[Yellow Snow]

OK....I've had a bit of fun with some of you and now I'll be honest with you guys. No, I don't think Orlando Tubby Smith should be fired from his head coaching job at the University of Kentucky. That indeed would put another 'black eye' on college basketball's winningest program, but yes, I do think it's time for him to move on.... let me elaborate more about this.

Tubby Smith’s accomplishments at UK are a mixed bag, though impressive if one looks at them from just the right angle like an aged movie star filmed in soft lighting to hide the ravages of time.

Tubby has 1 National Championship and 1 Final Four since succeeding Rick Pitino in 1998. He’s maintained Kentucky’s All Time victory totals, maintained our All Time highest winning percentage, recruited two of our very greatest players in Tayshaun Prince and Chuck Hayes, and generally conducted himself in an exemplarily manner that brings great pride and prestige to our program, and generally Kentucky under Tubby has dominated the SEC in at times a spectacular though ultimately unimpressive fashion since Kentucky has so many SEC Championships that they have the trophies sitting in boxes collecting dust in the bowels of Memorial Coliseum (no joke).

But there are thorns among the roses, and their pricks have been in all the softest places.

We’ve endured a multitude of 10 loss seasons the likes of which have never been witnessed at Kentucky. Embarrassing home losses have been an excruciatingly regular occurrence. We’ve had a lifetime supply of embarrassing difficulties in player/coach and player/player (and player/police) distractions. We’ve had players protest by not shooting the ball, we’ve had players walk out mid-season (some to return and others to never be seen again and a notable one show up at our biggest rival), and we’ve had the coach’s son himself man the PG position in a fiasco that alienated the fan base and drove a wedge through the heart of the fan base that to this day stands unhealed and raw.

But none of these are reasons for Tubby Smith to go. None of them.

Perception.

There exists recurring reasons as to why Kentucky has woefully underperformed on the recruiting trail and it’s been mentioned by several of our highest targets as they announced for other schools (most maddeningly UNC) leaving Kentucky with little more than AA talent in the frontcourt outside the would-be fleeing Randolph Morris.

Recruits don’t like the way we play. Too deliberate. A half court bunch of defensive starless "team players" that diminish the individual in favor of the whole. And they don’t mind saying so.

Kentucky, as it stands now, is on an unsustainable path. If we were a stock we would be vastly overvalued and ripe for bursting. We have a dearth of talent and the right type is not on the way, or worse, not even in sight. We are not popular because Tubby Smith is equated with slow-ball. Pound it inside. You’d think that would attract top post players, wouldn’t you? But it has not. Why? Because there exists and equal and opposite perception (there’s that dirty little word again) that Tubby only uses his big men to set screens from block to block (thanks Michael Bradley) which of course our competition doesn’t mind reinforcing against us.

How successful has it been used against us, you ask? North Carolina alone has snatched away virtually every one of our top frontcourt targets 2 years running. While Georgia Tech, Alabama, and seemingly just about anyone else that desires the same forward as we do.

Our current team is a recruiting disaster. The junior class of Woo, Perry, Alleyne, and Thomas is a complete whiff of epic program busting proportions and our current year’s haul of another 7 footer on the bench and a reserve guard that will never see the light of day have added nothing at a time when help was most desperately needed. To make matters worse, we urgently need help in the frontcourt in the form of a banger and a legitimate 3 while we’ve whiffed on every target in both those categories for at least 2 years in a row (though a case can be made for 4) and only came up with a few more fine guards to compete with our current disgruntled crop, and a thin “defensive stopper” when we really needed an physical enforcer that can also put the ball in the hole down low as we have no muscle at all up front to intimidate interlocutors prancing around in the paint like they were at a beach party.

Kentucky, to survive, must reinvent itself. Kentucky must return to its roots as the premier full court pressing, run and gun, no holds barred “spurtable” program it once was. For God’s sake, “spurtability” was coined in describing 1996 Kentucky.

Sometimes relationships outgrow each other. Sometimes the path of one leads away from the path of another. Tubby needs to go not because he’s done something wrong, he needs to go because we have nothing left for him, and he for us. His time at Kentucky ranks him as worthy of having his name raised to the rafters alongside Pitino’s and I’m sure it will be.

I’m cheating on Kentucky. I’m seeing other coaches. I am an unfaithful fan. I dream of Bruce Pearl or Jay Wright. I want to feel what Tennessee feels this season. I want to stand up and scream and not sit down again until the game is over.

I want…… freedom, Tubby.


alute: