Kind of surreal don’t you think?
Kind of surreal don’t you think?
This entry was posted on Friday, March 23rd, 2007 at 1:13 pm and is filed under Good Luck Coach. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
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March 23rd, 2007 at 1:46 pm
I wonder if he bought that tie in December … by the way, I’m lovin’ it … (that he is gone).
March 23rd, 2007 at 2:36 pm
watching the press conference video feed, you know it is similar to the feeling in your stomach you get when after breaking up with a girlfriend that you never wanted to be with in the first place, and then seeing her the next week out with another guy. Even though she was busted, it still stings a little. Even if the other guy is the ‘Golden Gophers’ … which is the equivalent of dating Screech.
……or maybe that it is just gas I am feeling. beano please.
seriously … Minnesota? no offense to Gopher fans, but that is like going from the coaching the Lakers to coaching the the Oxmoor Lodge Retirement Home’s Annual Lawn Bowling Jamboree. Go OXMOOR!
March 23rd, 2007 at 2:47 pm
So basketball is to Minnesota like intelligence is to Kentucky right ?
March 23rd, 2007 at 2:49 pm
I think I would have to take my shoes off to answer that.
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:01 pm
I believe Tubby looks better in marroon than he ever did in blue. Bye Bye Tubby…..don’t let the door hit you on the butt on the way out.
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Where is Minnesota anyway? I thought we sold it to some fur traders back in the 1800’s for some bearskins and a barrel of mackerel … nope, that was Wisconsin. My bad. Your analogy stands.
March 23rd, 2007 at 4:11 pm
minnesota 9-22 or what
at least uk is the exact opposite
March 23rd, 2007 at 4:17 pm
“Where is Minnesota?” you ask? Do you even have a city in Kentucky? We have 4 professional sports teams to worry about, so forgive us if our college basketball program doesn’t perform well every year. God, it must suck to live in a state full of big wooden burning crosses with one team to root for. Minnesota will destroy Kentucky over the next 5 years in basketball.
March 23rd, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Come on people. I am a huge Gopher fan, and love the Tubby Smith hire, but I have been to Kentucky and they have a lot of cities, the people are nice, and they have an unbelievable basketball program. A program that we would love to have (4 pro teams or not). But with the program comes great expectations and impatience. Their loss is our gain. With Smith maybe we can rise up to our short stint glory years.
The college traditions in the south are amzing to watch, whether it is Alabama Football or Kentucky Basketball. Sometimes the traditions can be a little crazy and dumb, but many times you leave them wondering how we can harness that in MN. The truth is that Gopher BB was huge in the mid 90’s and then fell off. In KY, it does not fall off (although maybe it would if they were 9-22). Maybe it is our pro teams that distract us and make 9-22 possible. But I cannot fault KY for being diehard 24/7 fans. I can thank them for their impatience and allowing us to hire a great coach from KY.
March 23rd, 2007 at 7:20 pm
I find it hard to believe that Kentucky fans think they can possibly find anyone better than Tubby. After the way he was treated with the record he had, no one in their right mind would want to coach there. What succesful coach would want to leave his program to go there now and endure that kind of mistreatment. The Gophers hiring Tubby is the greatist thing to ever happen to Minnesota basketball. If he wins 15 games next year playing against Podunk Central, he will be considered the second coming of JC in the state. Kentucky fans are a bunch of spoiled idiots. They don’t know how low a program can go (the gophers got beat by a D2 team last year).
March 23rd, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Look all u haters got what u ask for now watch and see what happens… i will always be a Cat Fan no matter who is coaching. I’m glad for Tubby he f’d em with their clothes still on….hahahah too funny. I will support Tubby unless they r playin us. But I will tell u this He who laughs last laughs longest and hardest!!!!!!
March 23rd, 2007 at 10:01 pm
I remember driving through the state of kentucky the day that Tubby was hired and the phone calls were 65% negative. He has never really felt the love and I am glad that he has found some place that he can have a little peace. He did not seem to get enough of the high caliber players and did not seem to keep the ones he got. But I would ask how many have been there in the recent past?
March 23rd, 2007 at 10:27 pm
” I think I would have to take my shoes off to answer that. ”
Lol. Again, my best wishes to KY fans. No matter how wacko I think you all are. Frankly, as someone else pointed out, MN has four pro sport’s teams, in real sports. Soccer, Lacrosse, and no offense to them, but womens BB and womens football of all things really aren’t counted, we have plenty of others things to worry about especially since most of the said teams are mediocre. Our college sports certainly do attract their respective rabid fans
even wrestling just won a National Championship, congrats to them, but, folks live for their sports regardless of mediocrity. Two words should explain it all - The Raiders. They’ve sucked for years and look at the idiots that follow them, gotta give them their passion though, they love their football team. But even the Vikings and football Gophers are still selling out 60 some thousand seats every game and they suck ! Alas. We’ll see if Tubby can breathe some life into our basketball program. Minnesota is a good place and I wish him well. It will be a love affair to begin with but if he doesn’t win the affection will wane and someone will call for his head eventually. Although, we have more class than to start a FireTubby website, Lord knows.
March 24th, 2007 at 12:26 am
Look guys…..Tubby cannot recruit…could not recruit players at KY and definitely won’t be able to recruit at a 9 win MN team. The decent players he did recruit, he destroyed by overemphasizing defense play and their initial offensive scoring ability declined. High School players today do not want to play defense because that is not what gets them to the NBA, thus, poor recruiting. Tubby may be a good hearted man, and I can accept that, but, he is just a decent coach. The UK program has went down every year since he took over. You think we would get 20 wins next season if he stayed?…no way! We, here in KY, have lived with Tubby for 10 years…You in MN have only heard the positives about Tubby for 2 days. I hope he does OK for you, and he probably will, as long as you are only looking to make it into the NCAA tournament (for one game). You might get lucky and win an NIT championship. Good luck……. Maybe we will keep this website up and ready for you when you need it in 4 years.
Oh yeah, and I’m not looking to start a fight here, but, you do have the Vikings, the Twins, and the Timberwolves….granted these are Pro teams, but, have you bothered to check the records of any of those teams lately? The Twins??????come on…..the Timberwolves?????give me a break
I am thankful that we don’t have support any of those overpriced, snobby, drug head, thugs that most people call “Pros”. (not all of them are bad but probably 30%-50%)
March 24th, 2007 at 6:00 am
” The Twins??????come on ”
Certainly correct about the other ones. The Twins though have won the divsion four out of the last five years. Done pretty much without marquee players, except Santana. Last year was a bit of an exception. Good baseball team though.
I’ve read enough about Tubby to know a bit of the good and bad he’s provided KY. He’s good enough for everyone else except KY. Where expectations are beyond unreasonable. Your living in past glory. Two championships in the last 10 years. Ok. One championship 20 years before that, and four 25 years before that. Throw out the five and you can have to two in the 90’s. You don’t think we’d like to go back to ‘87 and ‘91 when the Twins won the World Series ? Of course we would. We don’t expect that every year without an appearance is a failure though. Big difference. You folks need to get a life.
March 24th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Hey guys how about showing a little class.
March 24th, 2007 at 8:23 am
And for CyberWhip we have for the guy that can’t coach and can’t recruit this -
Smith led Kentucky to one National Championship in 1998, a perfect 16-0 regular season conference record in 2003, five SEC regular season championships (1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005) and five SEC Tournament titles (1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004), with six Sweet Sixteen finishes and three Elite Eight finishes (1999, 2003, 2005) in his nine seasons.
A fairly impressive accomplishment. But for the KY faithful and unacceptable record. If it wasn’t sad it would actually be rather humerous.
What world are you living in ?
March 24th, 2007 at 9:23 am
“You folks need to get a life.”
We just got one!!!!!!
“Two championships in the last 10 years. Ok. One championship 20 years before that, and four 25 years before that. Throw out the five and you can have to two in the 90’s.”
wtf was all that supposed to mean? Do we expect to win a championship every year? no. Do we expect to beat at least 1 top 25 school in a season? yes. Tubby has left our program a mess!!!!!! and not just this year, there have been several years he had to “find a lost fax” or “discover a grade that was missing on a transcript” in order to salvage a halfway decent team.
Look guys…it’s a free country…this site (and others) were only created so that we could share our thoughts and maybe let the powers that be hear us. We thought it was time for a change. Tubby made his choice and that is great for everyone involved. See you back here in 10 years.
Just one question to all you great MN fans out there. Just how long do you accept a sub par program before the coach has to go? 4 years? 5 years? Obviously you just fired your coach, heck he won 9 games, come on, thats no reason to fire a great guy (to hear you guys talk). Heck, the guy was dealing with probation. You should have at least given the poor guy a chance.
March 24th, 2007 at 10:35 am
I met Tubby in person a couple of times and he is truly a class individual.
An excellent coach also but in the end not a good fit for UK basketball.
As for all the dissing of Minnesota, what’s the point? Be happy for the guy, and let’s move on with the future of UK basketball.
If it makes you feel better to down Tubby and Minnesota, great. I say show some class and wish them all the best and afford them the respect that we UK fans demand and respect.
March 24th, 2007 at 10:37 am
BTW–I meant to say…”afford them the same respect that we UK fans demand and EXPECT.”
March 24th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
I just cant seem to figure out why people of Minnesota are dissing our city and fans, I’ve lived in Lexington most of my life and yes we wear shoes, and yes we do have a city, as for the fans we just expect more than what others do i suppose, as for Tubby he just didn’t work out here period, so think about the reason your putting us down and is it really worth it? you guys got what you wanted in Tubby so be happy with it, Ky basketball will be fine in the Bluegrass see you guys on the flip side
March 24th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Who’s Tubby going to be able to recruit at Minnesota? I didn’t even think they still had a team. I think John is actually GG Smith, the only one out of the whole family who could ball(or coach it)
March 24th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
“As for all the dissing of Minnesota, what’s the point? Be happy for the guy, and let’s move on with the future of UK basketball.”
Who is dissing whom? I didn’t start this whole thing. All I said is goodbye and good luck, then you got these MN tards trying to tell us how much better their city is compared to ours. I simply pointed out the flaw in their argument.
Everyone is saying how big of a mistake this was for KY. UK did not do this, this was Tubby walking away. All we did was ask him to change something that wasn’t (obviously) working, get rid of a couple of assistants. He got pissed and bolted….great it’s a win-win situation. And now we got everyone in the media telling us how stupid we look. What this all comes down to is a race issue. If we look so stupid then how did the OSU Buckeyes look firing a champion coach for losing 1 game a year? How did Tennessee football look after firing a champion coach for losing 2 games a year? How did Louisville Basketball look after “moving Crum to the head office job” (aka fired) when supposedly he was turning that program around, he had 2 championships by the way? I think it turned out for the better for each one of them although Louisville you could argue has not won it all yet. The only difference was all those coaches were white and the universities were justified. Again, I think Tubby is a great human being, but, he had a job, to coach not to be a great person. I didn’t see anyone complaining about Bill Curry when we canned his a$$, and, I believe that he is a real good person also. But he was white, so nobody made a big fuss about it. Sometimes the truth hurts and I’m just telling the story no one wanted to tell. I think the media and the other program want to turn this into a race thing without shouting out loud about it so that they can use it against us down the road, especially in recruiting, especially Dukie Vitale and his Devils, what an idiot.
March 24th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Heres the thing Golden Golpher fans. He duped the state of KY for the $$$$
He has just begun the $$$ dupe there. He couldn’t recruit at KY, there is
no way he will recruit in the Big Ten. Get ready for mediocrity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 25th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
First of all I am a Tubby Fan, not because he was a great coach (because he wasnt) but because he was a Christian man, something that is desperately needed during the life of a college student. I am a pastor so please consider that when you respond to this.
However, Tubby couldnt recruit and as far as mediocrity goes, that would be more than MN has ever ever had in their college program. As for KY, I HOPE AND PRAY FOR BILLY DONOVAN. He wants to come here and he didnt refute the idea that it was a possibility, meaning he really does want to come
March 25th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Cmoorejam…you idoit, clutz! He would have made in the upward of about $12 million had he stayed. In the same amount of time that he had ledt on his contract here, he will only make $6.8 in Minnesota! So, how is it he left for more money when he was already the highest paid coach in college basketball? As for recruiting if u knew ur basketball….. Tubby was recruiting for ricky p in 89-91 thus Monster Mash and company which is what brought the magnificent talent here……. Also saying he can’t recruit means that those players he didnt get (Brewer of UF,Wright of UNC and several others i wont mention) never wouldve come for official visits which they did…. What does this mean?
It means Barnhart never stood up for Tubby since he’s been here. Ivy on the other hand said Tubby’s our guy dont listen to the fans. So who can blame players for not coming if ur AD is a two faced dumbass, who doesnt support his coach……
March 25th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
AKA, for the last three years, KY has only 1 recruiting class in the top 25 (16th in 2006). For the same period, Duke was in the top 5 each year, Louisville was in the top 10 for 2 of those years. This year KY was on the “lists” of 3 good prospects but none committed yet (and each had very long lists)….there it is …. scoreboard!!!!
I could go on, but ESPN did this already and, also, proved what we already knew.
Tubby is gone….get over it….Billy D. is going to do a great job…..AND, he CAN recruit!
March 25th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Quote from Gregg Doyel, CBS Sportsline.com
“Don’t feel bad today for Tubby Smith, who woke up Thursday as the coach at Kentucky but woke up Friday at Minnesota. That’s a ghastly career arc, but Tubby did this to himself. Kentucky fans didn’t help the situation, but they aren’t the losers here. Tubby is.
Tubby had one of the best jobs in college basketball and drove it right up to the side of the cliff. Tubby couldn’t figure out how to fix it, so now Tubby is gone to Minnesota, and I’ve got news for the good folks at Minnesota who clearly haven’t been paying attention to the details at Kentucky.
Unless Tubby changes his ways, he’ll flop at Minnesota. I mean, he’ll be a complete and total failure. If he couldn’t attract marquee players at Kentucky for God’s sake-how is he all of sudden going to bring them to maudlin Minnesota.”
Kinda says it all don’t it?
March 25th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Please refrain from quoting Doyel in the future. It kind of makes the whole site feel ‘dirty‘. Thanks.
March 25th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Cyber u said last 3 years and how long has barnhart been here……… U CANNOT get the top players when the fans give other schools all the fuel…. All they say to those high schoolers is look how they treat their players and coaches….u dont want to go there… Tubby doesnt believe in starting freshmen…(Jasper)…blah blah blah….One question, Who recruited for ur beloved ricky p in 89- 91 which is what started the flashy players coming to UK as I stated earlier….. Barnhart will blow this and look for someone else to blame…..all he cares about is money…the root of all evil
March 26th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
AKA, I know people are getting tired of reading this recruiting stuff, so, this will be the last I post here on this particular topic, unless someone really makes a valid point that can be backed up.
What players did we get 89-91? Mashburn….that’s it. Yeah, we got a few good ole boys in Farmer, Pelphrey, and Feldhaus, but where do you think those kids were going? And what other “flashy” player did we have 89-91? We were at the dirt bottom, on probation and nobody was coming here until we were off probation, hence Mashburn and the others to follow thereafter (after Tubby was gone). Do you really think any of those kids came to UK because Tubby, as an assistant coach, was a good guy? No they came because they seen the style of ball Rick was coaching and thought that style was NBA style, and it was. In contrast to the (almost) pure defensive ball Tubby was playing. It wasn’t necessarily the players that were flashy, it had, at least some, to do with the style of ball. Rick’s style was flashy, Tubby’s style was, well, boring. I can tell you, I went to about 20 games with Rick coaching and stayed 1 hour after the games to watch the post-game show, along with about 5000 other people. Other teams players were coming out to get Rick’s autograph. I went to 1 or 2 Tubby games and never went back, no excitement, nothing.
OK, I said last three recruiting years because that is all the hard data that I could provide a link to the source. ESPN (ala Rick Majerus) went back for maybe 6 years and compared UK to the top 5 or 10 schools in the country. UK wasn’t even close, actually they only had 2 recruiting classes in the top 20 for the last 6 years. I mentioned it in passing because I can’t provide the data verbatim and if I am off by 1 number, there are 100 people jumping on me for trying to lie or intentionally misleading.
There I’m done with the recruiting soapbox!!!! If you got some data somewhere that proves me wrong….lets have it!!!! I’m open minded, maybe I missed something.
By the way….I don’t want Rick back. I think Rick has had too many big life changing experiences. His coaching style has changed and his dedication has taken a notch down, with good reason. He is still a great coach, we just need a younger guy that is looking to make a mark. Billy D. would be great. I think Calipari would be good, not young but would work. Rick would be 3rd on my list of hopefuls, if at all.
March 27th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Why is NO ONE giving Tom Izzo his due?? The man is one of the hardest working coaches in the biz. He takes care of his home state talent and recognises the need for a in-state recruit. (no other kid is going to play with the heart of an in-stater) Izzo is an great guy too, knows the game, and has had several deep tourney advances lately. I will only be happy with two coaches…… DONOVAN, and IZZO…… Rick can stay in Louserville, it’s much better to beat him every year, and make him have to think what could have been (if he wasn’t a money grubber)…. Crean, Fey, Gillespie, all those other guys live on the hype of how ESPN kiss up to their FAVS….. Debate!!
April 6th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Thanks Tubby for everything you have done and all the memories good luck in your new job and you will always be my coach no matter what i am so sorry for all our thankless fans some people have short memories but i didnt forget thanks uk fan rob arnold