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Post by Commissioner on Jan 19, 2018 9:58:08 GMT -5
Tubby Smith is a real good coach. Not a great coach, a la Izzo/K/Wooden/Knight/Smith/Williams etc., but a very good coach. Runs clean programs and wins at every stop.
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Post by motorcitysam on Feb 23, 2018 13:40:47 GMT -5
Memphis snags their first win over a ranked team in the Tubby Smith era, 91-85 over #23 Houston. Tigers move to 17-11, 8-7.
Unfortunately, leading scorer Jeremiah Martin suffered a broken foot in the first half and will miss the rest of the season. Brutal.
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Post by motorcitysam on Feb 26, 2018 21:39:59 GMT -5
Tigers got a big road win on Sunday, beating UConn 83-79. UConn is down this year, hit by injuries and transfers, but Memphis was without it's best player/team captain Jeremiah Martin and their second leading scorer only played seven minutes due to foul trouble. As we say, any road win in conference is a good one, especially when you're short handed. Of the 83 points Memphis scored, 77 were scored by former JUCO players and college freshmen in their first year of D1 ball and first year in Tubby Smith's system. Memphis, picked to finish ninth in the AAC in part because they had only two players coming back from last season, are in fifth place with two games left, sitting at 18-11, 9-7. www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/recap?gameId=400988132
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Post by Commissioner on Feb 27, 2018 12:39:09 GMT -5
Tigers got a big road win on Sunday, beating UConn 83-79. UConn is down this year, hit by injuries and transfers, but Memphis was without it's best player/team captain Jeremiah Martin and their second leading scorer only played seven minutes due to foul trouble. As we say, any road win in conference is a good one, especially when you're short handed. Of the 83 points Memphis scored, 77 were scored by former JUCO players and college freshmen in their first year of D1 ball and first year in Tubby Smith's system. Memphis, picked to finish ninth in the AAC in part because they had only two players coming back from last season, are in fifth place with two games left, sitting at 18-11, 9-7. www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/recap?gameId=400988132This can't be. They need time to play together; to learn the system; to gel as a squad. And you can't build a program around jucos. So stop lying on this board.
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Post by motorcitysam on Feb 28, 2018 13:17:49 GMT -5
Tigers got a big road win on Sunday, beating UConn 83-79. UConn is down this year, hit by injuries and transfers, but Memphis was without it's best player/team captain Jeremiah Martin and their second leading scorer only played seven minutes due to foul trouble. As we say, any road win in conference is a good one, especially when you're short handed. Of the 83 points Memphis scored, 77 were scored by former JUCO players and college freshmen in their first year of D1 ball and first year in Tubby Smith's system. Memphis, picked to finish ninth in the AAC in part because they had only two players coming back from last season, are in fifth place with two games left, sitting at 18-11, 9-7. www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/recap?gameId=400988132This can't be. They need time to play together; to learn the system; to gel as a squad. And you can't build a program around jucos. So stop lying on this board. I apologize for any factual misrepresentations I have made. :-) I never understood the outright aversion some Titan fans have towards JUCO players, as well as the belief held by at least some that you need to have more than two years in a coach's system to gel. Reminds me of a stupid question I heard a reporter ask Tubby Smith this year. Smith added a bunch of JUCO players this year in response to seven players transferring from last year's roster, and that has been a point of criticism for the Memphis media members who don't like Smith. Before they played #23 ranked Houston, a reporter commented on the fact that Houston had seven JUCO players on their roster and three former JUCOs starting and asked Tubby if he would use Houston as a blueprint for success at Memphis. As if Tubby Smith needs to look at Kelvin Sampson for guidance in how to produce a winning program. No disrespect to Sampson, who is a good coach, but the idea that Smith needs to learn from him is a strange one. I was more offended by it than Tubby was/is. Right now he's just concentrating on the game against USF tomorrow and adding a couple of more players to the class of 2018. A win would give them 19 victories on the season, matching the number put up by the dysfunctional mix of more talented players, most of whom decided they didn't want to buy into the system.
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Post by motorcitysam on Mar 4, 2018 23:29:10 GMT -5
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Post by Commissioner on Mar 4, 2018 23:31:04 GMT -5
Memphis added some size with Baylor grad transfer Chad Rykhoek. The 6-11 center committed last night to the Tigers. Whoa! Bad news for Memphis. Can't win with transfers.
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Post by motorcitysam on Mar 5, 2018 21:03:17 GMT -5
Memphis added some size with Baylor grad transfer Chad Rykhoek. The 6-11 center committed last night to the Tigers. Whoa! Bad news for Memphis. Can't win with transfers. :-) Ironically, you posted that in this AAC thread. The top three teams in conference, Cincinnati, Houston, and Wichita State, all have extensively used JUCO players in building their programs (wincing as I remember Cincinnati signing DeBerry), and the 5th place team loaded up on JUCOs last Spring and beat all of the preseason predictions (anywhere from ninth to last place in the AAC) and finished fifth with a 19-12, 10-8 record. Admittedly, the Memphis JUCOs only have one more season to play, so they aren't a "long term" solution, but the fact that they managed to exceed expectations and post a solid record makes it that much easier to recruit the four year players that a program needs. Winning always helps with building a foundation.
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Post by motorcitysam on Mar 7, 2018 16:20:04 GMT -5
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Post by Commissioner on Mar 7, 2018 16:34:15 GMT -5
This strikes me as insane.
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Post by rbj on Mar 7, 2018 18:43:44 GMT -5
Can Memphis afford to pay Tubby Smith $9,500,000.00 to walk away? I know they have FedEx money, but that's a lot of cash. I am pretty sure Tubby Smith is going to make sure they fire him if that type of cash is on the table.
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Post by motorcitysam on Mar 7, 2018 19:30:43 GMT -5
This strikes me as insane. Struck me as insane, too, but everyone knows I love Tubby Smith and I admit I'm not an objective observer. Glad to hear that sentiment expressed from an objective person such as yourself. This is what happens when you allow a media personality who has never played or coached basketball create the narrative surrounding your program. The national sports guy from CBS Sports based in Memphis, Gary Parrish, has been in full attack mode against Smith ever since Tubby got hired. He wanted his best friend Steve Forbes (who we saw coaching ETSU to a win over Detroit at Calihan this year) to get the job. Parrish has used his daily radio show in Memphis to constantly trash Smith for the past 23 months. Lots of fans who wanted a "young, hot coach" rather than a "re-tread" like Tubby (who had just won Big 12 COY and Sporting News National COY) jumped on the anti Tubby train as Parrish kept pushing it. He's by far the loudest sports voice in town. Some other media people picked up on it, too. The beat writer for Memphis basketball for the local daily published an article criticizing Tubby Smith for not personally calling a local high school basketball start. That ramped up the anti Tubby outrage. Only problem with the article was that it failed to note that because the player was a sophomore, it would have been an NCAA violation for Smith to call him. The writer added that as a footnote on Twitter later, but by that time the damage was done and people still bring it up to this day to trash Smith. Coach Smith has his supporters, and that's probably a majority of the fans base, but none of them have a daily radio show. I've mentioned this before, but adding again for context: After last season, a bunch of the previous coach's players transferred and Smith had only two returning players for the upcoming year, along with another player who sat out last year. (To make it worse, all three of those guys missed games with injuries THIS season.) Smith added a bunch of JUCO players in the spring to go with the high school kids he signed in the Fall. With 9 new players in their first year of D1 ball, and with the conference adding Wichita State, the Tigers finished the regular season 19-12, 10-8. Other things to note: - Memphis had never had a four game winning streak in the AAC before. They had two four game winning streaks in conference this year. - Beat #23 Houston, the first Memphis win over a ranked team in four years. - Junior point guard Jeremiah Martin blossomed from a ten point per game scorer last year to become the leading scorer in the AAC. - Won at SMU, the first Tiger win at SMU in five years. - Picked to finish anywhere from ninth to last, they finished fifth in conference. - Just this past Saturday, they landed a four star guard recruit for the class of 2018. Doesn't really seem like the right set of circumstances to fire the coach and bring in a guy who only has AAU and high school coaching experience.
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Post by motorcitysam on Mar 7, 2018 19:32:48 GMT -5
Can Memphis afford to pay Tubby Smith $9,500,000.00 to walk away? I know they have FedEx money, but that's a lot of cash. I am pretty sure Tubby Smith is going to make sure they fire him if that type of cash is on the table. One of their biggest boosters is a former Memphis State point guard (not a former pro) who smartly married into the Wal Mart family. He can afford it, if that is the course they decide to take.
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Post by motorcitysam on Mar 8, 2018 20:45:28 GMT -5
Against the backdrop of a good chunk of the fan base and most of the local media calling for the coach to be fired and the players to be replaced by recruits with more stars by their names, Memphis beat USF 79-77 in round one of the AAC tournament. USF has not had a good season, but they blew out Memphis a week ago, so this was a nice win for the Tigers, especially when you consider the circus that is going on around the team and the fact that they are still playing without there best player, who is out for the season. Neither the University President or the Athletic Director have made any statements to lessen the venom coming the team's way from local fans and media. They didn't even tweet out a "good luck" to the team prior to the game today. Today's win puts Memphis at twenty wins for the first time in four years. They have won 6 of their last 7 games. Tomorrow they play fourth seeded 19-11 Tulsa. www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/boxscore?gameId=401019976
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Post by Commissioner on Mar 9, 2018 11:34:31 GMT -5
Against the backdrop of a good chunk of the fan base and most of the local media calling for the coach to be fired and the players to be replaced by recruits with more stars by their names, Memphis beat USF 79-77 in round one of the AAC tournament. USF has not had a good season, but they blew out Memphis a week ago, so this was a nice win for the Tigers, especially when you consider the circus that is going on around the team and the fact that they are still playing without there best player, who is out for the season. Neither the University President or the Athletic Director have made any statements to lessen the venom coming the team's way from local fans and media. They didn't even tweet out a "good luck" to the team prior to the game today. Today's win puts Memphis at twenty wins for the first time in four years. They have won 6 of their last 7 games. Tomorrow they play fourth seeded 19-11 Tulsa. www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/boxscore?gameId=401019976Tulsa is a big game for them. If they lose, there's probably not even an NIT bid waiting. With a win, good chance there is. Josh Pastner was 37-29 his last two years, with no post-season, before fleeing. Tubby is 39-25. Memphis wants to do better, but they are the type of school that runs a big risk with changing. They are not a Kentucky or a Louisville. Before Gene Bartow got there they weren't much of anything on the college scene. Dana Kirk bumped them into the top echelon but at the cost of scandal after scandal. (Titan trivia: Kirk coached the VCU team that the Titans beat in the 1978 NIT tournament). Then came a long run with Larry Finch, a star of Bartow's Final 4 team. Finch's record was about like Tubby's usually is--winning 18 to 23 or so games a year, usually making the NCAA, a couple Sweet 16s, the rare but occasional losing season. After Finch they fell under Tic Price and Johnny Jones, and then John Calipari came and resuscitated the program and took it to new heights. In other words, Memphis is a very good program, but not an elite program. It doesn't have the history, the endowment, the reputation (athletic or academic), the facilities, or the conference affiliations to be an elite program. It's twice approached that status, but that was due to the particular talents of two coaches--one of whom cheated, got the program on probation, and ended up in jail himself. Memphis is a program that could fall very far, very fast. Calipari's particular abilities made a lot of fans think Memphis is an elite program, but it is not. It is just a higher version of, say, what Winthrop was as long as Gregg Marshall was there. All that's not some absolute reason not to replace Tubby, but people there need to proceed with a hard degree of realism.
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