Jim Souhan column: If Tubby can't turn this around, it's time to get Smart

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BleedGopher

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per Souhan:

If the Gophers basketball coach can't drag his most talented team back to .500 and make his program presentable for the NCAA tournament selectors, athletic director Norwood Teague should buy him out and lure VCU coach Shaka Smart to The Barn.

Teague is too smooth to let on whether he's thinking about Smart, but he should be and probably is. Gophers football might be allowed to follow a bake-from-scratch recipe, but Gophers basketball is one good hire away from turning out NCAA tournament teams and making Williams Arena one of the best entertainment venues in the Twin Cities.

That's one good hire, Mr. Teague. We'll make it easy on you. You don't even need to hire a search firm or get on a plane. Just re-dial "Shaka" this April, and we'll pretend it was an original idea.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/190626841.html

Go Gophers!!
 

I really think people are overestimating the interest that Shaka has in this job. Teague is the only thing that connects us to him at all, as far as I know. If he just absolutely loves working with Teague, then lucky us, but I don't think that'll be enough for him to potentially take the Minnesota job over other places that would be interested in him and likely have a stronger winning tradition and better facilities.
 

Cayman said:
I really think people are overestimating the interest that Shaka has in this job. Teague is the only thing that connects us to him at all, as far as I know. If he just absolutely loves working with Teague, then lucky us, but I don't think that'll be enough for him to potentially take the Minnesota job over other places that would be interested in him and likely have a stronger winning tradition and better facilities.
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Agree - it depends on if there is a school he has other connections to? Like a school he grew up cheering for or went to? Fwiw I don't know his background
 

Didn't Smart turn down the Illinois job? You know, a program with better facilities and much better recent success/history?
 

UofMdad

Why does Souhan want Shaka? True, Shaka seems to have that "fire in the belly," and vs the ncaa average for ncaa tourneys he is 2.09 vs 1, final 4's 0.17 vs 1, conference tourney titles 1.02 vs 1, NBA draft picks 1.71 vs 1 and in 3 seasons he is 84-28. But, is he right for the U in that can he recruit the right players for BIG play vs Atlantic 10?
 


Shaka will hold out for a blue blood, the preposterous statement tourney is in two days, maybe this column can get a late entry. I'd like Smart but its as likely as Dungy becoming the football coach
 

Well then, there is always Jeff Jones or Brad Stevens or ?
 

Drivel.

Souhan needs page views? Put a bad pun in the title of the article.

Some parts of this fanbase are so pathetic, the comment section of the Star Tribune is worse than some of the chumps on GH.

At some point we need to play as best we can with the hand we are dealt instead of folding every time and waiting to be dealt a royal flush.

Tubby is who we got right now.

Unless Teague is putting the finishing touches on a nine figure donation from Sanford to build a practice facility, renovate Williams, buyout Tubby, and pay Smart MINIMUM $2.5mil a year the best use for Souhan's article would be printing it out and wiping my ass on it.
 

Coolew01 Reply

"...Fwiw I don't know his background"

Born in Madison. Attended high school at Oregon, Wisconsin outside Madison. Went to Kenyon College.
 



Smart is a hot name because of his Final 4 run at VCU but don't forget about Anthony Grant and what he did at VCU. Now look at what he is doing at Alabama. Another example is Dan Monson and his run at Gonzaga and we saw how that went at the U. He now has the Long Beach State program in the right direction. Basically some coaches may be better suited for being the head of a Giant Killer rather than being the Head at the Giant. Not saying that's how it is for Smart but he and Stevens are two coaches who are drawing a lot of interest of recent runs but may be better of sticking to their program like Mark Few of Gonzaga
 

No way a .500 season (or even 10-8) should be acceptable in year 6. To use the quoted .500, that would make SIX seasons without a winning Big Ten record...come on have some sort of standards. IF this was a team that was bringing back everybody, then such a season MIGHT be worthy of one more chance to get the program on track, but it's not. Barring some superstar recruit picking Minnesota in the Spring, the Gophers will be picked no better than 8th (and more likely 9-10) in the B1G for the 2013-2014 season in what would be YEAR SEVEN of the Tubby Era.

Remember Dan Monson finishing 10-8 and in a tie for 4th place (7 seed NCAA tournament) in his sixth season? With players like Jeff Hagen, Bren Lawson, and Aaron Robinson surrounding JUCO Vincent Grier? Monson was dead man walking before that season and got to put two more crappy teams on the floor (the next year was the famous "I am not going to go there" Maturi NIT non-firing/firing bit) before finally being served his walking papers. I really, really don't want to have a long and painful execution again...
 

Minnesota is a basketball graveyard. Why the hell would Shaka come here? They can't even draw up plans for a practice facility. Gophers fans need to hope and pray Tubby does well here. This program needs him to succeed. If Tubby is canned or leaves, Teague will go out and hire some assistant coach no one has ever heard before. It'll be a crapshoot as to whether there'll be success or a return to the 1 or 2 win BT seasons. The grass is not always greener.
 

EG#9 said:
Remember Dan Monson finishing 10-8 and in a tie for 4th place (7 seed NCAA tournament) in his sixth season? With players like Jeff Hagen, Bren Lawson, and Aaron Robinson surrounding JUCO Vincent Grier? Monson was dead man walking before that season and got to put two more crappy teams on the floor (the next year was the famous "I am not going to go there" Maturi NIT non-firing/firing bit) before finally being served his walking papers. I really, really don't want to have a long and painful execution again...
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I don't remember either one of those things...and he wasn't a dead man walking going into 2004-2005. I think we get your main point, but you're a bit low on facts.
 



howeda7 said:
I don't remember either one of those things...and he wasn't a dead man walking going into 2004-2005. I think we get your main point, but you're a bit low on facts.
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2004–2005 Minnesota 21-11 10-6 T-4th NCAA First Round source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Monson

Gophers were 10-6 and an 8 seed. Should have looked it up

Gophers were 3-13 in the Big Ten in year 5 for Dan Monson and had never made the NCAA tournament. Back then, we had standards and there was large contingent on this board who wanted him gone well before that 3-13 season. On paper, the Gophers looked terrible coming off that 3-13 season, but Grier was an unknown and put up some huge games at key times. There was zero chance Monson was coming back after 04-05 without a winning season and NOBODY thought it would happen. What that season got us was a 5-11 Big Ten season, followed by a 2-5 start the next year. 2 more years of bad basketball for one solid Big Ten season.

The worst this board has ever been was after the Gophers choked a way an NCAA bid against Ilinois in Monson's 3rd(?) year.
 

KyGopherfan said:
Minnesota is a basketball graveyard. Why the hell would Shaka come here? They can't even draw up plans for a practice facility. Gophers fans need to hope and pray Tubby does well here. This program needs him to succeed. If Tubby is canned or leaves, Teague will go out and hire some assistant coach no one has ever heard before. It'll be a crapshoot as to whether there'll be success or a return to the 1 or 2 win BT seasons. The grass is not always greener.
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We had one two win season in 1986, the likelihood of going back to that is limited at best.
 

westcoastgopher11 said:
At some point we need to play as best we can with the hand we are dealt instead of folding every time and waiting to be dealt a royal flush.
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Nice analogy, but this isn't poker. This is more like poker where you can go out and get the cards you want to play with.
 

EG#9 said:
Remember Dan Monson finishing 10-8 and in a tie for 4th place (7 seed NCAA tournament) in his sixth season? With players like Jeff Hagen, Bren Lawson, and Aaron Robinson surrounding JUCO Vincent Grier? Monson was dead man walking before that season and got to put two more crappy teams on the floor (the next year was the famous "I am not going to go there" Maturi NIT non-firing/firing bit) before finally being served his walking papers. I really, really don't want to have a long and painful execution again...
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Wow. You sure like to say that.

EG#9 said:
The writing has been on the wall with Tubby Smith for awhile now, but Minnesota will likely hold on to him if he goes 9-9 or 10-8 in the conference despite everyone knowing it gets worse, not better next year. Maybe Tubby can somehow make it a decade while accomplishing nothing. We saw this with Dan Monson when he was dead man walking and finished 10-8 and in 4th place in the Big Ten in his 6th season (think Tubby can even tie Dan by finishing 4th?)...and that got us treated to another two years of terrible basketball.
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KyGopherfan said:
Minnesota is a basketball graveyard. Why the hell would Shaka come here? They can't even draw up plans for a practice facility. Gophers fans need to hope and pray Tubby does well here. This program needs him to succeed. If Tubby is canned or leaves, Teague will go out and hire some assistant coach no one has ever heard before. It'll be a crapshoot as to whether there'll be success or a return to the 1 or 2 win BT seasons. The grass is not always greener.
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If the grass isn't greener than this then we might as well dump the basketball program, chalk the thing up to a title IX move and enjoy hockey and wrestling as our winter sports. Right now all we have is brown grass turning to tumble weed. I'm ready for the crapshoot.
 

Zulgad has Tubby #2 on Minnesota's "Hot Seat" list for local coaches, behind only Mike Yeo:

2) Tubby Smith: The Gophers men's basketball coach saw his team lose Sunday after holding a 12-point lead in the first half.

The loss dropped the Gophers to 5-6 in the Big Ten after they opened the conference schedule with victories over Michigan State, Northwestern and Illinois to improve to 15-1 at that point.

Tubby's team began to have problems last month, dropping four in a row to Indiana, Michigan, Northwestern and Wisconsin. There was no shame in losing to the Hoosiers and Wolverines, but the defeat at Northwestern was a bad one and losing at Wisconsin presented the feeling that these were nothing more than the same old Gophers.

That's the shame of it.

This team appeared to be different. It seemed to be a cohesive unit that could take a punch and rally. Now, it appears as if that really wasn't the case and the head coach will take plenty of blame for this.

Smith was given a contract extension last summer despite the fact he had two years remaining on his deal. That came after a second consecutive 6-12 finish in the Big Ten. Smith's two best finishes in the conference since taking over at Minnesota in 2007-08 have been 9-9 records and both of those were followed by first-round exits in the NCAA tournament.

The Gophers have not visited the tournament since the 2009-10 season. That stretch almost certainly will end this spring. The Gophers entered Sunday rated 10th in the RPI and with the third-best strength of schedule.

But does Smith need to have his team make a postseason run, and we're not talking NIT here, to keep his job?

The man that hired Smith, Joel Maturi, is no longer in charge. New athletic director Norwood Teague has been making plenty of changes behind the scenes but has no signature move yet.

Teague came to Minnesota from VCU and has many connections in college basketball, including a guy who used to work for him by the name of Shaka Smart.

Here's where it gets interesting. Smith's buyout for the next two years is $2.5 million. That's a significant number and could give Teague and his boss, University president Eric Kaler, cause for pause.

That alone keeps Tubby second on this list.

http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/...tion_when_it_comes_to_hot_seat_rankings021013

Go Gophers!!
 

Thanks Bleed. I am surprised Yeo is ahead of Tubby on that list. This is only Yeo's second season, NHL coaches don't get to make the personnel decisions that college coaches do (so they have less control of their roster), and for all of the people who like to blame injuries (of which I am not one), last year's injury situation for the Wild I am certain had Yeo begging for the kind of injury luck that Tubby has had even in his worst year.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
Thanks Bleed. I am surprised Yeo is ahead of Tubby on that list. This is only Yeo's second season, NHL coaches don't get to make the personnel decisions that college coaches do (so they have less control of their roster), and for all of the people who like to blame injuries (of which I am not one), last year's injury situation for the Wild I am certain had Yeo begging for the kind of injury luck that Tubby has had even in his worst year.
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FWIW, When your owner signs the top 2 FAs of the year, spending $200 myn in salary, you immediately are put on notice. When your team struggles, you get put on the hot seat. Todd Richards only lasted 2 years as the Wild coach.
 

My beef with Tubby isn't the wins and losses. I know Minnesota's history and know winning isn't usually a part of it.

My beef with Tubby isn't his recruiting. I think he has made many good decisions when recruiting at the time. From Royce to Trevor to Rodney and Dre, I think we have a great group of kids and he brought them here. I am even beginning to like Mav and EE and Ingram, some nice finds. No they don't have the stars other teams so, but I think Tubby has done a great job binging guys in.

I don't even mind that he is a bit of a disciplinarian. Coaches that are your pal bug me. I'd rather a coach be tough than lax.

I love his attention to defense, it is a forgotten aspect of the game all too often.

The money doesn't bother me, he's a head coach of a basketball team. Whether he makes a penny or a billion dollars I'd expect the same of him.

What I'm seeing though, and is a big problem to me regardless of wins and losses, is the way players look. They look tense at each other. They look nervous, passive, not aggressive, they look timid. Different guys gain and lose confidence from game to game. They look confused as to what Tubby really wants from them and I don't know if Tubby really knows anymore what he wants of them. I think he's lost the locker room so to speak. And that is when you have a problem. It is to the point id rather watch Wisconsin's offense than ours. It is embarrassingly bad. Guys are afraid to turn it over. Afraid to make a mistake. Just afraid. They play tight they play safe. They play the stall offense with 15 left in the first half. It's why we don't put teams away.

When it is essentially the whole team that starts to play that way, I can no longer assume it is just coincidence we signed 15 mentally weak players. There got to be more to it than that and I trust Teague will look at his employee and make the decision best suited for this great great school, whatever that may be.

Regardless of how it impacts the big 3 of 2014. They aren't watching this year thinking they'd love to be here because we win so much. They consider MN because they have a tie to the state and the school. That won't change with a different coach. Plus, I trust Teague to make the hire much more than Maturi.
 

People need to forget about Shaka Smart, he isn't coming here. Why would he come to a fledgling program with arguably the worst basketball facilities in the conference? MAYBE we'd have a shot with him if we had a shovel in the dirt and a practice facility on the way. Even then it would be unlikely because he could go to a much, much, much better program. Outside of Brad Stevens there isn't a hotter name in the country. Minnesota doesn't get young, up and coming coaching like that.
 

"Jim Souhan column: If Tubby can't turn this around, it's time to get Smart"

I, for one, take the position that if Souhan is for it, I am against it.
 

scher215 said:
My beef with Tubby isn't the wins and losses. I know Minnesota's history and know winning isn't usually a part of it.

My beef with Tubby isn't his recruiting. I think he has made many good decisions when recruiting at the time. From Royce to Trevor to Rodney and Dre, I think we have a great group of kids and he brought them here. I am even beginning to like Mav and EE and Ingram, some nice finds. No they don't have the stars other teams so, but I think Tubby has done a great job binging guys in.

I don't even mind that he is a bit of a disciplinarian. Coaches that are your pal bug me. I'd rather a coach be tough than lax.

I love his attention to defense, it is a forgotten aspect of the game all too often.

The money doesn't bother me, he's a head coach of a basketball team. Whether he makes a penny or a billion dollars I'd expect the same of him.

What I'm seeing though, and is a big problem to me regardless of wins and losses, is the way players look. They look tense at each other. They look nervous, passive, not aggressive, they look timid. Different guys gain and lose confidence from game to game. They look confused as to what Tubby really wants from them and I don't know if Tubby really knows anymore what he wants of them. I think he's lost the locker room so to speak. And that is when you have a problem. It is to the point id rather watch Wisconsin's offense than ours. It is embarrassingly bad. Guys are afraid to turn it over. Afraid to make a mistake. Just afraid. They play tight they play safe. They play the stall offense with 15 left in the first half. It's why we don't put teams away.

When it is essentially the whole team that starts to play that way, I can no longer assume it is just coincidence we signed 15 mentally weak players. There got to be more to it than that and I trust Teague will look at his employee and make the decision best suited for this great great school, whatever that may be.

Regardless of how it impacts the big 3 of 2014. They aren't watching this year thinking they'd love to be here because we win so much. They consider MN because they have a tie to the state and the school. That won't change with a different coach. Plus, I trust Teague to make the hire much more than Maturi.
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I think the point in bold is where we have to look at the mental toughness of the players (and the recruiting choices that led to those decisions). You made the comparison to the Wisconsin offense, and in that scheme, Bo Ryan benches players for turning the ball over. Immediately. So players can run an effective offense even when they know that they will be punished for every turnover. I agree with you on Tubby as a disciplinarian, I want a coach to be tough but fair to his players, and I want players who respond with a fire in their game when they get chewed out for not performing well enough.
 

MadtownGopher said:
People need to forget about Shaka Smart, he isn't coming here. Why would he come to a fledgling program with arguably the worst basketball facilities in the conference? MAYBE we'd have a shot with him if we had a shovel in the dirt and a practice facility on the way. Even then it would be unlikely because he could go to a much, much, much better program. Outside of Brad Stevens there isn't a hotter name in the country. Minnesota doesn't get young, up and coming coaching like that.
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Dumbest thing I've EVER read on Gopherhole!!!
 


scher215 said:
Regardless of how it impacts the big 3 of 2014. They aren't watching this year thinking they'd love to be here because we win so much. They consider MN because they have a tie to the state and the school. That won't change with a different coach. Plus, I trust Teague to make the hire much more than Maturi.
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To be honest, a coacihng change likely affects the Big 3 in a positive way. A new hot coach will bring excitement for a while. People don't like to mention it, but Tubby will be 64 before these kids step on campus, is there a guarantee that he will be there for their university careers?
 

I don't know that Shaka would leave for Minnesota. Turned down Illinois and Kansas St. I would think, realistic possibilities would be Ben Jacobson, Greg McDermott and with the Big East crumbling, maybe Buzz Williams.

As much as I would love Brad Stevens on the sidelines, it will never happen. Has a long term deal at Butler and he has made it pretty clear he won't leave just to join a power conference, unless its for IU.
 

Originally Posted by MadtownGopher
People need to forget about Shaka Smart, he isn't coming here. Why would he come to a fledgling program with arguably the worst basketball facilities in the conference? MAYBE we'd have a shot with him if we had a shovel in the dirt and a practice facility on the way. Even then it would be unlikely because he could go to a much, much, much better program. Outside of Brad Stevens there isn't a hotter name in the country. Minnesota doesn't get young, up and coming coaching like that.

Originally Posted by Wouldn't You like to Know
Dumbest thing I've EVER read on Gopherhole!!!
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