Fire Tubby?

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.

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.