Tubby Smith from KY to Minn????

Pressure from the AD--that's my guess.

 

Avoiding the black mark of being fired?

 

We certainly could have used him at Michigan.

 

Agreed, and they need a new coach right now. Amaker has been a big disapointment. I am not sure Michigan is willing to pay for a top notch basketball coach like Tubby though. To bad :tear:

 

I remember when Lou Holtz left Arkansas as the football coach and went to Minnesota, they went from being called the "Gophers " to being called "The Killer Gophers" and then after that of course Lou went on to Notre Dame. Maybe Tubby will have the same effect on it's Basketball program.

 

Surprised by Minnesota too. I figured he'd land at Michigan.

If I were the Michigan AD, I think I would make a push for Chris Lowery, coach of the SIU Salukis, who are playing Kansas very tough as I write this.

 

Sorry to see Tubby go. He was unfairly pilloried by Kentucky fans. I don't blame him for getting out.

 

Tubby has 1.2 million reasons to go to Minnesota, and there will be less pressure there than in Michigan. He can start fresh.

Will the big names on UK's wish list be interested, or will UK do a Bama football move and be down for a while, unable to land a good coach? Is there anyone out there with UK ties that would be interested?

 

The talk down here is they would like Billy Donovan. If he want to go to a basketball school, I wouldn't blame him if he went.

 

You have a good point there. It is possible that he will face less pressure, but Minnesota knows what they are getting. They will have certain expectations from a coach like Smith. If he doesn't make par then I would guess there would be some pressure on him.

Fair or not, the coach always takes the blame for a bad performance whether it be his fault or not.

 

The same reason people want the big house on the hill, the same reason so few pastors move to a smaller church, I think it is called a challenge. Folks down here enjoy basketball but not like football and I don't even know if it is bigger than baseball( I guess it might be). Most good coaches love pressure, most good ball players live for it, it is called being the best.

 

I have also heard that Billy Clyde Gillispieat A&M will be a front runner - I think the Aggies will money whip Billy to stay - but would not be suprised if he decides to go from a football school to a basket ball school. He is a real up and comer.

 

I'm personally sorry to see Tubby go from KY, but I have heard anywhere from 1.8 to 2.5 million reasons (per year). That is a lot of reasons to leave a pressure cooker like the UK fan base. With the lukewarm support from an AD listening to the heat from some "loud-mouthed, big-bucks" fans who quickly forget that UK under Tubby Smith is the one and only school to ever have an undefeated SEC season in the last 50+ years, and that with all his recruits,"not someone else's recruits", a charge he never deserved at all. And Tubby is the only UK coach in the last 50 years to have ten straight twenty win seasons, and that in a time when the game is getting more better and better coaches, every day, and parity among schools is growing, greatly year by year. I personally have little doubt that Tubby's record is going to look a lot better in ten years than some thinK it looks today, especially from some of the local yahoos who "just didn't like the style" 'cause it wasn't 'exciting enough'! Personally, I'll take the wins over style, anytime, anywhere!!

And that (1.8 to 2.5) may well be more coins than he was knocking down at UK. (And he will not be shoved into the position of having to fire loyal assistants, betraying his own loyalty, either.) Nor having to continually hear, or hear about, derogatory racial comments! Especially when your winning percentage is at 76+%! I don't expect to see it in the coming season, but Tubby has been to the NCAA with three teams (Tulsa, GA, and KY) for 14 straight years, so the man can coach a bit, anyway. That string is second only to Roy Williams at 16. That might tell you something about his head coaching ability. FTR, the current string of any and all schools making "the Sweet Sixteen" was or is exactly two. I do not know if that figure includes this year or not. Morris will now be gone; Some of the sought recruits will probably go elsewhere, and a couple of fresman and sophomores might transfer. We'll just have to see.

I predict that Minnesota will now reach the NCAA shortly, with a clean program (whatever that actually means), making Tubby the next one of six coaches to take four different schools to the NCAA.

And I predict that Rick Pitino will prove to be prophetic, as well, in that this will be a 'set-back' for the UK program, although I doubt it will be 15 years, and if it is, "Mitch" certainly won't be around to see it.

UK could go for the only coach who might ever get five different schools there, if they went after, and landed Lon Kruger, and he duplicated his recent success at Vegas. I do not think that will happen. Nor will KY actually give a minute's look to one of, if not the most, successful coaches in college BB today. And he would not even have to move from his currect home, unless he chose. Winning over 85% of his games, at his level, (a percentage that no Div.I coach has ever come close to reaching), and with no scholarships to give, to boot, to get the best players, that would be 'Happy' Osborne at Georgetown College. Now there's a coach, and right in UK's own backyard!!

I do know who would be the perfect new coach for UK, even satisfying most all the critics!

His name is Adolph Pitino!

Ed

 

A good number of coaches wouldn't mind that challenge at from 1 to 2 million clams a year, NO??

Ed