten alone, the Minnesota job is behind Ohio State, Michigan State, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, and probably on par with Iowa. If I'm right about that -- and I'm right -- that means Minnesota is seventh or eighth among the basketball programs in its conference, ahead only of Purdue, Penn State and Northwestern.

So who here believes uninspiring Tubby Smith is going to do at Minnesota what he couldn't do at Kentucky -- which is to say, overachieve?

At Kentucky, Tubby underachieved. There's not a lot of debate about that one. In the smaller sense he overachieved with this team, because his 2006-07 squad didn't have blatant NCAA Tournament talent and yet Tubby got the Wildcats there with ease. But he's at Kentucky, not Toledo. With so much wind in his sails at Kentucky, he should have had Duke-like talent. UNC-like talent. Not the dreck he was starting at point guard and power forward.

Tubby was a victim of himself, of his own confidence. He's so good at X's and O's -- and he is really, really good with a clipboard -- that he thought he could hire whoever he wanted for his staff and be able to get it done. And the evidence is overwhelming that he could not.

Look at Tubby's resume. There have been times in his career when he has won big, but those times almost always were with someone else's players. He was at Tulsa for only four years, which means he was winning for most of that time with someone else's recruits. He was at Georgia for just two years, which means he won completely with someone else's players.

At Kentucky he won his national championship in his first year, with Rick Pitino's roster. In the last two years, stuck with players that were signed solely by Tubby's staff, Kentucky lost a total of 25 games. That's not Kentucky. That's Kennesaw State.

Tubby has turned his coaching staff into an old boys' club, hiring only cronies. Tubby worked with David Hobbs at VCU in the mid-1980s. He worked with Scott Rigot at South Carolina in the late-80s. He coached Reggie Hanson (as an assistant) at Kentucky in the early 90s.

Clearly the key to working for Tubby isn't your ability. It's having worked with Tubby before. That's the kind of myopic world-view that can get you fired, which is what would have happened at Kentucky as soon as the inevitable NIT season happened, possibly as soon as next season.

Meantime, Kentucky fans were going nuts. Around the country they have been perceived -- and they will be perceived in the coming days, mark my words -- as out of control, ungrateful, cruel. Inside the state borders, though, UK fans saw what Tubby was doing to this gem of a basketball program. He was turning it into cubic zirconium.

Now he's Minnesota's problem. And Tubby will have problems at Minnesota, believe me. I'll hang him with his own words, because a few years back Tubby said something to the Dallas Morning News that should scare the absolute hell out of the state of Minnesota:

"All we promise (potential recruits) is an education and the opportunity to be part of the winningest college basketball program in America," Smith said in March 2005.

At Minnesota, he'll promise recruits an education and the opportunity to be part of one of the worst college basketball programs in the Big Ten.

He'll be fired by 2012.

[rockin500]

your quoting a greg doyel column? sheesh. that guy writes drivel.

edit: i should let it be known that I dont particularly care for tubby smith. but thats more for his recruiting than his coaching. Tubby isnt exactly a stellar recruiter. still, its pretty clear that kentucky basketball suffers from notre dame football disease.

[CincyRedsFan30]

I have read that Doyel(though not a UK fan) has written a book about UK and its past at some point. He knows what UK basketball is all about.

He can write some dumb stuff but when he nails something, he REALLY seems to nail it.

And the only syndrome UK has suffered from is poor recruiting thanks to Tubby.

[Retro16]

Dan Monson has nothing but recruiting not so big name high schoolers.