Tubby Smith Show

rrjackIII

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Live at 8pm Monday night

http://www.830wcco.com/

Click on Listen Live Box on right hand side

Ralph is stretching but Tubby thinks he won't play tomorrow night.
 

Tubby was on live from the practice court ar Purdue last night. Players were stretching while Tubby was on with Mike Grim. He said he didn't think Ralph would play but when he was asked about him he asked how he looked out there while he was stretching - so I am speculating he may be ready sooner than is advertised.

Tubby then excused himself and conducted practice in the background while Esposito filled in for the rest of the Show. He talked at length about Scheduling - a popular subject here. He gave some fairly credible explanations about the difficulty of scheduling. First you have to get a date - work with Women's schedule and Hockey schedule. Some BCS teams get into a bidding war to draw in opposing teams - somebody will offer opposing team $70,000 and somebody will come along and offer $75,000 to schedule a game. Then a lot of coaches don't want to play Tubby - he mentioned Iowa State and Marquette as an example - I think that was as a home and home arrangement. Coaches do not want to schedule themselves out of the tournament and/or job. He is working now to schedule UNI in the future - Siena is coming next year.

St Joe is a home and home that fits into their recruiting out East. Anaheim trip was for recruiting west and Cobbs and Carter to get home I believe. The U admin has locked him into 9 home games each year for budget considerations (including exhibitions). Some schools are now tying Footbal and Basketball into their scheduling.

Future Tourneys mentioned - Puerto Rico next year - Orlando year after - Vegas the year after that and --- Maui in 2013.

Tubby came back after practice to close the show and asked fans to watch on the tube - er I mean radio.
 


I listened on the way home and caught Esposito as well. Good summary. One addition is that he seemed quite sensitive to the whole scheduling question, and almost irritated that people criticize the scheduling. He did a nice job explaining the complexities of scheduling, and also included that they do try to pick games with teams they think will have decent RPI's in the year they play them. Hodger can verify, but I think he said the Gophers actually have the third strongest schedule in the Big Ten (not sure if its overall or non con only) this year, based on the success of some of the guarantee teams they played (Morgan State, Stephen Austin, etc.).

In his reference to teams "scheduling themselves out of the tournament" he made a direct reference to a team that "had already done that" without mentioning it. I suspect he was referring to Michigan.

It was good interview, and it increased my empathy for the challenge of scheduling.
 

"The U admin has locked him into 9 home games each year for budget considerations (including exhibitions)."

Thanks for the report RRJ3. One question. Did Esposito say the admin has locked them into that total for every season from here forward, or is 9 just the maximum? This year we played 8 nonconference home games and 2 exhibitions, so we went over that number.

Considering who we usually schedule in November and December, I'd prefer the lesser number of home games.

2 exhibitions
7 nonconference home games
2 road and/or netural games (perhaps a neutral game in Mpls or St. Paul on occasion?)
1 exempt tournament

That would get us to 12 or 13 nonconference games every season.
 


"The U admin has locked him into 9 home games each year for budget considerations (including exhibitions)."

Thanks for the report RRJ3. One question. Did Esposito say the admin has locked them into that total for every season from here forward, or is 9 just the maximum? This year we played 8 nonconference home games and 2 exhibitions, so we went over that number.

Considering who we usually schedule in November and December, I'd prefer 9 home games rather than 8.

2 exhibitions
7 nonconference home games
2 road and/or netural games (perhaps a neutral game in Mpls or St. Paul on occasion?)
1 exempt tournament

That would get us to 12 or 13 nonconference games every season.


If I followed him correctly Esposito was saying that when Tubby arrived there was a minimum requirement in place for the BB Program to have 9 (including exhibition) home games to meet budget numbers set for BB.

edit - another thing - Esposito mentioned was the Home and Home possibilities with Kansas. He said they would like to do it but have not quite been able to put it all together - dates etc etc etc. However, he also mentioned there is a concern about bringing in a Kansas program to recruit our back yard. Tubby also likes to win games and while trying to increase RPI.
 

Thanks for the excellent summary, rrjacklll. I missed the broadcast. Nice touch to do the show with practice in the background - thanks to Mike Grim. I think Mike does a very professional job of broadcasting and play-by-play.
 


I also was surprised to hear that some small school coaches have written into their contract that they get to keep ONE entire "buy game" check as a way to increase their income. In other words, some coach at Alphabet University can agree to play a "buy game" at Minnesota for $90,000 and the coach from Alphabet U. gets to keep that money.

Also, to his credit Grimm asked him about scheduling at least one BCS school at home per year for the season ticket holders. Espisito says they are trying.
 



Holy Man,

As of this morning, the Gophers' overall nonconference schedule ranks as the 5th most difficult among Big 10 schools according to CollegeRPI.com.

1. Iowa (#52 nationally)
2. Purdue (#60)
3. Wisconsin (#76)
4. Illinois (#91)
5. Minnesota (#98)
6. Michigan State (#126)
7. Michigan (#167)
8. Northwestern (#179)
9. Ohio State (#243)
10. Indiana (#265)
11. Penn State (#299)

As a comparison, here are current RPIs of the two "most difficult" home opponents for each school, using the RPI as the measuring tool:

*denotes ACC Challenge opponent

A. Illinois -- Vandy (47), Western Michigan (66)
B. Indiana -- Kentucky (15), *Maryland (93)
C. Iowa -- *Virginia Tech (60), Duquesne (87)
D. Michigan -- UConn (10), *Boston College (99)
E. Michigan State -- Gonzaga (20), Oakland (59)
F. Minnesota -- Saint Joseph's (121), Morgan State (140)
G. Northwestern -- Butler (18), Stanford (152)
H. Ohio State -- *Florida State (55), Eastern Michigan (84)
I. Penn State -- Virginia Tech (60), Sacred Heart (182)
J. Purdue -- West Virginia (1), *Wake Forest (30)
K. Wisconsin -- *Duke (2), Oakland (59)

Based on the data we have so far, an honest question for anyone looking at this. ...

Of the games listed, which schools' fans got the best deal in terms of getting to see a couple decent opponents at home amongst all their creampuffs, and which ones got the rawest deal? You don't necessarily have to go by the (RPI) numbers, either, when making your vote. Include name recognition and conference affiliation, which in truth is probably more important, anyways.

If you twisted my arm, I'd vote for:
J. Purdue as most desirable, with B. Indiana a close 2nd; and
F. Minnesota as least desirable (1 of only 2 without a Big 6 opponent and the other one -- MSU -- hosted Gonzaga), with I. Penn State next among the least desirable.

I understand that scheduling isn't as easy as 1-2-3. But that doesn't change the fact that I think our home schedules have been particularly weak the last 3 years.
 

Holy Man,

As of this morning, the Gophers' overall nonconference schedule ranks as the 5th most difficult among Big 10 schools according to CollegeRPI.com.

1. Iowa (#52 nationally)
2. Purdue (#60)
3. Wisconsin (#76)
4. Illinois (#91)
5. Minnesota (#98)
6. Michigan State (#126)
7. Michigan (#167)
8. Northwestern (#179)
9. Ohio State (#243)
10. Indiana (#265)
11. Penn State (#299)

As a comparison, here are current RPIs of the two "most difficult" home opponents for each school, using the RPI as the measuring tool:

A. Illinois -- Vandy (47), Western Michigan (66)
B. Indiana -- Kentucky (15), *Maryland (93)
C. Iowa -- *Virginia Tech (60), Duquesne (87)
D. Michigan -- UConn (10), *Boston College (99)
E. Michigan State -- Gonzaga (20), Oakland (59)
F. Minnesota -- Saint Joseph's (121), Morgan State (140)
G. Northwestern -- Butler (18), Stanford (152)
H. Ohio State -- *Florida State (55), Eastern Michigan (84)
I. Penn State -- Virginia Tech (60), Sacred Heart (182)
J. Purdue -- West Virginia (1), *Wake Forest (30)
K. Wisconsin -- *Duke (2), Oakland (59)

Based on the data we have so far, an honest question for anyone looking at this. ...

Of the games listed, which schools' fans got the best deal in terms of getting to see a couple decent opponents at home amongst all their creampuffs, and which ones got the rawest deal? You don't necessarily have to go by the (RPI) numbers, either, when making your vote. Include name recognition and conference affiliation, which in truth is probably more important to fans.

If you twisted my arm, I'd vote for:
J. Purdue as most desirable, with B. Indiana a close 2nd; and
F. Minnesota as least desirable (one of only 2 without a Big 6 opponent and the other one -- MSU -- played played Gonzaga), with I. Penn State next.

*denotes ACC Challenge opponent

I understand that scheduling isn't as easy as 1-2-3. But that doesn't change the fact that I think our home schedules have been particularly weak the last 3 years.

SS - Hard to argue with your numbers and your interpretation.
 

FOT, I lived in West Lafayette for 7 years and hated every second of it. I never saw this bar. Is this new? I vote for WL to be the most boring college town in the US even worse than Murfreeboro TN.

Fairly new. Down on The Levee. Good food & drink.
 

solution

The only way we are going to get some"games" in non conference is for the NCAA administration to get off their butts and legislate some parameters for all big conference teams. How hard would it be for the NCAA to mandate that all teams play at least 2 home and 2 away non-conference games against big conference teams a year? They still can schedule the usual away for the other games. I suggest we write to the NCAA. There are too many neutral sites where hardly anybody shows up, too.
 



FOT, I lived in West Lafayette for 7 years and hated every second of it. I never saw this bar. Is this new? I vote for WL to be the most boring college town in the US even worse than Murfreeboro TN.

I spent some time there years back when I was in college. All I can say is, Matt Painter is a great recruiter. Maybe Mankato at best. My grades would have been pretty stellar had I gone there. Axel Rose and Shannon Hoon are natives.
 




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