Double Standards

Note to 99% of all college fans:

– You are not allowed to be unhappy with where your team finishes if they had a winning season.
– You are expected to support college athletics because your money helps support alot of scholarships; not because you expect excellence in the premiere sports.
– You need to accept your assigned place in the athletic world.
– Winning is not everything…after all, it’s just college sports.

Signed
Mass Media Morons

Kentucky’s 88-76 loss to Kansas looks a lot better on paper than it did during the game – the Jayhawks were in firm control throughout. So the question remains whether Tubby Smith will return (or will even want to) for an 11th season in Lexington. I wrote this last week, but to lay down blanket criticism of Kentucky fans for growing restless is disingenuous.

They give more financially and emotionally than any other fan base in the country – Kentucky’s success is based solely on its fan commitment, not on proximity to talent or major media markets. It is quite reasonable for them to expect a return on that investment. And Smith hasn’t provided it with 25 losses in the last two years, few good recruits and nearly 20 transfers under his watch.

The program isn’t what it should be. Smith is a tremendous game coach and defensive strategist but sometimes that isn’t enough. It’s doubtful UK fires him, but he may walk. And if not, he better find some recruits.


Dan Wetzel

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

06-07 Basketball General NCS Basketball

140 Responses to Double Standards

  1. noah 03/19/2007 at 9:36 AM #

    I’m kinda curious how coaches see the UK job. Is it still one of the marquee jobs in sports?

    I don’t know…

  2. Redblogger 03/19/2007 at 9:38 AM #

    Maybe we could see Tubby at Wake in a few years???

  3. RickJ 03/19/2007 at 9:43 AM #

    I could see a Michigan – Tubby marriage. You can definitely win at Michigan but with less pressure (football first).

    In my view, Kentucky is still a great job.

  4. beowolf 03/19/2007 at 9:44 AM #

    There was a sizeable contingent of Pack fans wanting Tubby here. As I said then, we just “ran off” a coach for not performing to our historic basketball program’s traditionally high expectations. Why would we want someone else here who wasn’t performing at a historic basketball program’s traditionally high expectations? (I used that same argument against Lavin, too. We dodged two bullets in them, I believe.)

  5. choppack1 03/19/2007 at 9:44 AM #

    Noah – It definitely is. The question on these things that always arise is timing. Kentucky is definitely a marquee job – but will the marque coaches out there be interested? We know Pitino isn’t going back, Roy and Coach K are staying put. Lute Olson is too old. Florida has too many pieces in place for Donovan to leave.

    Gillespie and SIU’s coach are probably strong candidates, but they excell at the grinding out game employed by Tubby. I could definitely see Calipari leaving Memphis for Kentucky. The character thing isn’t as important there and he’s not competing against Coach K AND Roy Williams.

  6. beowolf 03/19/2007 at 9:51 AM #

    What about Phil Ford? **snort**

  7. primacyone 03/19/2007 at 9:56 AM #

    How about Herb Sendeck? I’ve heard he is awesome!!!:)

    I’d agree with choppack1 and bet they drive down to Memphis and pay a visti to the great Calimari.

  8. noah 03/19/2007 at 9:57 AM #

    Does Lon Kruger still hate his AD? I thought he was a good fit for our job last year and he’s done nothing to disprove that.

    Gillespie is a terrific coach…he’d also be a good hire. Lowery is a comer, but I don’t know if he’s ready for that jump.

  9. class of 74 03/19/2007 at 9:57 AM #

    It is a shame, as Tubby is a good man, but the record speaks for itself. The UK job is a plum that will have dozens scrambling to take if a vacancy appears. I don’t think Calipari would be on top of their list but who knows. Probably someone Dan Issel and Pat Riley think highly of would be my guess.

  10. Rochester 03/19/2007 at 10:00 AM #

    The names mentioned for the Michigan job are almost all names that came up for our job last year. It’s truly a case of “line up the usual suspects.” Lon Kruger (who impressed me yesterday), Rick Majerus, John Beilein (how’s that buyout looking these days?), etc., etc.

  11. RickJ 03/19/2007 at 10:06 AM #

    Hiring Kruger makes no sense. He is exactly like Smith – great coach, average recruiter. It would be just like NC State hiring Beilein.

  12. joe 03/19/2007 at 10:10 AM #

    Why do people here get so upset about the media? I thought they were all a bunch of liberal UNC fans?

    If I was in the media I would write stuff about NCSU all the time because it’s so easy to get Pack fans all riled about about any little thing. They probably love to see Pack fans get foaming at the mouth.

  13. primacyone 03/19/2007 at 10:14 AM #

    What’s that you say? Herb Sendeck is not good enough for UK?

    I’ll let a former Herb disciple and ongoing red coat convert , Tim Tucker coughcedarwolfcough, explain it in this college of management research project and presentation to all college basketball fans of teams that play/played the “not the princeton offense” and/or or otherwise that don’t generally agree with the “mass media morons”.

  14. Par Shooter 03/19/2007 at 10:17 AM #

    It’s funny how time changes perceptions. I can vividly recall being in Reynolds in March or April 1997 at a WPC meeting where Herb was the speaker. We had just had the nice run at the end of his 1st season and I believe that Pitino had just left Ky within the last couple of days for the Celtics. The big worry at the time was that Ky would come after Herb and this was back in the “Da Man” days when it wasn’t viewed as a good thing. He basically debunked it during his talk and everyone roared approval. Now, 10 years later, the idea of them looking at him is a total joke. Of course, a similar thing happened with CTC re: the Fla St. job whenever Bowden hangs them up.

    I wonder if Sid’s early success here will impact how other major programs look at candidates. Would Ky or similar programs be more open to guys with strictly NBA experience after seeing how smooth the transition has been for Sid, to date? Does a guy like Issel get a sniff where he may not have a year ago?

  15. choppack1 03/19/2007 at 10:17 AM #

    I actually think Tubby is one of those guys that is in the wrong job. He needs to be at a place where the fans want wins, and are happy w/ wins and occasional moments of excellence, but don’t expect it sustained.

    He’s a good coach, his teams are tough. However, when you are at UK, you should be able to recruit kids who can fill it up. They’ve got the potential to do so much better than they are doing. UGa hasn’t been the same since Tubby left – they’d probably like to have him back.

  16. Dan 03/19/2007 at 10:22 AM #

    The media is lazy and, like most people, hates change… unless its dressed up in a juicy scandle that makes for easy press.

    I’m not saying there are no bigots in Kentucky. There are bigots everywhere, but the media is chomping at the bit to insert race into the Kentucky situation. I bet almost every writer out there has his race war Tubby Smith article sitting on his desktop just waiting for the day they can rush it to press. Race tension makes for easy writing. It doesnt require any knowlege of the game itself. They can just rehash articles that have been written for decades. Its not fair to Kentucky fans to hold race and Adolph Rupp vs Texas Western over their heads for all eternity when they in fact have hired a black coach when there are plenty of Old Dixie universities that have never even interviewed a minority. But that’s the media. Lazy.

    Tubby Smith is a fantastic game coach. He just needs to get over himself a bit and start recruiting. Its no secret he hates a lot what comes with recruiting. Who can blame him? Too bad though. If you want to be the basketball coach at Kentucky you have to recruit. You have to bust your ass recruiting. K was at the Pat Patterson game the day after the VCU loss. I hate K, but that is how you earn a lifetime contract right there. They arent paying you all that money to be comfortable. From the looks of the early press on the 2008 class, Tubby is starting to assert himself a little more in when it comes to recruiting.

    And who gets the credit for that? Restless fans should get all the credit. If they just sat back and thanked him for the banner, do you think he would have upped his intensity? Doubtful. Maybe its too late for Tubby, but that is no one’s fault but Tubby Smith’s. There was no excuse for a recruiting drop off to occur at Kentucky after a National Championship year.

    If I was a Kentucky guy, I wait it out one more year to see if this recruiting upswing garners any results. Then again, I havent sunk one dime into Kentucky basketball, so my opinion means jack.

  17. chris92heel 03/19/2007 at 10:22 AM #

    Agree with chop. He’s a good man and a good coach, but he’s wrong for UK.

    He seems to have little ability to deal with HS AA’s, which probably says some good things about him as a man, but its a severe handicap for a coach at a place like UK.

  18. BoKnowsNCS71 03/19/2007 at 10:25 AM #

    Tubby to the Charlote Woldcats. Now that the NCAA game is over. He could make that move. If Tubby does not resign and/or Charlotte does not offer – then beware of the offer to Sidney!

  19. class of 74 03/19/2007 at 10:29 AM #

    There was a piece on Sun Sports here in Florida this weekend on Tubby and if you didn’t know him or like him prior to it’s showing you certainly did following.
    He is a good coach and an even better person from what I saw. But UK, UCLA, IU, KU and UNC and Duke the bar has been raised to the point you better be in the mix for a final four or elite eight just about every year regardless of who you are if you want to survive for very long.

  20. Rochester 03/19/2007 at 10:33 AM #

    I can’t see any reason Sidney would leave, so if people are going to keep throwing out Sidney to the NBA innuendos, can you please cite some reason other than a feeling that this is too good to last? He seems to really love being back at NC State and the honeymoon is nowhere near over. I know he could make more money in the NBA, but this is a guy who’s been through all that before and seems grounded enough to recognize that he’s finally where he belongs.

    It’s doubtful that anyone here knows anything about Sid and the NBA. I just wanted to point out that your reasons for him staying at State are not any different that those that talk about him leaving…in other words, pure speculation.
    VaWolf82

  21. CedarGroveWolf 03/19/2007 at 10:37 AM #

    “Tim Tucker coughcedarwolfcough”

    who?

  22. RedTerror29 03/19/2007 at 10:44 AM #

    ^^I haven’t even seen his name mentioned in the Char Ob in reference to the Bobcats job opening. He doesn’t seem to be a hot NBA name – yet.

    Some serious success would change that. But I don’t see him leaving a job he loves to go coach some crap expansion team again.

  23. PackMan97 03/19/2007 at 10:46 AM #

    Tubby has had some great success at UK, however he doesn’t instill rabid devotion because he’s not as outwardly passionate as other coaches. This will be his downfall. I think that’s also what did in Sendek. Yes, not winning enough is the ultimate cause, but not outwardly matching the intensity of the fans is the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.

  24. CaptainCraptacular 03/19/2007 at 10:46 AM #

    *Why would we want someone else here who wasn’t performing at a historic basketball program’s traditionally high expectations?*

    At the time, Tubby *had* been keeping UK at a historic level. Not Rupp or Pitino level, but similar to a Joe B. Hall and Eddie Sutton historic level. Tubby has a national championship, several final 8s, a couple of SEC championships, regularly ‘in the picture’ for the final 4 and national championship, and a #1 seed or 2 thrown in for good measure. In my opinion, Pitino is the only UK coach since Rupp to match the expectation level that exists there. Up to last year Tubby had UK at a level comparable to Hall and Sutton.

    Yes, Tubby has lost too much the last 2 years and has seriously underperformed where UK is expected to be. Last year at this time his 06 season could have been considered an anomaly but now its clearly a trend.

    For those that say his ’98 title was won with Pitino’s recruits. Technically, yes, you are correct. However, on that ’98 team who else besides Nazr Mohammed had any appreciable playing time in the NBA? It wasn’t like he had a roster loaded with studs. I firmly believe Tubby getting the ’98 UK team to the national title was a pretty significant coaching accomplishment.

    I don’t disagree with your assessement. Based on what has now become a trend, I wouldn’t want Tubby here. But at the time with the facts on hand, it wasn’t so crystal clear that he was underperforming. And I certainly don’t blame the UK fans now for wanting a change.

  25. beowolf 03/19/2007 at 10:49 AM #

    Cap’n, Kentucky fans were openly rooting for us to take him. It wasn’t suddenly THIS year that they wanted a change. There have been rumblings and discontent for quite a while. I just didn’t want to go down that road — had too many years of that already.

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