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.

Here’s the deal. Yesterday, ESPN released a piece for their magazine by Chris Sprow that was such a brutal hack job that it left me no choice to respond. So here’s how it’s going to work. I have comments on every single sentence of this piece. So I’ll put Sprow’s comments in italics, then post my rebuttal below.

Just as it was last night during his record-setting performance, 2005 was was a fine time for Jodie Meeks.

So far, so good.

That was when he signed on to play for Kentucky, and gave a shout out to the Kentucky faithful.

It was indeed a great day. Meeks was my favorite of the 2006 recruiting class.

“They have great fans. It’s a great atmosphere. I came up for my visit this past weekend, and I was really amazed how the fans really appreciate basketball.”

Meeks gets it.

Of course, those same fans tend to ignore the other part of the Meeks equation, the stunningly successful coach the kid came to play for.

Wait, what?

As Meeks said back then, “Coach (Tubby) Smith is a great guy. Who wouldn’t want to play for Coach Smith? He’s one of the best coaches in the country.”

Meeks loves this university, and the 2006 class was very good. I wish we had seen more classes like that.

Meeks had a point.

Uh oh, here it comes.

Who wouldn’t want to play for Tubby Smith?

Do I really have to produce the list? Okay, I will.

Vincent Yarbrough
Darius Rice
Tyler Hansbrough
Brandan Wright
Thaddeus Young
Willie Kemp
Deon Thompson
Jay Williams
Chris Duhon
Omar Cook
Chris Lofton
Brett Nelson
Ron Steele

And I know I’m forgetting more than what I’ve listed.

At Kentucky, all Smith did was win a national title in 1998, a season in which the team had not one All-American or a future NBA lottery pick, the first team in 20 years to say as much.

1998 was one of my favorite seasons ever. I take nothing away from that. However, he’s trying to point out that Meeks came to Kentucky to play for Smith. Outside of Saul Smith, the entire 1998 roster came to Kentucky to play for Rick Pitino. Also, his comment about lottery picks is just inaccurate. For starters, the NBA Draft Lottery didn’t even exist in 1978. Secondly, 1985 Villanova and 1987 Indiana also won titles without lottery picks. In no way am I trying to downplay the 1998 team. I’m just pointing out that Sprow, just like far too many media types, didn’t do his homework.

In his 10 seasons at Kentucky, he dominated the SEC, with six regular season titles and five tourney titles.

The last regular season title was in 2005. The last tourney title was in 2004. His teams lost four straight to Vanderbilt and six straight to Florida. But of course Sprow ignored these things because they won’t cause a crap storm.

He averaged over 26 wins per year, an absurd total by any standard.

Not Kentucky, Chris. Smith won 76% of his games at UK. At most schools, that’s fantastic. At Kentucky, that’s a hair below the program’s overall winning percentage. And if you couldn’t see that the program was trending downwards by the end of his tenure, you’re blind.

He was as good or better in his first ten years at Kentucky—which was preceded by time spent as an assistant with Rick Pitino rebuilding the program from a deserved state of rubble—as Lute Olson at Arizona, Coach K at Duke, Roy Williams at Kansas, Jim Boeheim at Syracuse, Tom Izzo at Michigan State or Mark Few at Gonzaga in terms of winning games and winning titles.

First off, the “deserved state of rubble” comment is an unnecessary potshot that has nothing to do with the overall idea of the piece. Secondly, check out these stats. I’m giving Sprow the benefit of the doubt and saying that he meant to compare the figures of the other respective coaches during Smith’s tenure at Kentucky.

Tubby Smith: 1 Final Four, 1 title
Coach K: 3 Final Fours, 1 title
Roy Williams: 4 Final Fours, 1 title
Tom Izzo: 4 Final Fours, 1 title

I’ll give him Olson and Few, but wonder why he neglected to mention Jim Calhoun (2 Final Fours, 2 titles) and Billy Donovan (3 Final Fours, 2 titles). Guess that didn’t fit the agenda.

But he wasn’t cut from the same cloth as those guys, and we mean that in precisely the manner it looks and sounds.

When you use ambiguous language like “we mean that in precisely the manner it looks and sounds,” you’re implying racism. That is pathetic, and nobody should tolerate it. The editors up in Bristol ought to be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to appear in their magazine. Nothing else needs to be said. Ask a Kentucky fan that was ready for a change why he or she was ready for a change. The percentage of people who wanted Smith gone because he was black is so small that it doesn’t even deserve a place on the pie chart.

Smith had his supporters at UK, the kind of people who could see a more recent trip to the Final Four was almost flukey based on his level of success, but they were drowned out by the worst kind of mob fervor, the kind of fans who give message boards their “cesspool” rep.
If he’s talking about Dick Cheeks and Dynasty Defenders, he halfway has a point, as I found their methods deplorable. However, they were probably right. The program was not going to the Final Four anytime soon because recruiting had been going downhill and Smith appeared burnt out after the 2005 season.

He couldn’t get it done, they said.

In 2007, they were right.

Or his teams played too slow.

I personally don’t have a problem with pace of play as long as it optimizes winning. I did have problems with the way Smith seemed to put the reins on scorers.

Or they weren’t as good as Billy Donovan’s.

They weren’t by the end of his tenure.

Or they couldn’t recruit a one-and-done rental like Carmelo Anthony.

It wasn’t that they couldn’t. It was that they couldn’t get the most out of the talented players they did sign.

Or even a player-of-the-year talent.

See above.

Which is exactly the kind of player Jodie Meeks is, a kid who came to play for Smith.

What? He’s a junior. He averaged eight points a game as a freshman. Do you think Meeks would have the same green light for Smith as he does for Gillispie?

Smith is, we know, doing just fine.

Of course he is. He’s free from pressure at Minnesota. All he has to do there is win more games than Dan Monson.

He turned around Minnesota—from 8—22 in 2006-2007 before he arrived to 20—14 in 2007-2008, to now ranked #17 and with one loss (15-1) this season—in far faster time than Billy Gillispie has (ahem) salvaged some supposed mess at UK.

Minnesota didn’t make the tournament last season. They aren’t the best team in the Big Ten. Kentucky is the best team in the SEC. If Kentucky plays Minnesota this year, give me UK and the points.

In fact, he’s well on his way to doing for Minnesota what he maintained at Kentucky.

You mean mediocrity?

We doubt long-suffering Gopher fans will forget it.

Of course not. Minnesota should be ecstatic because mediocrity is better than what they’ve had to deal with in basketball since 1997.

We hope Kentucky doesn’t either.

I think we’ll be just fine, thank you very much.