Charley Walters: Tubby Smith's status could come to a head

[matt]

Agenda? And what would that be? The only agenda I have here is that I don't think Tubby is a great coach, plain and simple. How can you argue the fact that Rodney was once considered a top flight athlete and a shoe in for the first round of the NBA and now he is returning for his senior year to work on things that were evident flaws in his game when he GOT to college.... Sure he has developed as a player mentally, but can anyone honestly say he is 1/5th of what we thought he would/could be after we saw the type of athleticism he was blessed with? Has he improved skill wise? Can he dribble? I'll conceded his shot has gotten better, but thats about it.

You are either blind or ignorant if you don't think Rodney hasn't improved since day 1. And he was never a "shoe in" for the first round.

 

[Unregistered User]

And he was never a "shoe in" for the first round.

And if was ever considered that, he would become the first ever college player to play 4 years and not exceed expectations.

 

[Winasota Gopher]

You are either blind or ignorant if you don't think Rodney hasn't improved since day 1. And he was never a "shoe in" for the first round.

Obviously he has improved some, as all basketball players do as they age and reach their prime. But I feel the majority of his improvement is the byproduct of maturity and playing time moreso than a "coached up" situation.

 

[bleedsmaroonandgold]

I agree with that benchmark plus one other - he has to sign a strong recruiting class in the Fall. There has to be a reason for optimism going forward and also something to sell the great Jones, Vaughn, etc class that comes the following year.

I hear you on wanting to see good recruits, but it seems like there is always such a disparity in what the "experts" think is a good recruiting class versus what is a good recruiting class. I not to focus on recruiting when I evaluate a coach. If we are losing with four and five star recruits won't make it sting less and if we are winning with 2 and 3 star recruits, there lack of stars won't make it any less sweet.

 

[GophersInIowa]

DJ is one of the exceptions, he was a Coach Mo recruit, correct? However, he definitely developed/flourished under Tubbys defensive mindset. Hoff and Westbrook I think are more products of natural maturation and growing into their bodies than any significant coaching job. They both had significant warts in their game when they arrived, and Tubby did little to change that, so no I cannot say that he did a great coaching job with either one of them. To use the excuse that Nolen was never going to be a good shooter is quite weak. So he came to the team as a point guard that had good handles with a quick first step, one that the defense needed to have little respect for, and he left exactly the same. No improvement to the outside game, and probably regressed as a finisher.

I guess we'll just have to disagree about Hoff and Westbrook. There really is no way of gauging their development, especially since neither one of us have ever attended a practice or meeting to know what Tubby was doing to try and help them develop. I do feel Hoffarber improved defensively and developed a mid-range game. His first three years, 76% of his shots were 3-pointers. His senior year, it was 62%.

I cannot recall saying Austin Hollins didn't improve. The only thing I'm saying is that there is a history of Tubby not doing anything to cover up the deficiencies of many of the recruits he has. Hollins and his inability to dribble through traffic is a problem right now, I was asking why someone thought Tubby could coach him, Coleman and Andre past their issues?

Part of my response was pointing out an example to answer this part "Curious as to why you believe he can coach young players up. Who in the current system has he shown he can "coach up". But also, I think Hollins' outside shooting improvements might have something to do with the coaches. It's just really annoying how some people like to blame Tubby for some things, yet won't give him any credit for other things.

Is it wrong of me to expect Andre Hollins to become a slashing game changing point guard? I know I've read the description of his potential described exactly that way on this board. What if it doesn't happen whose fault is it?

Absolutely not. But you also seem to be not giving it a chance to happen either, and I don't think that's fair. As for who's fault it would be, very rarely, if ever is it just one person's fault. But yest, Tubby would deserve some of the blame for sure.

If you think Joseph's issues only manifested themselves as a Junior, to steal a line from your post, "you haven't been paying much attention". There were many murmurs around the Twin Cities that Devoe and Coach didn't see eye to eye as early as the beginning of his sophomore year. Tubby's fault, all of it, even if "it's difficult to predict down the future"

So when a player gets suspended for breaking rules, it's the coach's fault? Then why does the player get suspended and not the coach? According to you, it was Tubby's fault so he should have been suspended. Maybe I'm in the minority, but that sounds pretty ridiculous to me. Either way, if stuff started happening as a sophomore, I still don't see how anyone could have predicted that two years prior when Joseph was being recruited. Bill Self at Kansas offered Joseph. I guess he's bad at judging character as well.

People are trying to put a majority of the blame (or in this case, all of the blame) on one person or another and I think that's not right. More than likely both sides deserve some of the blame.