UK Wildcat Country

The views I’m about to express are not necessarily those of anybody else but me, but they ought to be, and as a matter of fact, they probably are.

We’re coming up on a year and half removed since Tubby Smith resigned as head basketball coach of Kentucky and became head coach at Minnesota. Since that time, Smith also became president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. I’ve never been one of these big conspiracy theory fans, but since the end of this past season, the NABC has unleashed the wrath of God on Billy Gillispie and Kentucky on two separate occasions. Is it a coincidence? Let’s look at what has transpired so far.

This summer, Kentucky got commitments from 9th grader Vincent Zollo and 8th grader Michael Avery on consecutive days. Nobody knows how these commitments will pan out, but it is certainly a fact that getting kids earlier and earlier into the game is the nature of the recruiting beast in college basketball. Well, a few days later, the NABC issued a statement that essentially discouraged teams from recruiting guys when they’re in the 8th and 9th grade. A few days after that, Florida and Billy Donovan got a commitment from Doc Rivers’ son Austin, who is also a high school freshman.

I wrote about this when Dick Vitale reacted to it. He loved the Rivers pickup for Florida, but thought that Gillispie was going after them too young. There was no outrage when Florida got the verbal from Rivers. The NABC didn’t do anything in response to Rivers. To be fair, they didn’t really do anything about Kentucky’s young commitments, but they did publicly announce that they weren’t too fond of the practice. Is it a coincidence that the guy who couldn’t cut it at Kentucky because of recruiting got burnt out, went to Minnesota, became the head of the NABC and is now admonishing Kentucky for recruiting?

Let’s look at the most recent example. The NABC has once again targeted Kentucky for using a loophole in contracts and scheduling to move Midnight Madness up to the 10th of October (holy crap, that’s a week from today – I’m giddy). They claim that by moving Madness up one week, Kentucky gains an unfair recruiting advantage. Then, Jeff Goodman of Fox Sports (whose column I will not link because he doesn’t deserve to have you people click on it) commended the NABC for cracking down on big bad Billy Gillispie for cheating again. When I heard about this, I got so mad that I punched the first person I saw right in the face, and I apologize to my grandmother if she ever gets the Internet and reads this.

First things first, moving Madness to the 10th is completely legal. Once again, Coach Gillispie has found a way to help the program that is completely within the rules. Besides, Kentucky can’t cheat because they can’t afford to cheat. Lord knows that when you think about the stuff from the 50s and then the Emory scandal in 1989, the NCAA is keeping a close eye on Kentucky at all times. So if Coach Gillispie has to be creative in improving the program, that’s okay by me, since Kentucky would undoubtedly get caught if there was any hint of wrongdoing.

Secondly, this wasn’t even an original idea from Kentucky. Both Billy Gillispie and Tracy Webster have roots in Illinois, and that’s where the program got the idea – they stole it from Bruce Weber and his staff. Illinois had made that decision long before Kentucky did, so why did the NABC not raise a bunch of hell because Illinois moved their Madness up one week? Just like the early recruiting manifesto, the NABC has singled out Kentucky without directly saying so. In other words, Smith and the rest of the NABC got beat to the punch in exposing this loophole and taking advantage of it, now they’re trying to say it was unfair.

North Carolina, Kansas, Duke or UCLA could have figured this out first, but they didn’t. I don’t know if the NABC reaction would have been the same. Putting it in another perspective, let’s say that North Carolina indeed was the first “big name” program (all due respect to Illinois) to use the loophole to move up Madness, only Matt Doherty was the president of the NABC. You think Doherty might show some sour grapes in that situation? Of course he would. You don’t think Tubby Smith might have a bit of an axe to grind with Kentucky? Of course he does.

I supported Tubby Smith from day one until the loss to Tennessee in 2007, and the more things like this happen, the more I feel like a jackass for ever having his back. He refused to make changes on his coaching staff at UK, even though none of his assistants were doing anything noteworthy. He gets to Minnesota, puts Vince Taylor on his staff, and all of a sudden they have a borderline top 10 class at Minnesota because they locked up Royce White and Rodney Williams, the two top prospects from the state of Minnesota. Why would he go after Vince Taylor at UK? What did Scott Rigot, David Hobbs or Reggie Hanson bring to the table that Taylor didn’t? Did they look better in suits? Did they have incriminating photos of Mitch Barnhart or Lee Todd? I ask these questions because I can’t come up with a logical answer as to why Smith didn’t change his staff.

I accept that Smith was burnt out at UK after Chuck Hayes graduated and Tyler Hansbrough went to North Carolina. Sometimes being burnt out happens to the best of us. But it just seems like everything Smith has done since leaving UK has been one giant FU to the UK fan base. That’s why I hope Minnesota loses every game they play this season except the two against Indiana. That probably makes me bitter, but I don’t care. It’s one thing to target Kentucky when rules have been broken, but rules haven’t been broken. I’m not sure they’ve even been bent. Gillespie is doing his job cleanly, and if that continues to upset the NABC, Tubby Smith and all his coaching cronies in the NABC can go screw themselves.

I’m Seth Stogsdill, and that was my opinion.