Step right up, ladies and gentlemen!!! You too, can be a Division I head coach. No prior experience required. Matter of fact, you don’t even have to be a basketball coach. As long as you have ever watched a game on television, played a game in your driveway, or read a preseason basketball publication, you can be a head coach. It is truly simple. You can be a broker, a banker, a candlestick maker. You could be in sales, you could be a homemaker. You could be an accountant, a carpenter, or a chef. You could even be a columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Because if you think you know basketball, the Kentucky Wildcats need you…
Take John Clay for example. Mr. Clay is a veteran columnist for the aforementioned Herald-Leader, and he has already boiled the ‘Cats troubles down to one simple thing. Recruiting! Eureka! Mr. Clay has used his many years as an experienced observer and figured this one very important thing out: Kentucky needs better players. It is a discovery so breathtaking that Einstein himself might sit up in his grave to applaud.
In case Tubby Smith doesn’t read your paper…and really, who reads their toilet paper these days…we’ll let him in on the secret that he needs to do a better job recruiting. He’s probably not aware of the shortcomings of his basketball team, and frankly, it may be entirely possible that he has gone the entire span of his 27-year coaching career and never noticed how important recruiting is. It is also entirely possible that neither he nor any member of his coaching staff has noticed the shortcomings of the program the last two years. So isn’t it their good fortune that the Herald-Leader keeps a writer of such astounding journalistic ability free to provide his basketball expertise to the University of Kentucky program…
Because I’m sure that was Mr. Clay’s intent. I’m sure that he never intended to criticize the manner in which Tubby Smith does his job, and surely it couldn’t have been his intent to stir up the restless natives of Big Blue Nation. Journalists, after all, are completely unbiased and they would never stoop to dip a toe into the dangerous water of partisan opinion. Would they?
Clay is merely working front and center as the Herald-Leader’s hatchet man. He is a columnist, you see, and they dare to encourage partisan opinions all the time. The Herald-Leader wants to sell papers, and given the recent struggles of the Big Blue, they know that eviscerating Tubby Smith will sell lots of papers. Readers, you see, want to read what they want to read. They don’t want to be subjected to ideas that run counter to their own. That’s why liberals read papers with a liberal slant and conservatives read papers that lean to the right. And angry and dissatisfied Kentucky fans don’t want to read a column defending Tubby Smith…which is why they will hate this one. They want Tubby Smith on the spit and roasting over a fire. John Clay will be happy to bring the matches…
Here’s the facts folks…This year’s edition of the Kentucky Wildcats, is not, based on results, appreciably better than last year’s edition of the Kentucky Wildcats. And nobody was satisfied with the 22-13 mark achieved a year ago. Losing double-figure games and struggling in the SEC is not the sort of thing that any Kentucky fan is accustomed to. That is perfectly fine, and perfectly understandable. But let’s take a closer look at Tubby Smith’s work…you might be surprised to see what you find.
In his first eight years on the job in Lexington, Tubby Smith delivered seven SEC titles (outright and shared combined). Beginning in ’02-’03 (when the ‘Cats went a perfect 16-0 in league play), Smith embarked on a three-year stretch where UK went 43-5 in conference play, including a 14-2 mark just two seasons ago. All of a sudden, because of a couple of tough years (and this one isn’t even over yet), we are supposed to believe that the wheels have come off the wagon? Tubby Smith isn’t a different coach than the one who won a national championship in 1998, and he isn’t a different coach from the guy that went undefeated in the SEC four years ago on the way to a 32-4 mark. And yes, Mr. Clay, the players are different…but let’s take a look at that.
The leading scorers on the ’98 team were Jeff Sheppard, Scott Padgett, Nazr Mohammed, Wayne Turner, and Allen Edwards (and yes, I know they were Pitino guys). Not one of those players was a sure-fire blue chipper. Sheppard and Turner were close, with Turner’s schoolboy career probably making him the most highly-rated prospect, but there were questions about Padgett, Mohammed, and Edwards having the ability to play at the SEC level. The combination of Pitino and Smith molded that bunch into the core of a national championship team. But that title wasn’t won on the recruiting trail.
The key personnel on the ’02-’03 team featured Keith Bogans, Gerald Fitch, Marquis Estill, Erik Daniels, and a fellow by the name of Chuck Hayes. Other than the highly-recruited Bogans (and he was deemed a bust for most of his career), Cliff Hawkins and freshman Kelenna Azubuike were probably the most highly-touted bodies on the roster. Smith took pieces of varying (but not stunning) talent and put together a team that achieved something (the perfect SEC campaign) that was in its own way more improbable than a national championship.
You could make the case that the personnel on each of the last two Wildcat teams (and certainly this year’s) are more talented than either of those teams. Every Wildcat fan was excited by the recruiting class that featured Ramel Bradley, Joe Crawford, Randolph Morris, and Rajon Rondo, but is has not, as of yet, panned out. Could it? Maybe. And maybe not. Rondo is already gone. Morris likely will be (again) this summer. The class of 2004 may never get any other grade than incomplete. But anybody who wants to look back now and say, “Well, Chris Lofton and Corey Brewer turned out to be stars and our guys stink” are probably the same people that celebrated the ’04 class when it came in. It’s pure hindsight. It is backseat coaching. And John Clay knows it.
To digress from Clay a bit, but stay on the topic of recruiting, let’s consider North Carolina’s Roy Williams for a moment. Williams has always had tremendous success recruiting, but never more than he has experienced since his return to Chapel Hill. Kentucky fans know all to well how successful he has been, often seeing top recruits put UK on their short list only to eventually choose UNC. That is, of course, exactly what happened with freshman standout Brendan Wright, already a key contributor for the Tar Heels and a piece the Wildcats would have dearly added to their frontcourt.
Part of the reason Williams is believed to recruit so well is the fact that he plays a liberating and entertaining style on offense, seemingly the polar opposite to Kentucky’s seemingly deliberate and sometimes sleep-inducing offense. Now Williams is a fantastic coach, without question. And his teams are always a great deal of fun to watch. But take note of these things. One, Williams was still a helluva coach when he was at Kansas. But he NEVER won a championship there. He did a lot of crying at a lot of press conferences, but for all of his recruiting acumen and his beautiful style of play, no titles for Roy at KU. Two, when he finally climbed the mountain at UNC, he did so with Matt Doherty’s players. Not his own. Three, Williams followed that success up with a second-round exit at the hands of George Mason, and four, while I am sure his phenomenal recruiting efforts will pay off in the near future, his kids have yet to figure out how to beat Virginia Polytechnic.
See, it’s easy to find fault with a coach. Even one as great as Roy Williams. I could tell you about how it took Dean Smith two decades to track down a championship, or about how if administrators had listened to overzealous and impatient boosters that neither Smith nor Mike Krzyzewski would have been around long enough to build the fabulous legacies they have at their respective schools. I could (and actually I did, right here) tell you how the legendary Adolph Rupp had seasons of 16-9, 15-10, and 13-13 (including 8-10 in the SEC). I wonder if John Clay would have had the stones to write funny lines about ten-loss Adolph…
Are there problems with the men’s basketball team at the University of Kentucky? Yes. Absolutely. Are things up to par, per the expectations of the University of Kentucky? No. But most importantly, things aren’t up to par per the expectations of Tubby Smith. Tubby Smith is a tremendous basketball coach, just as good as Roy Williams or anybody else you care to name in the country. He knows how to build a program and he knows how to maintain a program. I believe he knows how to raise a program to greater heights. And he doesn’t need every broker, banker, and bourbon maker in the state of Kentucky telling him how to do his job…even if you mean well.
The great thing about Kentucky fans is that they love their basketball team almost more than anything. The awful thing about Kentucky fans is that they love their basketball team almost more than anything. The passion is a wonderful, albeit dangerous, double-edged sword. The great thing about basketball is everybody feels like they know something about it. That’s how we come up with so many armchair coaches and athletic directors out there. Funny thing is, sports are almost the only topic out there that we treat like that. You don’t see a lot of message boards out there dedicated to breaking down neurosurgery or nuclear physics. Maybe that’s because nobody has a passion for those unique specialties, or maybe it’s because there are no columnists out there making it seem like those areas are child’s play. If you are looking for somebody to thank for giving you the impression that anyone can run a major Division I basketball program, be sure to send a note to John Clay.
I don’t know much, but I do know this: A great basketball man by the name of C.M. Newton once believed that Tubby Smith was the right man to lead the Kentucky basketball program. I believe that few people have ever had a more vested interest or a better understanding of what Kentucky basketball is all about than C.M. Newton. So I’ll just close with this…if Tubby Smith was good enough for C.M. Newton, he’s good enough for me. I hope he’s good enough for Mitch Barnhart (and Mitch, you should listen since I gave you such good advice on Rich Brooks). I couldn’t care less if he’s good enough for John Clay.
And one last thing to chew on…if Kentucky gets a new basketball coach, how long will it be before we have this discussion about him? Ten minutes…or five?
