Re: Tubby Smith resigns, taking Minnesota job
And frankly, Tubby Smith is vastly overrated as a coach, and it is blatantly obvious to anyone who watches UK on a regular basis, which probably 1 or 2 people in this thread have. I could go into specifics but it would be about 10,000 words long, and nobody wants to read that and almost none of you have watched UK anyway.
He's never been to a Final Four with players he recruited. Ever.
His accomplishments prior to Kentucky were taking Tulsa and UGA to the Sweet 16. Impressive but not incredible. He never would have been at UK if not for his ties to Pitino. Some even say Pitino more or less picked him to be his successor (with less-than-noble motives in mind). In Pitino's books, he has called Tubby lazy, and recounted an incident where Tubby called Pitino crying one weekend because he didn't want to recruit. This rings true with his tenure at UK.
Has everyone forgotten the Saul Smith Era? Big-time point guards were lined up to play at UK since we'd been to three straight title games and all and instead we get four years of Saul Smith and mediocrity. Followed by two good years after Saul leaves, with Tubby winning Coach of the Year both years, and then back to mediocrity.
Tubby is no dummy however. He has currently left the cupboard completely bare at UK. UK did not have an all-SEC player this season, and has not signed a Top 100 recruit for next season. Things look bleak for next year even if Red Auerbach comes back to life and coaches.
Tubby was due a $1.5M bonus on April 1st of this year for being here 10 years. The school gave it to him early (this much is fact, the degree of pre-arrangement of his departure is up for debate), he bolted rather than be fired after missing the tournament next season, and took tons and tons of dough from Minnesota which is just inexplicable to me, that they gave him that much. He is still one of the highest paid college coaches, if not the highest. At UK he made significantly more than (list of virtually all top basketball coaches here). If he didn't want expectations, then he should have requested a 75% pay cut.
So, yeah, Tubby's a hero. A real martyr.
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