It appears that the people in Minnesota are getting a little tired of the mediocrity that is Tubby Smith as a head basketball coach and it has taken a lot less time for it to happen there than it did at Kentucky.
Tubby enjoyed a national championship team (which was much accredited to a departed Rick Pitino and rightfully so) but finished no better than the Elite Eight up to his departure at UK. He has spent 3 full years as the head coach of the Golden Gophers and is in his fourth season. His overall record in the Big 10 is 32-35, he has been to the NCAA tournament 3 straight times but has fared no better than the first round. Very pedestrian.
The Minnesota Star-Tribune had an article entitled "Uh, Kentucky, y'all were right about Tubby" where the author speaks about the constant mediocrity of the team and Tubby's bad attitude as of late. Apparently Tubby is blaming the losing on bad practice facilities and the lack of "men" on his team. Something we were not used to when he was at UK was a bad attitude. Tubby was always classy and kind.
But the author points out what our gripes were with Tubby while he coached the Wildcats:
-He ran a bad offense
-The team was consistently middle of the road-And, despite one stellar class that he did nothing with, he was unable to recruit top talent
The author also goes on to say that the motivation to part ways with Tubby (he left on his own, he was never fired) was not racially motivated, as some idiots (UofL fans) think. It had to do with his coaching.
Now that Minnesota has apologized for jumping to conclusions about the Tubby situation and agreed with UK fans about who Tubby is as a coach, I am waiting for apologies from Dick Vitale, Mike Wilbon of PTI and the entire UofL fan base for claiming that Tubby left because UK fans are racist. A really stupid claim from some really stupid people.
I will always appreciate what he did for the program and I will always like Tubby Smith, I always have. But the fact of the matter is that the team was going nowhere with him and a change was needed. I cheer for Tubby and Minnesota whenever I watch them play. Tubby still holds UK in high regard as we also hold him in high regard. I don't think you will meet many Kentucky fans that don't respect Smith as a person. We just didn't like him as a coach. One day I hope they retire his name in the rafters, he did win a championship and, like I said, he was always a classy person while at Kentucky. One thing we will never forgive him for is Saul Smith. Sorry, but that's too much.
Billy Gillispie's tenure was much shorter than Tubby's. Guess what color he was?
Tubby enjoyed a winning percentage of somewhere in the range of 75% at UK (that isn't exact, and just off the top of my head, may have been more like 73, but it was definitely above 70%). At Minnesota, he's right at 55% I believe. That is around a 20% difference...Minnesota has plenty of reason to be upset with him, UK did not. He was regarded nationally as one of the top coaches in the country while he was at UK. That's all I'm saying on the subject.
ReplyDeleteI hope you read the actual article the guy wrote...
ReplyDeleteBesides, the argument I am making is that the entire fanbase was blasted as being racist for Tubby leaving and that's just ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteYou know me personally and you know a number of UK fans, how many of us can you call a racist? I'm about as racist as you are dude, and that means not at all. I am sure there may be some but I personally know some UofL fans that are racist as well.
It just ticks me off that racism was blamed even though Tubby himself never even hinted at it being a factor. It's the society we live in and it's sad.