Fire Tubby?

The always updating Aaron’s UK Basketball Blog links to Larry Vaught’s Danville Advocate-Messenger article, which asserts that UK needs Joe Crawford needs to step up his game in order for the Wildcats to succeed. Joe’s averages are not terrible, but the team (especially Morris) needs him to be a consistent threat from outside and on the drive to keep defenses from crowding down low. Here’s a quote by Joe from the article:

I understand I can’t force the offense, but if teams are going to try and shut down Randolph, I have to be able to help make them pay for that. I have to pick my game up more in the big games.

Vaught’s suggestion is to be like Keith (Bogans); take the ball inside to fire up his shooting touch. It will be interesting to see if Tubby allows this type of game plan for Joe. I think all UK fans want him to step up his game and be more of a consistent threat like Bogans, and — as my friend Jeb put it during lunch today — less of a inconsistent threat like Kelenna Azubuike’s time at UK.

But perhaps Joe should be more like the new and improved Kelenna.

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The Wildcat fanbase is aflame after certain “fans” decided to boo Sheray when he entered the game. The overall reaction from the media outlets & teh Interwebs has been negative. The post-game call-in show for Lexington’s 630 AM WLAP started with the commentator assessment with the fans: A grade of “A” for most of the game, until the booing, in which the grade dropped to a “D”. John Clay called the boo-ers “classless” in his blog. Jerry Tipton, who’s been accused of being a Tubby poo-poo-er, played it straight in his Notes column. A Sea of Blue calls the incident “Boo-gate” and remarks on the team’s reaction from Matt May’s Cats Pause piece. Kentucky Sports Radio addressed the issue in their post-game comments section, where it took all of two posts to spin the booing into Tubby’s fault.

You can tell which side of the fence I fall on.

This is the latest example of the biggest problem of the Kentucky Wildcat basketball program: the fans. The national media broadcast teams all allude to the problem. During today’s broadcast, Clark Kellogg said that Kentucky would be having a great season to anyone other than our fans. How many times have we heard that over the years? Doesn’t that indicate a problem with our priorities as fans?

Just because we expect excellence doesn’t mean we have to throw ourselves on the ground screaming like two-year-olds when we don’t win.

In the future I’ll write a column about how we UK fans can be prideful about our program without being spoiled-rotten brats about it. Until then, feel free to criticize honestly the play of our UK Players and Coaches on call-in shows. Talk about how we don’t protect the ball, how we play “ugly” basketball, how our juniors and seniors need to pick up their output. Criticize the game.

But when you get into Rupp — where we have recruits and national television — you back your team and your players. You get on board with the players on the court. The players NEED you to scream after every blown call, to drum up some support during an opponent’s run, to rock the rafters after our big plays. Otherwise, as a poster named “Sheray Thomas” put on the KSR thread: “dont boo us it just makes us not care about the fans anymore”

UK Basketball is not a stage play; you are not there to be entertained. You are there to be part of the team. Otherwise, you are being the malcontent player that poisons the team. We already had Team Turmoil last year; we don’t need it again this year.

Update: Saw that Tipton posted about the boos in his H-L Notes column, so I edited my story to reflect that.

For me, UK vs. Indiana has always been “the” game. I (unlike the real Gimel) grew up on the shores of the Ohio River, across from the Hoosier State. On both sides of the river UK fans and IU fans would live peacefully until the end of November, as fever for “the game” rose on both sides. Bets are made, smack is spoken, analysis is vomited throughout the region.

The aftermath of the game is felt for almost the whole year. When the Hoosiers win, you see a whole heck more IU stuff running around Kentucky cities, and vice versa. After a streak of wins are broken, the amount of school colors is often blinding. Back in ‘91, when the Unforgettables upset Knight’s squad that featured Alan Henderson, I never felt much prouder running around Tell City in my UK Starter jacket.

Even in such a volatile area, somehow fans of the opposite teams can find love together. In our county, one such couple erected a flagpole in their back yard (that faced US-60). Flying on the pole from bottom to top were — if I remember correctly — the US flag, the flag bearing the insignia of the loser of that year’s IU vs. UK game, and then a flag of the winning school. I always thought that was cool, especially when Pitino’s and Tubby’s streak of beating IU from 1994 to ‘98 kept that Big Blue flag on top.

Last year UK tried to 3-point the Hoosiers to death, and failed miserably. This year’s Indiana team is young but extremely athletic. They gave Duke everything the Dukies didn’t want; the only thing that saved Duke’s non-conference win streak was the Hoosier’s poor shot selection throughout the game. Needless to say, I’m a little concerned for our Wildcats; athletic pressure D is Kentucky’s Achilles Heel, and a flowing motion O can find some open looks against our D.

With enough pressure and some senior/junior leadership (and another monster game from Morris), UK will have a good chance to capitalize on that poor shot selection and win. I’m sure everybody south of the Ohio is hoping the same. Go Cats!

It’s getting colder out side, we’ve had our first snowfall, and the Christmas holiday is upon us. It’s around this time of year that I like to think about all the good times. So, since the Indiana game is tomorrow I though I’d take the time to show one of my favorite memories. With just a little twist. Here’s what I came up with, have a look.

I just wanted to point out the excellent article by Gimel over at our sister (brother?, cousin?) site firerich.com. If you haven’t had the chance yet, I recommend checking it out. That’s all. Now go.

Jared Carter re-injured his shoulder and will be out for the remainder of the season.

via WKYT

At the taping of the Tubby Smith Show, the UK coach anounced that Jared Carter will miss the rest of the season after reinjuring his shoulder in practice this morning. Carter had dislocated the shoulder prior to the Maui Invitational. Smith said that UK will apply for a redshirt season for Carter, and that he is expected to make a full recovery.

I though it would be a good time check in on some former Cats to see what they have been up to recently.

Kenny “Sky” Walker

This isn’t so much of a catch-up as it is an excuse for me to link to his website. The comedic value alone of the photo page is more than worth it. Not sure if this has been talked about on any of the other Kentucky sites but it’s the first time I’ve seen it. What? I don’t get out much. There is so much Fark photoshop material on there it could possibly bring the whole internet down. Never mind that it doesn’t look like it’s been updated in about 3 years. All of the posed pictures are exact replicas of high school senior portrait’s. Enjoy.

Chuck Hayes
Perennial fan favorite Chuck Hayes is now with the Houston Rockets. And he’s a starter. That’s right, the guy who was “to small” to make it in the NBA playing alongside Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady every night. Not only that but he has a fan site dedicated to him. Good to see him doing well.

Steve Masiello
Former Pitino ball boy/walk-on Steve Masiello has landed at Louisville after being an assistant at Manhattan for several years. We will be seeing him in a couple of weeks.

Erik Daniels

Erik Daniels is plying his trade in Italy for Pallacanestro Biella I would let you know how he is doing, but I don’t really read Italian. Nor could I find a link to a box score by randomly clicking around on the site. Still sportin’ the fro though. He bounced around a little from NBADL to NBA with Sacramento. I’m sure he is doing quite well money wise in Italy. I’ve always heard that is one of the top tier European leagues as opposed to…

Gerald Fitch

Gerald Fitch is playing in Istanbul(not Constantinople)Turkey for Galatasaray Cafe Crown in the Beko Basketball League. From looking over the site (strangely in English) it appears as if Gerald is lighting it up over there. He is the MVP of the team and in one of the more recent games dropped 35 points and 11 rebounds. Just about every year he is invited to an NBA camp and summer leagues for tryout and does remarkably well but hasn’t found a permanent fit yet. Hope he makes it.

Photos courtesy of their respective websites.

In case you missed it on LEX18, apparently Alan Cutler has been calling around to check Randolph’s status with some NBA teams. Well, you can just watch the video.

Today kids, the word of the day is: capability

I purposefully haven’t read any coverage of the game so I don’t know what the general consensus is. Sometimes it’s good to just form your own opinion without knowingly or unwittingly assuming the herd mentality. So what do I think? I think that was some of the funnest Kentucky basketball I have seen in quite some time. Not the whole game of course, that brings us to our firetubby.com awards for the night.

The Acadamy Award for best Vlade Divac-esque performance goes to:
Kevin Bridgewaters
Best Supporting Actor in a Vlade Divac-esque performance:
The Ref

Those three or four horrendous calls including the Jasper technical killed Kentucky’s momentum in it’s tracks. Up to that point we got to see what looked to me like a truly angry Tubby Smith and a team that suddenly “got it”. They didn’t come away with my 30 like I asked them to but at the end of the night I still ended up a satisfied if not temporarily pacified fan.

Something else we did get a glimpse of is maybe what Ramel was talking about (see pregame). The intensity during the spurt was something that hasn’t been seen on the court by the Cats for a while now. Is that what the practices look like? It felt like they were giving it their all. The in-huddle reports by “I’m Rob Bromley”, as forced and somewhat embarrassing as they may be, show that Tubby is telling them to push the ball. I got a taste of something cool last night. It tasted like capability. I want to see more.

Tonight the Cats make one of their yearly trips to Freedom Hall for an away-home game. This for all intents and purposes should be an unadulterated blowout. Not speaking for anyone but myself, I want to see a game that ends up with a margin near double the current line.

That line is a hefty -16 1/2. So, I would like to see Kentucky win by around 30. I don’t think that’s to much to ask seeing as how Florida beat them by 49. I’m not looking at match-ups here. I can’t name one of their player’s, I haven’t even looked at their roster. Why such the strong stance? This article in the HL. In that article Tubby says there will likely be another lineup change to improve ball handling. What really stands out is the quote by Ramel Bradley.

“If we don’t turn the ball over, and make the right play at the right time, we win those games,” he said yesterday, “and we’re easily the No. 1 team in the country. We feel we’re the best team in the country, and we’re going to show it.”

I was amazed when I read that. I know Ramel may be a little cocky, but does he really believe that? Go back and reread that quote. He didn’t say that they could be ONE OF the best, he said they would easily be THE No. 1 team.

Then, two paragraphs later comes Tubby’s quote about the game against UT-Chattanooga.

“There are a lot of things we need to improve to intimidate anybody,” he said. “We know we have to play one of our better games.”

Who do you believe in this instance? The savvy veteran coach or the cocky veteran player. Myself being the eternal optimist will go with Ramel on this one. If we really do need “one of our better games” to beat UT-C it could be a scary season. See you after the game. Go Cats!