This is one of those rare times when Jer and I have a difference of opinion on a sports topic (Hopefully he’ll present his argument on the Tubby Smith hire because this is one where I’d like to be wrong). Jer likes it and believes the good outweighs the bad. An average of 26 wins a year and 14 straight NCAA tourney appearances at 3 different schools (Tulane, Georgia & Kentucky) while running a clean program with likable athletes is certainly a reason to get excited. There’s just one problem: Tubby Smith failed at Kentucky. In 1998 he was handed the reigns to THE best basketball program in the country, and 8 years later he leaves it as a middle-of-the-pack major conference school. Call me crazy, but that’s not a good sign. The Gophers are getting a guy who couldn’t succeed with every conceivable advantage, and now is being asked to do so with far less.
Save your breath. Don’t bother me with the argument that if Tubby got the Gophers 20 wins and an NCAA tournament berth every year, they’d be naming streets and erecting statues after the man. I agree completely, but how confident can you be that the man will be able to recruit and build a program when he couldn’t maintain the best in the country? Kentucky IS one of the top programs in America (along with North Carolina, Duke and Kansas), one of the few places where they measure success by Final Four appearances and National Championships. 20 win seasons and NCAA berths are not only expected, it’s the minimum standard, which Smith was able to maintain. Yes he won a National Title, but it was with Rick Pitino’s kids, a group that had 5 or 6 NBA players on its roster. Now? Kentucky will be lucky to have one guy get selected in June’s NBA draft. Tubby had every possible advantage, from name recognition to athletic budget to facilities, yet he wasn’t able to recruit the elite athletes that Kentucky is expected to get. Patrick Reusse’s comments yesterday in the Strib are bogus. He claims that more kids want to stay home nowadays, so it’s not possible to dominate the landscape anymore, citing Duke as his example. Really? How many quality basketball players come from the state of Kansas? And yet aren’t the Jayhawks playing in the Elite 8 on Saturday? Greg Oden is from Indiana but went to Ohio State. Kevin Durant is from DC but went all the way to Texas. The certifiably insane OJ Mayo, this year’s top high school senior, is going from West Virginia to Southern California next fall. Hop on this thing we call the interweb and look at the rosters for the sweet 16 teams, and you’re going to see a lot of players that are playing out of state. Kids DO travel, but few elite players wanted to travel to the basketball Mecca in Lexington, Kentucky. And that has to fall squarely on the shoulders of Tubby Smith.
I hope Tubby succeeds and returns the Gophers to a respectable level where they’re annually competing for the Big 10 title and traveling to far off lands for the NCAA tournament. But I have to ask: if Tubby couldn’t recruit at Kentucky, how’s he going to do it at Minnesota? If kids wouldn’t play for him at an elite school, why would they suddenly play for him in Minneapolis?
Minnesotans celebrate this because he’s going to be better than Dan Monson. Hey congratulations, the mindset that Gopher football fans had (well at least he’s not Jim Wacker!) has now carried over to the basketball program. Flip Saunders or Rick Majerus (who wanted the job and was more successful at freaking UTAH than Tubby was at Kentucky) would have been better hires. Despite Sid Hartman’s usual asinine comments, plucking an up-and-coming coach from Southern Illinois or Xavier would have been better hires too. I’d rather have a guy who had success at his last job than a coach who got run out of town because he failed to meet expectations.
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