Whathavewedone
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- Apr 30, 2011
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This is the first post I have made on the forum as you can see.
I have been reading it on and off for a couple of years now. And
have been a Gopher basketball fan going back longer than I would
like to admit. And as much as it pains me, it's time for a stark
statement of reality. Our athletic administration has been snookered.
Tubby Smith is not a coach who possesses the ability to make
the Gophers a competive program in the Big 10.
Four years ago, like most of us, I was thrilled that the Monson era
was over and we were getting such a nationally prominent coach.
And even though we may never admit it, I'd guess most of us took
a little secret satisfaction that we were able to steal away the coach
of basketball power like Kentucky. And it sure looked like sour grapes
when UK fans started telling us how glad they were to see him go.
And of course we probably all had that notion too that they were
racist hillbillies who were showing their true colors. Now four years later,
reality has set in.
I have an aquaintaince in Ky. who told me back then what we could
expect. He said that we would improve right away, because let's
face it, we had nowhere to go but up. But that we would quickly
see that Tubby is not a savior. He predicted that Tubby would stay
here about half a dozen years, in which we would see middle of the pack
BT finishes without ever competing for the title. And at best be an
NCAA bubble team maybe getting in once or twice. Well there's
2 years to go, but so far he's nailed it.
Truthfully, four years ago Kentucky fans were LAUGHING at us.
They were delighted to be getting rid of Tubby, and doing backflips
that we had hired him away and they didn't have to face the
backlash of firing him. As I said above, most of us were probably
easily led to believe there were racial motivations behind that
attitude. But after talking with my friend again this spring, it
sounds like we are getting the exact same script, just written
out on a less prominent scale.
Here are some other things he pointed out to me. See if any
of it sounds familiar. Tubby projects a nice guy image, and
most people seem to like him personally. But in contrast to
that, Tubby always seems to undercut his players. Calling
them out in public, and firmly placing blame on them. My friend
said that over the course of ten years, he could never recall
Tubby standing up and taking personal responsibility for a loss,
or for team shortcomings. And that the media told the story
that he had a "team turmoil" in only one season, but there
was pretty much constant disunity, and transfers of capable
players that UK had not seen before.
He also said that it became painfully obvious that Tubby
didn't make players better. His recruits tended to undergo
a natural maturation and adjustmen to college that any first
year player would, then plateau and be no better as a senior
than as a sophomore. And Tubby seemed to have a very
limited offense that consisted primarily of perimeter passing
that exhausted most of the shot clock, then relied on an
individual to force a shot.
While at UK Tubby was ever ready with an excuse. Someone
was always not doing there job. Someone was always hurt,
he always needed a different player to come in next year.
Each year he was going to play more pressure defense, open
up the offense, get the players to do that. Now to me, that
sounds like a broken record FROM HERE.
Here we are four years after he was hired. And I certainly
won't deny that personnel issues made this past season
worse than it should have been. But by the same token,
I think we're being delusional if we think good health and
luck would have gotten us to any better than a 9-9, 10-8
conference record. Squarely in the middle of the pack where
we've been each if his seasons here. And while I'm sure
this next statement will produce howls, our conference
is NOT what it has been.
The last two seasons, despite what rankings might have said,
we haven't produced much outside of Ohio St. MSU made a
very weak FF last year, and was probably the worst team in it.
And this year Ohio State got manhandled by Kentucky in
the NCAA despite being the #1 seed. And Wisconsin and
Purdue had no business being ranked in the top 10. So
our middle of the pack finishes (and this year's disaster)
have occurred against less than normal conference competition.
How bad wold it have been if we faced teams that WERE up
to BT standards? Would we even have 2 NCAA bids to show?
And even against that competition we prorbaby didn't
really deserve last year's bid.
So I think it's about time to face the truth. We thought we
were getting a basketball guru, but instead got just what
we warned we were getting, a mediocrity. A nice guy, that
just isn't up to the task, and whose reputation was vastly
over inflated. He washed away the muck of Monson, but
has already taken the program as far as is within his ability.
And as long as we have him, we can expect no more. And
as we saw this year, what he CAN produce is fragile and
vulnerable to any player loss. And the most we can reasonably
hope for is to get on to the bubble and sneak in to the NCAA
if there aren't too many minor conference upsets.
One last remarkable thing too. My friend commented on how
there were discussion forums in Ky. that were raging in debate over
Tubby for a couple of seasons, until by the end there was
practically no one that wanted to keep him. But there was
someone who appeared to almost be a Tubby PR agency
that relentlessly posted tons of misleading statistics over and
over. The running joke was that it was Tubby's wife or son,
and it was like a personal crusade. Seems like that sounds
a little familiar as well.
I have been reading it on and off for a couple of years now. And
have been a Gopher basketball fan going back longer than I would
like to admit. And as much as it pains me, it's time for a stark
statement of reality. Our athletic administration has been snookered.
Tubby Smith is not a coach who possesses the ability to make
the Gophers a competive program in the Big 10.
Four years ago, like most of us, I was thrilled that the Monson era
was over and we were getting such a nationally prominent coach.
And even though we may never admit it, I'd guess most of us took
a little secret satisfaction that we were able to steal away the coach
of basketball power like Kentucky. And it sure looked like sour grapes
when UK fans started telling us how glad they were to see him go.
And of course we probably all had that notion too that they were
racist hillbillies who were showing their true colors. Now four years later,
reality has set in.
I have an aquaintaince in Ky. who told me back then what we could
expect. He said that we would improve right away, because let's
face it, we had nowhere to go but up. But that we would quickly
see that Tubby is not a savior. He predicted that Tubby would stay
here about half a dozen years, in which we would see middle of the pack
BT finishes without ever competing for the title. And at best be an
NCAA bubble team maybe getting in once or twice. Well there's
2 years to go, but so far he's nailed it.
Truthfully, four years ago Kentucky fans were LAUGHING at us.
They were delighted to be getting rid of Tubby, and doing backflips
that we had hired him away and they didn't have to face the
backlash of firing him. As I said above, most of us were probably
easily led to believe there were racial motivations behind that
attitude. But after talking with my friend again this spring, it
sounds like we are getting the exact same script, just written
out on a less prominent scale.
Here are some other things he pointed out to me. See if any
of it sounds familiar. Tubby projects a nice guy image, and
most people seem to like him personally. But in contrast to
that, Tubby always seems to undercut his players. Calling
them out in public, and firmly placing blame on them. My friend
said that over the course of ten years, he could never recall
Tubby standing up and taking personal responsibility for a loss,
or for team shortcomings. And that the media told the story
that he had a "team turmoil" in only one season, but there
was pretty much constant disunity, and transfers of capable
players that UK had not seen before.
He also said that it became painfully obvious that Tubby
didn't make players better. His recruits tended to undergo
a natural maturation and adjustmen to college that any first
year player would, then plateau and be no better as a senior
than as a sophomore. And Tubby seemed to have a very
limited offense that consisted primarily of perimeter passing
that exhausted most of the shot clock, then relied on an
individual to force a shot.
While at UK Tubby was ever ready with an excuse. Someone
was always not doing there job. Someone was always hurt,
he always needed a different player to come in next year.
Each year he was going to play more pressure defense, open
up the offense, get the players to do that. Now to me, that
sounds like a broken record FROM HERE.
Here we are four years after he was hired. And I certainly
won't deny that personnel issues made this past season
worse than it should have been. But by the same token,
I think we're being delusional if we think good health and
luck would have gotten us to any better than a 9-9, 10-8
conference record. Squarely in the middle of the pack where
we've been each if his seasons here. And while I'm sure
this next statement will produce howls, our conference
is NOT what it has been.
The last two seasons, despite what rankings might have said,
we haven't produced much outside of Ohio St. MSU made a
very weak FF last year, and was probably the worst team in it.
And this year Ohio State got manhandled by Kentucky in
the NCAA despite being the #1 seed. And Wisconsin and
Purdue had no business being ranked in the top 10. So
our middle of the pack finishes (and this year's disaster)
have occurred against less than normal conference competition.
How bad wold it have been if we faced teams that WERE up
to BT standards? Would we even have 2 NCAA bids to show?
And even against that competition we prorbaby didn't
really deserve last year's bid.
So I think it's about time to face the truth. We thought we
were getting a basketball guru, but instead got just what
we warned we were getting, a mediocrity. A nice guy, that
just isn't up to the task, and whose reputation was vastly
over inflated. He washed away the muck of Monson, but
has already taken the program as far as is within his ability.
And as long as we have him, we can expect no more. And
as we saw this year, what he CAN produce is fragile and
vulnerable to any player loss. And the most we can reasonably
hope for is to get on to the bubble and sneak in to the NCAA
if there aren't too many minor conference upsets.
One last remarkable thing too. My friend commented on how
there were discussion forums in Ky. that were raging in debate over
Tubby for a couple of seasons, until by the end there was
practically no one that wanted to keep him. But there was
someone who appeared to almost be a Tubby PR agency
that relentlessly posted tons of misleading statistics over and
over. The running joke was that it was Tubby's wife or son,
and it was like a personal crusade. Seems like that sounds
a little familiar as well.
