Tubby, the anti-Bo Ryan

Minnesota coach Tubby Smith isn’t sure if working officials leads to the desired result.

“I’ve known a few coaches who try to work the refs for a call or two – we all do that – but I’ve never done it much. I’m too busy trying to figure out what my team is doing,’’ Smith said.

http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2009/02/09/sports/doc4990f80220b05390769674.txt


By "figuring out what my team is doing" he means "coaching" as opposed to "whining"

yeah, I'm with you here.

I don't mind coaches working the refs as much...I mean, they are going to fight for everything they can get for their teams right???

But when it comes to teaching your players how to work the refs, that's seems a little shady. Having said that, I'll go ahead and assume most coaches, especially some of the more nefarious characters, teach their players how to do just that. That video of Bo Ryan doing it with his players during a timeout was priceless. Kind of helps blow away the whole "we teach defense and offense the correct way at Wisconsin. Everybody else does it the wrong way" mentality that goes on in Madison.

MRJ said:

yeah, I'm with you here.
Kind of helps blow away the whole "we teach defense and offense the correct way at Wisconsin. Everybody else does it the wrong way" mentality that goes on in Madison.

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I've never thought of what Bo does as teaching the "right way" for offense or defense. What he has always taught, in my mind, is that refs usually call fouls committed with the upper body at a much higher rate than fouls committed with the lower body. So he's taught his players to be physical with their lower bodies, or basically, that if they're going to foul, they should foul with their legs, because it's not going to get called as much. You will notice if you watch them a lot that they generally don't go all out for blocks or reach for steals a lot, that generates fouls.

As far as working the refs goes, there is no argument that Bo will work the refs for whatever advantage he feels he'll be able to get. It might not be aesthetically pleasing, but it's generally been effective.

Radio Badger said:

I've never thought of what Bo does as teaching the "right way" for offense or defense. What he has always taught, in my mind, is that refs usually call fouls committed with the upper body at a much higher rate than fouls committed with the lower body. So he's taught his players to be physical with their lower bodies, or basically, that if they're going to foul, they should foul with their legs, because it's not going to get called as much. You will notice if you watch them a lot that they generally don't go all out for blocks or reach for steals a lot, that generates fouls.

As far as working the refs goes, there is no argument that Bo will work the refs for whatever advantage he feels he'll be able to get. It might not be aesthetically pleasing, but it's generally been effective.

Click to expand...

That's a good observation. Refs are generally interested in the vertical part of the game, meaning they aren't looking for as much leaning with the lower body as they are looking for reaches and hacks at the hands and arms. And certainly, Bo teaches that very well.

As to the rest of it, it's kind of amusing to notice how hard certain coaches work the refs and how little other coaches do it. Amongst recent Gopher coaches, Tubby seems to do it less than either Haskins or Monson did. As for the Badgers, I don't know enough about their coaching history to have a guess. Ryan works the refs pretty hard, as does Izzo. Keady was known for it as was Knight obviously. But then you have Painter who seems like he rarely even notices the refs while others like Pitino and Self seem to be yapping all the time.

It's an interesting phenomenon to watch for certain....