2013 College hoops coaching carousel thread

I think UCLA was jammed up. With two years left on his deal, Howland needed to be extended or cut loose.

 

Tubby's gone.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/blog/eye-on-college-basketball/21948116/tubby-smith-out-at-minnesota

And I can see why. With the B1G so loaded (IU, Michigan, MSU, Wisky, Ohio State all loaded for the long term), promising coaches at Iowa & Illinois, with Painter always tough at Purdue ... Minnesota seemed stagnant. Never awful, but never good enough to contend for conference titles. Tubby's weaknesses as a recruiter were exposed -- Bo Ryan stole Jordan Taylor, Jon Leuer and Jared Berggren right out from under Tubby's nose.

In football & men's basketball, Minnesota is consistently one of the most underachieving BCS schools in the country. It's a very good school academically, the flag ship school of the state and is located in a major metro area (as opposed to most of the B1G schools). There is no reason it can't compete for conference titles, beyond its own ineptitude.

 

Just putting this out there...Minny's AD is Norwood Teague, who hired Shaka at VCU.

 

How does the budget stack up with those of other B1G schools?

 

Maybe... I mean, I can see that. I don't think they ever forgave him for missing the tournament twice in three years. I think they fired Lavin after missing it once. Harrick made the tournament every year he was there...

It reminds me of what happened to Arkansas a couple years ago. The team was making progress, had some good recruiting classes, they fired the coach, and miraculously, it didn't fix everything...

 

It's a gutsy move to get rid of Tubby Smith now, but there's a very good argument that it was only a matter of time and it's better to be ahead of the curve. For whatever reason something is wrong in that program - witness how they seem to get worse during the course of the season every year - and keeping him around surrounded by question marks would probably make it impossible to get any of the three current Minnesota high school juniors who are being nationally recruited (one - point guard Tyus Jones - is so highly sought after that Tom Izzo flew directly from his NCAA game on Saturday to watch Jones in the Minnesota state high school championship game that night).

And the idea mentioned above that Gopher basketball perenially underachieves I can buy, but I'm not so sure that's true of Gopher football. Yes, it's the only Division I program in the state, but that's a state with very few DI level football players, there are maybe 30,000 people in the state who care at all about Gopher football, most of whom are so old that they remember when the Gophers were actually competitive nationally in the early 60s, they're fighting for attention in a market that isn't that big and has all four major sports, and the local media, if you throw out Sid Hartman, seems to actually root for their continued failure. Other than Indiana and Purdue, no other Big Ten school faces such an uphill battle in football.

 

Credible sources in Minnesota are also saying there's already a verbal agreement with Smith's replacement, who's widely presumed to be either Smart or Flip Saunders (hiring a guy who's been in the pros and hasn't recruited in over 25 years would be par for the course for the old AD, Joel Maturi, but you have to assume Teague is smarter than that).

 

And I thought Pitt's AD was stupid...

 

The Flip Saunders theory is strictly unfounded rumor at this point, I might add. Given Teague's extensive connections in college basketball coaching circles, I highly doubt that will happen, no matter how well it would play with Minnesotans, who are the most parochial people on the planet and assume only people with prior ties to the state are worthy.

 

The Tubby thing is weird.
You sign a guy to a three year extension in July, his team makes it to the round of 32 and he gets fired?
And it isn't like the Big 10 has proven to be a disappointment in the tourney with a quarter of the Sweet 16.
Shaka wouldn't be Smart to take that job when better opportunities are available.

 

Anyone think Tubby ends up at UCLA?