Fire Tubby?

That’s the name of a category over on the Georgia Sports Blog anyway. It’s funny how things work out like that. On one hand you have a very vocal group of UK fans that wish Tubby would have never started here and they can’t wait until he leaves. On the flip side of that you have (I’m assuming here) quite a few Georgia fans that wish Tubby had never left and that he would come back. Although I’m sure that feeling is probably starting to dwindle now that they are having some success and are away from the disastrous Harrick era.

That’s all I have for now. Move along. Come back later.

Some guy over on ESPN.com really tears into Tubby and the Cats in this article. Yesterday people were declaring “Kentucky could win the national championship“, and today you have this guy saying things like:

“Even after winning the school’s seventh national championship, Smith largely shied away from signing high-caliber players the Wildcats could have had. He focused more on lesser talented players that he could mold into a team and low-maintenance players that would fit his methodical, inside-outside offense.”

He mentions Tayshahn and Bogans as two exceptions to the type of crummy players Tubby likes to recruit. Then he picks on the (admittedly) weakest class Tubby has recruited by mentioning:

“Nondescript players like Lukasz Obrzut, Sheray Thomas and Bobby Perry became the norm.”

That is hardly the truth. I know, I know, this point has been beaten to death but he did have the number one class soon thereafter. You can’t have it both ways. If you rank recruiting classes before their first game you have to stick by this and can’t dismiss it at a later date because they didn’t pan out. I plan to write a column on this one day. No matter if every player from that class leaves the team it was still a number one class.

He then has this little comment:

“The Wildcats (15-5, 4-2 SEC) haven’t beaten any team of consequence since defeating Indiana 59-54 at Rupp Arena on Dec. 9 (unless you count Louisville), or really any formidable opponent before then (unless you count DePaul) for that matter.”

Ok, this guy is starting to piss me off. Who the hell is he to be discounting our wins versus Louisville. It’s fine if one of the Tubby Basher’s want to talk crap about who UK has played, because they usually are still pulling for the team to win (usually). But I’ve never even heard of this guy.

Google search: Mark Schlabach

Ahhh, I see what’s going on here. The first link from google shows what the problem is here:

“Mark Schlabach joined ESPN.com in July 2006 as a college football and basketball columnist. A graduate of the University of Georgia…”

A lot of the people from the other SEC schools are taking their shots while UK is in a down period right now since they have all been doormats to the SEC Championship for years. Problem solved.

I’m probably more interested in this stuff than most people, but I find the Lexington media fascinating. More specifically, the sports coverage. That’s why you are likely to come to this site and see me discussing the latest media personality running from the cops or when one of them is arrested for drunk driving and allegedly kicking a cop in the junk.

Last weekend I posted the video of Alan Cutler’s reaction to the Vanderbilt loss. In the video he was well, being Alan Cutler. Over-enunciating every third word and in general just sounding a little condescending. Cutler isn’t known for being the biggest supporter of Tubby Smith fan (more on this in a second) so it probably wasn’t much of a surprise that he was fired from his radio show on WLAP. He is being replaced by another well known sports personality in Lexington, Dick Gabriel. His show will be called Sports Nightly with Dick Gabriel. You can read all about it on the HL’s site. Host Communications and Clear Channel are trying to push this show statewide via UK’s Big Blue Sports Network. Cutler had this to say about the situation.

“Host Communications can’t have someone like me saying whatever I feel about the University of Kentucky.”

So that may be the reason he was being especially Alan Cutlerish in his report. It’s also worth noting that Cutler is apparently a member of the anti-Tubby site Dynasty Defenders. The guy that runs the site katman2000 also posts videos on YouTube and one of his videos is about whether Cutler was fired because the UKAA sent the word from on high. Who knows. And just because, here is a picture of WLEX sportscaster Ryan Lemond.

For those of you that read Bill Simmons, The Sports Guy on Page 2 over at ESPN this may be familiar. What you just witnessed comes in at number four on his 13 levels of losing chart. That’s right, the fourth most painful way for your team to lose a game. It is appropriately named The Broken Axle, because the wheels just came flying off in that game.

While watching the first half I had the feeling (as I’m sure most people did) that the players only meeting that Ramel and Bobby called earlier this week, and the long practices actually did some good. That the extra measures taken this week had been effective at stopping the losing streak at one. It felt as if it had finally “clicked” for everyone and that Tubby had an excellent game plan for the Dawgs. Mark Coury looked like he belonged on the court, Joe Crawford was scorching hot with 17 points, and all the substitutions were playing defense. On a side note, Perry Stevenson has a new nickname on this site: Ricochet.

In the second half UK made Takais Brown look All-World and for the second game in a row Randolph Morris did his best “Tyler Hansbrough vs Kentucky” impersonation. Did the team come out flat after halftime? Yes. Was Tubby out coached after halftime. Most definitely. Just to recap for a second, UK goes into the locker room with a 43-30 lead. What do you tell the team at this point if you are the coach? Keep up the energy, keep up the defensive pressure and stick with the game plan?

Tubby has always been (and I don’t think there is to much contention on this point) excellent at making adjustments during halftime. In my opinion one of Tubby’s weaknesses is that he isn’t very good at making strategy changes during the game. Dennis Felton “pulled a Tubby” and changed his defensive scheme and the Kentucky could just never adjust. That was truly one of the worst losses in recent memory.

Or so says FoxSports.com columnist Yoni Cohen. Ok, so he gets a few key points wrong but THIS is sticking your neck out there.

He says that “years ago” Randolph Morris tried to leave for the NBA. Uhhmm actually that was last season. He also says we had a 10 game winning streak before being pantsed by Vandy. A ticky tack point I know but as a UK fan in regard to such things it’s my obligation to correct him. Sir it was an ELEVEN game win streak. And you thought Chris Cross was optimistic. Woah.

Well, it’s almost here. What’s that you ask? “The Defining Stretch of the Tubby Smith Era“, as some would say. In reality is that the case? Considering this game alone, probably not, but a win tonight will do a lot to soothe the sting of the Vandy loss. Georgia is the favorite at -2 1/2. My personal opinion (and hope) is that the Vanderbilt game was somewhat of a fluke and that it will serve as a kick in the ass to get back on track. I’m going to predict a 10 point UK win tonight. Clearly I drank the Kool-Aid. If UK gets thrashed, you can come back and tell me what a jackass I was in the comments.

Now on to something I like to do whenever UK plays Georgia, which is bring up our old friend Joey Waldrop. Sadly, the uncoordinated looking former Bulldog turned actor is no longer on the team. It also appears as if his website has fallen into disrepair. It also pales in comparison to our own Jodie Meeks‘ site. That doesn’t stop me from reminiscing about the game in Rupp where I got to see him laboring up and down the court looking like an Olympic race walker where you can’t pick up one foot until the other touches the ground. Good times. Go Cats!

Some weird happenings this week with the rankings. Despite the loss on Saturday to Vandy the Cats actually moved up in one of the polls this week. In the AP poll Kentucky dropped from 25th to effectively 27th and into the “others receiving votes” category with Tennessee being the penis-in-betweenus. Did anyone just get that joke? I’m sorry for that, I just had a flash back to middle school.

On to the ESPN/Coaches poll where all the funny business usually happens because most of the time it’s the AD or a staff assistant that sends in the rankings instead of the coach. On a side note, I heard or read somewhere that Tubby doesn’t participate in the coaches poll because he doesn’t believe in them. I couldn’t find a link to back this up but I swear I heard that. Anyway, just the opposite of the AP poll, UK went from 27th to 25th.

In the other rankings Kentucky dropped from 5th to 7th in the RPI, 11th to 17th in Sagarin, and held steady at 14th in the Pomery system.

Lastly, UK is all alone in second place in the SEC East after a Florida win and a UK loss.

Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Eric Crawford says that he only sees one “lock-solid” win left on UK’s remaining SEC schedule. Here’s the direct quote. I picked it up from the excellent Aaron’s UK Basketball Blog.

“And this isn’t the old Southeastern Conference. Look down the remaining schedule and name how many games you think are lock-solid wins for UK. I came up with one.”

Talk about being pessimistic, an eleven game win streak ends and this guy sticks a fork in the teams season.

So I had just finished watching the game yesterday and was writing my little piece for the site when WLEX ran their sports segment. I always like to tune into the news after the game to see Tubby and some of the player’s reactions.

Most of the time it’s Ryan Lemond on the floor at Rupp giving a recap while the UK band is still playing My Old Kentucky Home. Usually I think, “what’s the hurry” how could he possibly have his thought’s prepared 45 seconds after the game is over. I guess that’s why he is one of the nominees for Broadcaster of the Year in Kentucky. I always enjoy Lemond’s reporting because he is usually able to tell a story and make it humorous all at the same time which I think takes a unique talent. Except this time Lemond had desk duty and Alan Cutler was standing outside Rupp. Let’s go to the video. Sorry about the boring Randolph Morris section there in the middle, stick with it and watch all the way to the end.

Do you think he enjoys the wins or the losses more? He really comes off as being a gigantic ass in that clip. Eeemmmbarrrraasssiinnngg

And remember Alan’s #1 secret of being a winner is:
Cut a hole in a bo…. no, no that’s something else. It’s actually:

Streak be damned, but the Cats couldn’t find a way to win this one.

Why wasn’t Jasper handling the ball down the stretch? As I was watching it, I couldn’t remember him committing that many turnovers or fouls during the game, but I thought maybe I had missed something. After having a chance to look at the box score you can see he didn’t have very many of either. I don’t know, maybe there was a reason.

There also goes the streak that the commentators like to bring up about “Kentucky leading at halftime” and going on to win the game. You can tack “and 1” to the end of that streak. It was really good to see both Sheray and Bobby have a decent game. Does it bother anyone else an inordinate amount when Randolph turns the ball over off the tips of his fingers? Yeah, me neither.

Now that we have that pesky winning streak out of the way let’s see how the tide of the TB turns next week.