Take a bow fellas, it’s your last time to take it all in at the house that Rupp built. Don’t want to bump tfGimels post to much, just wanted to say thanks to the seniors. Don’t forget Shagari, he would have been here as well.
Wow, this has been a heck of a week, eh? Buyout rumors, Mitch’s very distant assessment of the program and Coach Smith, and crappy rap videos. We have people saying that Tubby’s contract buyout is possible.
Of course, there are still games to be played. Tonight is Senior Night. Nobody’s talking about giving Sheray, Woo and Bobby a good send-off because we’re all stirring the pot. They have worked and played hard for 4 years. The players deserve for us fans to stop screaming at each other and in the general direction of Memorial Coliseum. The players deserve for us to show them some appreciation for being committed to the Big Blue.
I’ve been thinking for a while about how I can shift gears out of fighting mode and back into Big Blue Fan mode. Given recent events, I think I finally found a path back to being a fan for just a little while longer, until the conclusion of the NCAAs.
WLEX is reporting that WVLZ in Knoxville said there are discussions about buying out Tubby’s contract. I’ve got the video form the 6 o’clock news if anyone is interested in hearing it straight from (yep, Alan Cutler). He goes on to say that UK officials have been approaching donors to come up with the money to buy out the contract. I’ve searched around a little and that would be no small feat. According to this Denver Post article that would cost UK 9 million dollars (and a shark with a frickin’ laser beam attached to its head). Or about a third of a practice facility.
I’m sure that kind of money would make some around UK mighty uneasy. Scott Stricklin was quoted by Cutler calling the story “inacurate”. Mitch Barnhardt also released a statement but didn’t specifically address the allegations by the radio station. That’s just so much cash that I don’t see how it could possibly be done. Stranger things have happened though. It does feel like the point of no return has been reached for Tubby. I said in this post that I thought he was “done”. I still feel the same way. I read somewhere recently that a loyalty clause will kick in for Tubby that will garner him a large bonus after the season. The reality is that I think there is to much money to be spent or lost by either side to make a change after this season regardless of how it ends up.
In that last column, something in Dick Vitale’s Tubby cheerleading article caught my eye:
You have never heard Tubby Smith make excuses or alibis. He never cries or whines … he simply coaches and his team always performs to the maximum of their ability.
But then, I read Jerry Tipton’s article on Sunday’s Vandy Loss and find this:
“We’ve got to get guys to understand the value of the basketball,” Smith said. “That’s something we’ve had trouble with all year long. The same type of turnovers and it’s happening to veteran players.”…
“One of the problems we’ve had is trying to put the ball in a guy’s hand who can execute under duress when time and score (pressure looms) and the shot clock is winding down,” Smith said. “We have to find the right guy, find somebody who can do that.”
…
Smith punctuated his post-game news conference by seeming to confess his doubt at such moments. When asked about changes he could make to turn Kentucky into a clutch team, the UK coach defended his system.
“We’ve won in the past doing it this way,” he said. “It’s just a matter of personnel.”
Let’s skip the “BUT ITS YOUR PERSONNEL!” argument for once. Also, let’s qualify this with the following: out of all the post-game articles I read, none of the other ones ended with the emphasis on Tubby making excuses about the game. The rest usually ended with comments about Perry’s & Meeks’ play or other positive notes. Tipton has been accused of slanting articles in the past, and I’m not saying he’s doing that here, but I thought I would point that out.
Back to my exclamation: When was the last time you saw Tubby completely hang his team out to dry in the media? To be making excuses about the execution of his system? Like Vitale pointed out, you don’t normally hear him talk bad about the team. Sometimes he’ll mention that somebody needs to work on something, or he’ll use “We” comments — such as “We need to work on our rebounding.” These quotes seemed much more harsher than usual.
(Maybe I haven’t been paying attention. If you have quotes from Tubby in this year or years past that has him making excuses for the team’s performance by blaming the team and not himself, please let us know in the comments. Don’t do the whole “well I heard him say this and that, I think” routine; find me a web page that cites it and paste the URL in your comment.)
Chris Diggs says that we shouldn’t be so worked up about Tubby’s post-game comments. He mentions that Pitino did it. I know Pitino would publicly remark about his players as an incentive to get his players to listen; but it gave the Big Blue Nation somebody to spit fire and brimstone at, and took the pressure off Pitino.
Calling out players in a press conference is not something that Tubby is known for. For whatever reason he is doing it, I think it is sad that he feels he needs to resort to it.
Since the Big Blue Moaning is officially at ear-splitting levels, I figured I’d check in on TubbySmith.com, which I addressed earlier in the season. I was expecting the site to be stale, but it appears the maintainers have raised shields in this time of turmoil.
In the past, when you visit the site’s front page, a little Virtual Tubby Smith walks out from the side and welcomes you to the site. Now, Virtual Tubby walks out and says:
Kentucky fans are the best, and they love Wildcat basketball.
I suppose this was probably recorded at the beginning of the year with the rest of these spots. I bet the website maintainers didn’t think they would have to use this generic recording as a response to negative Tubby backlash.
At the bottom of the page, they’ve added a link to Dick Vitale’s January column about Tubby, where Dick calls him “underrated”. You know, just in case some Concerned fans might be clueless about Tubby’s worth as a coach, as given by a well-respected member of the television media.
Changes like these on your website are necessary when you lose 4 out of your last 5 games, I guess. D-Fence! Clap! Clap!
Lately, there have been several folks that are confusing me with the Real Gimel Martinez, the guy who actually played basketball for Kentucky. As I’ve stated before, I am just a fan of the Real Gimel, and I took this pseudonym as a tribute to my favorite Wildcat of all time.*
In order to prevent any further confusion, I have changed my pen name to something slightly more direct: The Fake Gimel Martinez. All posts made by “Gimel Martinez” previously here, on Deadspin, AOL Sports FanHouse, and at Kentucky Sports Radio have been made by The Fake Gimel (me), not the real, live, actual Gimel.
I hope this post will clear things up and not clog the lane, like Real Gimel taking a charge back in the day.
While we are getting things out in the open, I wanted to remind our readers that, unless the team’s play “goes from suck to blow“, that “Nahhh” remains our answer to the Fire Tubby question. Some people have been so down on the coach that they can’t see his strengths: He’s an excellent in-game coach, plays the kind of defense that NBA teams wish they could teach and in the past shown us he has the ability and drive to bring Kentucky out of this hole. (The hole that, honestly, he helped dig.)
Whatever happens, we here at Fire Tubby will always try to find the funny in the middle of the Big Blue Moan. Just remember, I’m not Real.
Last night at halftime of the LSU vs UK game, ESPN’s Heather Cox was on duty as the sideline reporter and asked a question that John Brady didn’t appreciate very much. Roughly translated by me he said, “Well thats a, thats, a …stupid f**king question.” After his response she tries to ask a follow-up but he will have none of it. I’ll also roughly translate him walking away as “get in the kitchen and make me some pie.”
Check out the video if you were at the game and want to see it for yourself. Even if you saw it the first time it’s still worth a second watch.
Ah, Big Baby.
Some of you might remember Glen Davis playing weatherman for the SEC Media Days late last year. His predictions reminded me of Ollie Williams from Family Guy.
For Kentucky, he predicted “Ninety-percent (chance of) rain… and then thunderstorms, man.” Somewhat correct, much to our chagrin. For Baton Rouge, he forecasted “Sunshine… Nice 75 (degrees) and a cool breeze blowing.” But that was way off; his season has been more like Hurricane Katrina. (Maybe the LSU Alums can start blaming Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.)
For Gainesville, he forecasted, “Hot… They’ve got five guys there coming back, so it’s going to be hot. Real hot.” I think he meant Joaquim Noah’s temper, but I guess it also applies to the whole team.
I’ve been looking forward to Big Baby coming to Rupp ever since his forecasts. Not only is he a stellar player, but a worthy adversary. As a cold-front moved into Lexington, affecting our team’s shooting and overall quality of play, I thought LSU had a real shot at giving us another L.
However, the AP is reporting that the weatherman stayed home due to injury. LSU has been inconsistent with Davis in the lineup; without their star, it will be difficult to contain our Almost Famous Wildcat.
And if you look in the skies above Rupp, you might see a break in the clouds.
We try to be original around here and not just a link dump, but today is an exception. It was announced that UK has picked up it’s first verbal commitment for the 2008 season. He is none other than Draymond Green. Ta Da! No, don’t worry, I’ve never heard of him either. Not that it’s a bad thing because I’ve never heard of him. Not at all. I couldn’t tell you the name of one high school junior anywhere in the US. So it would make no sense for me to pretend to know anything about this kid. Please go to these other places that seem to have an obsession with underage high school basketball players. Just kidding, take it easy. But I can say that I don’t have notes on random basketball player’s laying around that say “Impressive frame….nice jumper….decent low-post moves….knack for the ball.”
Kentucky Sports Radio - So just who is this Draymond Green kid anyway?
The Courier-Journal - Cats get commitment from Michigan junior
Wildcats Thunder Blog - UK gets its FIRST 2008 Commitment