The coach who signed Jodie Meeks is having a pretty good
week.
Not only did Tubby Smith have the joy of seeing his former player drop a school-record 54 points on Tennessee on Tuesday night, the Minnesota coach picked up a huge win Thursday night when his Gophers won at Wisconsin for the first time since 1994.
Lawrence Westbrook scored 29 points to lead Minnesota to a 78-74 overtime win over the Badgers, breaking a 12-game losing streak in Madison. The Gophers trailed 52-42 with 4:43 remaining before rallying for the win.
Minnesota is now 16-1 overall and 4-1 in the Big Ten. Its lone loss is to Michigan State, which leads the Big Ten with a 4-0 record. Next up for Tubby is a Sunday game at Northwestern. Then Purdue comes to “The Barn” next week.
Links:
- NEW: Birmingham News’ Ian Rapoport asks, if no Gottfried, would Alabama go after Tubby Smith?
- NEW: Jeff Goodman gives the Gophers some love.
- Myron Medcalf of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports on the Minnesota win.
- Shannon Ryan of the Chicago Tribune writes that Tubby was at a loss for words after win.
- Marcus Fuller of the Pioneer Press calls it Tubby’s biggest win at Minnesota.
- Mark Stewart of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel writes on Minnesota comeback that beat Badgers.
- Chas Rich of the Fanhouse writes that Minnesota has established its legitimacy.
- A Wisconsin fan blogger is left to say, “What can you say after that?”
- Tom Ziemer of the Wisconsin State-Journal writes that Gophers stunned Badgers.
- Capital Times columnist Mike Lewis gives his thoughts on the Wisconsin loss.
We don’t care……..
Some do. Including me.
Most don’t care John.
I care. Tubby is a class act and one helluva coach. What he is accomplishing at Minnesota isn’t happening by accident.
The fact that some folks around here say they don’t care smacks of envy.
I don’t care and I am not envious. Tubby is a class act and a good coach. His final years at UK were not marked with the success he experienced in the first two years of his tenure. If Tubby went 16-1 more often, there would not have been the agitation in the fan base there was at the end of his tenure. Making useless comments about who recruited a player who broke two UK records in one game seems pointless without including the full context of the situation. Try this on for size: “The coach who signed Jodie Meeks is having a pretty good week, as is Meeks, who, in case you missed it, scored 54 points, which broke two UK scoring records, for the coach he has now played most of his college career under.”
Tubby is a great coach and a class act. I don’t know that many people would argue these points. Does that mean Meeks would have scored 54? Don’t know. Don’t care. I am glad UK seems to be improving and Tubby continues to enjoy success. There is nothing wrong with being glad for both. Being weakly provocative for the sake of being weakly provocative will simply remind the Tubby haters that they don’t like Tubby and remind the Tubby lovers that they blame the Tubby haters for Tubby leaving. If we are UK fans and not posturing provocateurs, we should be glad for Meeks’ big game. We should be glad for the success of any former UK coach, except those who are coaching one of our biggest rivals or were our head coach when cash was Emeryed to recruits.
Thanks for posting this stuff John. I do care. Most comments will be negative on this topic but here’s a vote for a positive comment.