Fire Tubby?

Looks like LEX 18 ended up breaking the story anyway. Have a look.

ESPN.com is reporting that our offer will be $2.8 Million a year for 7 years, with a possible $3.5 Million after incentives. Barring the incentives, that’s $19.6 Million for the lifetime of the contract.

I think Florida has the ability to match this figure, as Ryan has said. But I don’t see how they pay Billy more than Urban, which means Urban has to get more than the $14 Million over 7 years in his current contract. The numbers Ryan sites in his article means that making both Urban and Billy happy is doable, but whether it will be done is up to Florida’s Administration.

By the way, I have no idea who did that box-o-money picture above. If that is your picture, please let me know and I’ll be sure to give you proper credit.

The always lovely A Sea of Blue has a summary of that CatsPause.com rumor about Billy Donovan’s deal with UK all but done. Of course, WLEX-18 in Lexington, ran the story for their Monday evening news and are now blaming CatsPause.com for publishing it.

The editors and managers at WLEX have only themselves to blame. Their sports folks should well know that CatsPause.com publishes rumors along with researched facts, and had no business making this top story. Anybody who knows anything about television knows why WLEX went with this rumor: they wanted to be first with the story, so that during the next Sweeps Week, we can see commercials about how WLEX was FIRST with the Billy Donovan story.

Honestly, if Donovan comes to UK, I think WLEX 18 will still run a commercial about that, even though they’ve backtracted from the story.

I just hope Ryan Lemond wasn’t involved with this decision. I’ve enjoyed his friendly & joking presence for WLEX and on radio shows. Instead, I hope that the decision was made by the infamous Snarky Alan Cutler.

Speaking of Dynasty Defending Alan, I have to share this video clip of WLEX breaking the Tubby Smith story. They cut to Alan, but he’s not snarky, he’s giddy as a schoolgirl! (Thanks to WildcatThunder.com for putting this up.)

Anyways, you hear a lot of hyper Wildcat fans spewing a lot of hyper tales about how Billy the Kid has all but signed. This rumor that the UK Fire Marshall has been told to plan for press conference in Memorial Coliseum early next week is by far my favorite.

Meanwhile, every Florida fan I’ve talked to about Billy D leaving — save for Ryan — has stuck their fingers in their ears and screamed. Impossible, a lateral move, they say. I agree that’ll be difficult to sway Billy from his good thing, but I think Kentucky is the one program in the nation that can compete for Billy’s services. Ultimately, some group of fans is going to look really stupid: either the grandstanding “I have a cousin lawyer who knows Billy Bob Joe Bill at UK Athletics” types who are swearing up and down that the Billy Donovan deal is done, or the Florida fans who argue that they are a national power in basketball.

And if Billy stays at Florida, fortunately UK can acquire one of the “Plan B” coaches on the Intern’s list (from over at Kentucky Sports Radio). Although I’d skip Coach Carter and jump straight to Jules Winnfield, who has coaching experience.

Sorry, I don’t have any juicy rumor to spread around. Kentucky Sports Radio and The Cats Pause seem to have those well covered. Billy Donovan seems to be the leading candidate not only on our informal poll but also the collective opinion from the UK related sites. So as we commonly like to do around here I thought I would take this chance to play devils advocate and point to some contrary opinions of two coaching candidates.

First up is this Donovan article in the Chicago Sun Times. It contains this this juicy morsel of a quote:

A few years ago, his image was of a slick, underachieving, cheater. Now, he’s one of the coaching gods.

Four years ago, Mike Montgomery, Stanford’s coach at the time, told The Washington Post there’s ”one coach we all know cheats, everyone knows it.” And while he didn’t name names, he gave details that pointed right at Donovan. North Carolina coach Roy Williams dropped hints questioning Donovan’s ethics, too.

It’s amazing what a couple of Final Fours can do for you.

No one has pinned anything on Donovan. So you can ignore the accusations as jealous ramblings, or do as I do and fold the whole thing up and place it somewhere neatly in the back of your mind.

Hmmmmmmm, definitely interesting. Also in that article, the latest rumor involving Donovan is that he’s next in line to replace Pat Riley in Miami.

So you have a rumored cheater vs a proven cheater in John Calipari. Oh wait, maybe not.

Calipari has been painted with a tar brush ever since Camby’s confession. The NCAA deleted the school’s Final Four appearance from the record books for using an ineligible player. But there were no sanctions. And, in a letter obtained by the Daily News, dated June 8, 2004, Tom Yeager, the chairman of the committee on infractions, told Calipari: “The committee fully recognizes you had nothing to with the violations of Marcus Camby during the 1995-96 season. In a sense, you were an innocent victim.”

That was from the New York Daily News. Food for thought anyway.

A weird story about how Ric Flair was the motivational speaker before Florida’s game on Friday.

Ex-pro wrestler Flair pumps up Gators men

What the hell? Ric Flair? Really? Actually if you think about it Noah would make an excellent villain. He has that cocky arrogant attitude that just makes you want to hit him with a steel chair off the top rope. Or maybe that’s just me.

I thought this was funny from John Clay’s H-L article today.

Did Tubby agonize any more over this move than he did his previous eight?

“Let’s get this straight,” Donna said. “It’s the wife that does the agonizing. You know what they do; it’s like, ‘OK, see ya.’ We’re going (back to Lexington) tonight and I’m sure he’ll probably be back up here Sunday morning.”

Donna will be the one who has to “pack the house, sell the house, move the house.” It’s a bit easier this time in that oldest sons G.G. and Saul are out of the house.

“When we were considering it, we only had to ask our youngest son, Brian,” she said of the sophomore at Ole Miss. “He was like, ‘No. That is whack. That’s my home. Those are my people.’ And I was like, ‘You will have a bedroom wherever we move. And besides, after you graduate, you won’t be living with us anyway. So this was easier.”

Randolph Morris has left the building. For the New York Knicks and I can’t blame him one bit. It’s apparently a two year deal for $1.6 mil. I wonder if he would have stuck around if Tubby would have stayed? Who knows.

Something weird about this story, is that I read about it at 2:30 today over on Kentucky Sports Radio. That’s not very unusual because the crew over there usually does a good job at breaking stories such as this. But in this case it was by someone that left a comment. Check out this post over there. Scroll down to comments #129 and 134. This guy, Randy21, already knew. Very interesting.

By the way, I just thought of something. Does anyone know what Sheray was suspended for at the beginning of last season?

Kind of surreal don’t you think?

I was poised at the keyboard to try to capture a few quotes from Tubby’s interview today on ESPN Sports Radio. Tubby’s responses were faster than my fat fingers could type them, so I apologize if the following isn’t a verbatim record of his responses. Follow along after the jump.

Opinions. Ok, I might as well go ahead and give mine on the coaching situation. Who the new one will be that is. This is purely my opinion and I’m sure TFGimel and Hefty Lefty have their own. My list is only three people, just to keep this simple. These aren’t the only people I would be happy with. If you have your own opinion please scroll down and vote in our poll and be sure to leave your comments as well. Here we go.

I think there are two guys you have to hear a no from before you move on. Billy Donovan and Rick Pitino. Decide which of those is your top guy and go after him first. That first choice may end up being Pitino because he is already at home and Donovan is unavailable until the tourney is over. If the job can be filled within a short period there is a better chance to land one or both of the recruits. I’ve taken opportunity to simulate how the converstaions between Mitch Barnhardt and those two guys may go. Enjoy.

Hey Billy, we’ve got this uh, new practice facility. I’m sure you’ve heard all about it, it’s got this new underwater treadmill and stuff. It’s pretty awesome. Uhh, it’s already been named the Joe Craft Center but I’m sure Mr. Craft wouldn’t mind if you wanted to go ahead and put your name on it. How does the Billy Donovan Center sound?

and Pitino,

Mr. Pitino sir, we’ve got this street on campus that used to be called Hal Mumme Boulevard, we’ve gone ahead and renamed it Rick Pitino Boulevard. Is there anything else that you might want? The boosters here gave me this blank check to bring along to give to you. Go ahead and fill that in with whatever you think is appropriate.

That’s pretty much the scale of what it would take to bring in either of those guys. That was the “Go Big” section of this post. Next you have the “Come Home” portion.

Travis Ford. I know, I know. It’s completely irrational. It makes no sense. He’s to young. He’s to inexperienced. He’s not ready. All probably true. BUT, Billy Donovan only coached at Marshall for TWO years before going to Florida. I just feel (damn you Kentucky pride, shakes fist) that rather than go after someone else and possibly end up with an Indiana situation where the choice of Kelvin Samson felt underwhelming you bring Ford in as a young guy and see what he can do.

Everyone pretty much agrees they would like to see Travis be the head coach at “some point” but just not yet. If you can’t land a big, known name give him the chance. How much time will the new guy have? Will they give him three, four, or five years to get to the final four? By that time, and yes this is pure Kentucky smugness and speculation on my part, Travis could already have “his Florida”. That’s what I think about it, I’d like to know your opinion.

I say this quite often and I’m sure I speak for the other guys on the site when I say we really do appreciate everyone that visits the site and leaves comments. It’s fun to read even when we don’t agree. As you would expect the end of this site is quickly approaching but we will surface somewhere else after the coaching dust settles. When that happens I’ll be sure to point to our new home if you would like to follow along. In the mean time be sure to keep checking in. Thanks! Go Cats!!