Thank you for this post. I didn't know where to post this commentary of mine, and you have set me up perfectly. I have not followed your posts regularily, so if this doesn't apply to you I apologize, it is more just general comments I was thinking during the game.
I HATE the term "Hater" (does that make me a hater?) but the general purpose of it is to describe someone who will hate a certain individual regardless of what they do and there are a few of those people with Tubby Smith and that became clear to me watching yesterday's game and thinking back to the countless posts on Gopherhole over the years.
People wondered, why doesn't Tubby go after big-time players? He sould be able to get them to come to MN, he is TUBBY SMITH!
He went hard after CoJo, Harrison Barnes, Ray McCallum (Hard could be argued here, he was a huge lean to play for his dad), Naadir Tharpe, Draymond Green, Tim Hardaway Jr., etc. and was definitley in the running for many of those guys.
Then people wonder, why can't Tubby land these big recruits, HE IS TUBY SMITH!?
As many have pointed out, Devoe, Ralph, Colton, Mo Walker, Rodney, Royce, Cobbs, Dre Hollins, Austin Hollins, Joe Coleman, Trevor Mbakwe, all had very legitimite offers. I won't turn this into an argument about from whom, but they did have legit offers.
Then, we wonder, why does Tubby bother with these big time recruits who will never come here and we end up with these terrible spring signees
Maverick has turned out to be a serviceable back-up PG, Welch has been a great addition this year, Chip has been killing it, Mo Walker was a Rivals top 150 player who most can't wait to have back.
Then people say, why can't Tubby be like Bo Ryan and develop talent. I don't care if he can't recruit, but please develop players like Bo Ryan and find talent under the radar! (Ignoring Bo Ryan actually gets very good recruits quite often)
Chip Armelin was your player of the day yesterday, this is the same Chip Armelin that was more heavily recruited as a football player than basketball. The same Chip Armelin that not a single other BCS basketball team offered or wanted. Tubby Smith took a chance on him and he has blossomed to be one of the Gophers best players right now. Julian Welch had no other BCS offers out of JuCo and played nonBCS his freshman year as well. He shot the Gophers into the game yesterday and has been a very good option at PG. He also took a team of Monson recruits and turned Damien Johnson into one of the best deffensive players in the Big10. Blake Hoffarber got better every year. Al Nolen went from 2-Star recruit to starting PG and an awesome deffender. Rodney gets better yearly, Trevor was showing great imrpovement. Austin has looked much better this year, etc.
It frustrated me to no end that people throw out crazy knocks on Tubby just to be mad. Do his subsititions suck most of the time? Absolutley. Does he always make the best on-court decisions, nope.
I understand in sports, people want someone to blame for bad things and that blame falls on the coach, but it is obnoxious when people just reach for whatever they can come up with. It reminds me of in the movie Anchorman and everyone is complaining about hiring a female anchor. All Steve Carrel's character can come up with is, "AHHHHHH LOUD NOISES!!!!!!" One loss and Gopherhole turns in to loud noises, sky is falling, Tubby/player bashing, garbage.
Rant Over.
