Apparently Tubby Smith Can Recruit

Fantastic Job by AD Joel Maturi getting Tubby to coach this squad, Expect National Titles to Come Shortly.

… with some of this.

First of all, many Kentucky players have complained about the complexity of Smith’s offensive and defensive schemes. Now, maybe they were just dumb — if you’ve taught the equivalent of Smith’s schemes to 14-year old girls, maybe the question we should be asking was why Tubby couldn’t seem to bring in guys with at least that level of cognitive ability.

Second, Forty knows Smith well, but with due respect to my fellow Tubby Smith and Kentucky Wildcat fan, his impressions are often highly colored with friendship. There is absolutely nothing wrong or ignoble with that, but one thing we can know for sure is that Smith was an inconsistent recruiter at UK. Forty’s quote is factually correct, but what he fails to point out is that Smith only managed three top ten classes in his nine years here. How does that compare? In that same time frame, Kansas had six top tens, North Carolina seven, Florida six, UConn, Michigan St., Arizona, Duke, and NC State had four. Kentucky is not used to being so far behind, and was a source of discontent.

Smith would get a fine class, like in 1999-00 when he brought Keith Bogans, a 5* out of Dematha and one of our best ever, and Marvin Stone, one of the top recruits in America out of Alabama who just didn’t work out (God rest him, he passed away in Saudi Arabia this year of an apparent heart attack while playing). He also brought in solid but unspectacular classes in 2000-01 and 01-02.

Then he would turn around and bring in classes like 2002, which was so-so by Kentucky standards, and 2003, which was downright poor. 2004 was the famous monster, #1 class (though interestingly #2 by Forty’s cited source), then 2005 was perhaps the worst class since probation. 2006 was a big improvement, but nowhere near the level of UNC, Ohio State, Duke or even Tennessee, for example. I think he would have had a good class in 07 had he stayed, because I firmly believe Patterson would have come if Smith had remained at UK.

It was the maddening inconsistency that bothered UK fans, and it became an albatross around Smith’s neck. Even though Kentucky has a national reach in recruiting, Smith concentrated on the areas he knew well, which is primarily from Maryland south and from the Mississippi East. One of the great things about him being up in UM is that he is recruiting in an area where he is competing with different folks who haven’t learned how to knock him like coaches in the southeast did. It has given him the breathing space he needs to do better, and he has some assistants which now help him more than hurt him.

Another thing that was hurting him was the new blood around the Southeast, the Bruce Pearls and the Billy Donovans. They were getting it done where Smith wasn’t, playing an exciting and appealing style, and when Roy Williams moved out to North Carolina it reached a critical mass that really hurt Smith’s recruiting. I think had Dougherty stayed at UNC one more year, Tyler Hansbrough would have been a Wildcat. But partially because of Kentucky fans’ discontent with Smith, competing coaches were able to come up with a narrative that Smith played slow, plodding, defensive basketball, and that a disproportionate number of his players wound up transferring (not true, but that’s how the story goes). That narrative seriously damaged Smith’s recruiting efforts with many of the top recruits who want to play a style similar to AAU or NBA basketball.

Tubby had to get away from this part of the country to be effective again, and he has and it worked. That’s good for UM and great for Tubby. But make no mistake — Smith was undeniably an inconsistent recruiter at while he was Kentucky in his last 5 years. Has Gillispie done better? I’m not sure, but he has not yet brought in a weak class. It’s early, of course, but right now he looks like an upgrade as far as recruiting is concerned.

Even CBS taking head and Sports Illustrated writer Seth Davis admitted as much, pointing out that in 2004 Smith brought in three McDonald’s All-Americans that simply didn’t pan out. So, on one hand Kentucky fans say Tubby is a great coach but a bad recruiter. And when he recruits the top talent that don’t meet unrealistic expectations it’s because he’s a bad coach? That’s not logical.

I think you have raised a strawman here and dashed it asunder. Kentucky fans’ expectations may be unrealistic by the lights of many, but certainly not North Carolina, Duke, or UCLA in basketball or Alabama football fans just to name a few. So before you judge Kentucky fans too harshly, you should realize that they have a lot of company who get far less criticism for partisan behavior that is just as dramatic and occasionally classless.

What UK fans were upset about was a perception that Smith lacked the ability to develop players, which was precipitated from the Marvin Stone failure and ultimate defection and exacerbated by Rashaad Carruth’s mania. These guys were, unfairly in my view, blamed on Smith by many in the Big Blue Nation. When the ’04 class failed to fire, the meme stuck, deserved or not. It was easy to connect those dots, and many did.

It is just a little amazing to me why Kentucky fan’s perception of Tubby Smith’s isn’t simply cheered by Minnesota fans — after all, the perception by most is that fan unhappiness was what drove Smith to change his job. It isn’t as if UK fans hang around looking for bad things to say about Smith — to the contrary, most ‘Cat fans these days are pleased that Smith is getting along so well up there. Yeah, we have a few wackos, but what fan base doesn’t? I would’ve figured by now we could all just chalk all this up to a difference of opinion that worked out great for all concerned.

Just my $0.02 worth (well, a comment of this length might be more like $5.00). :-)

How awesome would a Tubby v Gilispie Sweet 16 game be in a year or two? For now Billie should worry about beating Gardner-Webb and Tubby should try to earn an NCAA bid, but down the road that would be a blast.