Kentucky sports and beyond.
When it comes to college basketball on television, it’s former Kentucky coach night. At 7 p.m., you can tune in and find out if Rick Pitino has enough healthy bodies to put on the floor for Louisville to play Villanova. At 8:30, watch Tubby Smith and his Minnesota Gophers attempt to survive the Izzone. Then at 9 p.m., watch Billy Gillispie continue his search for his first Big 12 win at Texas Tech.
If ESPN’s 30 for 30 would do an Eddie Sutton documentary, the night would be set.
(AP photo)
The winter is growing colder for Tubby Smith in Minnesota. His Golden Gophers fell to 0-4 in Big Ten play with a 79-66 home-court loss to Purdue on Sunday. And the natives are restless.
Minnesota has lost 14 of its last 15 conference games, dating back to last year when the Gophers dropped 10 of their last 11 inside the league. In fact, the Gophers were 16-4 overall and 5-3 in the Big 10 before the collapse.
True, Smith lost the services of his best player, Trevor Mbakwe, to a torn ACL earlier in the year. Despite that devastating loss, the former UK coach guided Minnesota to a 12-1 record before conference play commenced. It has been all downhill from there, especially the home-floor drubbing the Gophers took Sunday at the hands of the Boilermakers.
Excerpt from Amelia Rayno’s coverage in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
Before Sunday, the Gophers had lost three close ones, but had clutched some shred of optimism along the way.
This was a blowout. At home. Against a team that had just been crushed by Penn State. Right before heading to red-hot Indiana. And with the loss, the team quickly dug a hole that will be very tough to escape from.
“When you’re 0-4 and you haven’t won a Big Ten game for like forever,” Gophers coach Tubby Smith started before trailing off. “That’s the psyche in sports — and confidence is so fragile.”
Continue reading ‘Tubby Smith’s Gophers off to an 0-4 Big 10 start’
(AP photo)
It’s not the best game on the tonight’s TV schedule, but it’s not the worst.
(I’ve been watching too much 30 Rock lately, which includes Alec Baldwin saying, “We’re not the best people.” And Tina Fey answering, “But we’re not the worst.” And then both in unison: “Grad students are the worst.”)
Continue reading ‘College basketball schedule on television tonight’
Pat Knight, son of Bob, coaches the Lamar Cardinals tonight against UK at Rupp Arena. That brings to mind Bob Knight’s annual on-the-floor battles with the Cats. A recap:
- As a young coach at Army, Knight’s team lost to Adolph Rupp and Kentucky 80-65 in the finals of the 1968 UKIT at Memorial Coliseum. After becoming coach at Indiana, Knight beat Rupp 90-89 in overtime in Louisville in 1971.
- Knight won his first four games against Joe B. Hall, but then ended up just 9-9 8-8 against the Kentucky coach. There was the infamous head-slap game in 1974 in which IU routed the Cats 98-74 and Knight either tapped or slapped Hall on the back of the head, depending on your interpretation of events. Kentucky got revenge later that same season by knocking off an undefeated IU 92-90 in the Mideast Region final in Dayton. Hall won five of the last seven meetings between the two coaches, which may have had something to do with their relationship going south.
Continue reading ‘A look at Bob Knight’s coaching record against Kentucky’
(AP photo)
Big Blue Links for Tuesday:
John Calipari tweeted out this pick earlier tonight, with caption “two national title winners with a guy who’s trying!”
Big Blue Links for Thursday:
Continue reading ‘BBL: Lacey down to three; UK looking at Poythress’
SEC links for Tuesday:
SEC TEAMS IN NCAA TOURNAMENT — Here’s the second-round schedule:
STALLINGS APOLOGIZES TO STATE –”Vanderbilt men’s coach Kevin Stallings apologized Monday,” reports John Pitts of the NE Mississippi Daily Journal, “for accusing Mississippi State of trying to deliberately step on the foot of an injured Vandy player in Friday’s SEC tournament game. ‘I simply misunderstood what my player told me about an incident that happened in the SE Tournament,’ Stallings said in the statement. ‘I have apologized to coach Stansbury.’”
BEILEIN A NEW PUZZLE FOR PEARL – Tennessee gets ready to play Michigan in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Reports Mike Griffith of the Knoxville News-Sentinel, “Pearl’s No. 9-seeded Vols (19-14) are about to play Beilein’s No. 8-seeded Wolverines (20-13) at 12:40 p.m. Friday as they open the NCAA tournament in a second-round game in Charlotte, N.C. By then, UT hopes to be familiar with Beilein’s complicated, guarded – and highly successful – ways. Beilein, 58, is the only active coach to have achieved 20-win seasons at four different collegiate levels: junior college, NAIA, Division II and Division I.”
Continue reading ‘SEC: With Pelphrey out, is Tubby Smith on Arkansas list?’
(AP photo)
Looks like it’s turned into Tubby Bashing time in the Land of A Thousand Lakes.
With Minnesota heading into today’s game at Iowa with a 16-8 overall record, and 5-7 mark in the Big 10, Jim Souhan of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune thinks the Kentucky fans who were down on Smith may have been right.
The headline: “Uh, Kentucky, y’all were right about Tubby.”
An excerpt:
At Minnesota, he is 31-35 in Big Ten games and has failed to win an NCAA tourney game. Since his last Elite Eight appearance, he is 49-49 in conference games and 2-4 in the tournament, despite having enjoyed the immense advantages provided by Kentucky.
If a coach without Smith’s résumé had performed to that level over the course of eight years, he probably wouldn’t get fired, but he wouldn’t be treated as a conquering hero, either.
This week might have provided the low point of an impressive career. Smith not only coached poorly; he became whiny, an unseemly characteristic for a supposed leader of young men.
After his team lost to Ohio State last Sunday, Smith linked his team’s weak play to Minnesota’s lack of a practice facility. Smith actually told Minnesotans that it was hard for his players to walk across the street in the cold to lift weights, one of the most pathetic excuses in the history of sport.
Randall Cobb at SEC Media Days (AP photo)
Big Blue Links for Thursday:
Continue reading ‘BBL: Football meets SEC media, basketball meets politics’
