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bill self V. Tubby smith

I see you people keep saying this, but I haven't seen any examples. A great X's and O's coach will consistently beat teams that have superior talent, and he simply didn't do that after his first year or two at UK. Regular season he stole some occasionally but in the tournament I don't remember us registering a lot of upsets.

Tubby's style forced athletic teams to play grind it out basketball, slow down the game and make it ugly. That's not great X's and O's. The only team that I remember that flat out executed people were the Estill/Daniels teams but they still didn't beat great teams.

I allow for the fact that I could be misjudging his acumen, but I'd need proof or examples to really believe that.


You mean tubbys style WISHED to force more athletic teams to play grind it out.

Instead, we'd end up getting ran out the gym, with dunk fests against us.
 
Agree.. If you could inherit Tubbys Xs n Os into coach Cal.. He really would be dominant.. Cal isn't the best Xs n Os coach out there.. Tubby ended up the laziest recruiter alive his latter years..

Tubby was never a good or even fair recruiter. Just the UK name did a lot of his recruiting and when UK became just another has been, the recruiting fell off the cliff.

Tubby's biggest mistake was not negotiating with UK to hire a proven recruiter and give up some of his massive salary to pay the recruiter's salary. UK has, in the past, not paid the assistants all that well. I don't know if that is still true.
 
Bill Self's 12 seasons:
-6 times Kansas has failed to advance past the 1st weekend of the NCAA tournament:



He's been to 2 total final 4's, one in which he won a national championship. That's "almost" tubby worthy. Those of you like 3rex bragging on Self after bashing Cal need your head examined. If Self did that at UK after 12 seasons we'd have a www.fireself.com website


Tubby Smith 10 seasons at UK:



4 times he failed to make it past the 1st weekend of the NCAA tournament (40% Tubby's tourney's...50% for Self's tourney's). Tubby had one national championship & 3 elite 8's.

It's a toss up! You can't bring up anything else since our fanbase has made it clear that tourney performance is all that really matters.
 
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Tubby was never a good or even fair recruiter. Just the UK name did a lot of his recruiting and when UK became just another has been, the recruiting fell off the cliff.

Tubby's biggest mistake was not negotiating with UK to hire a proven recruiter and give up some of his massive salary to pay the recruiter's salary. UK has, in the past, not paid the assistants all that well. I don't know if that is still true.
I never said he was a good recruiter,, although he was fair the first few years.. He ended up getting lazier and lazier as time went on.. He did need to hire an excellent recruiter,, but he ended up hiring the David Hobbs type assistants..
 
Gracetoyou...

Call it bragging on Self, or whatever you like. Doesn't matter to me. But he can coach circles around Tubby.

Evidence is that one is still in Kansas while the other has descended the career ladder from UK to Minnesota to somewhere in Texas.

Not that hard to see, in my opinion.
 
Gracetoyou...

Call it bragging on Self, or whatever you like. Doesn't matter to me. But he can coach circles around Tubby.

Evidence is that one is still in Kansas while the other has descended the career ladder from UK to Minnesota to somewhere in Texas.

Not that hard to see, in my opinion.


I agree that Self is a better coach...but I wouldn't think you would even dare to talk about Self's time at Kansas as successful & rip Cal for doing more in 6 seasons at UK than Self has in Kansas in 12. It's just strange
 
I guess it all depends on what kind of analysis you want to do to make a coach look good or bad. For example. Who won the most national championships? Who failed to make the NCAA tournament the most? I won't even post the results but in my view the coaches that won the most NC are the best coaches and that group wouldn't include any of the coaches discussed on this thread.
 
Maybe cause you don't understand real basketball Tubby was good at X-0
Any coach that chooses to play the antiquated " ball-line-defense" after the three point shot was implemented cannot be considered a good x-o coach .
 
But Tubby is a really nice guy - can you say Self is a really nice guy? I don't know, but Tubby sure is a really nice guy.
 
Many of you continue to rewrite the history of the tubby era in your minds.
Ten Loss Tubby Smith was an average bench coach at best and his lazy recruiting
efforts led to the decline of the program.
He was overpaid while he under performed during the lost decade that he was allowed
to bring the program from the top to mediocrity.
 
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Many of you continue to rewrite the history of the tubby era in your minds.
Ten Loss Tubby Smith was an average bench coach at best and his lazy recruiting
efforts led to the decline of the program.
He was overpaid while he under performed during the lost decade that he was allowed
to bring the program from the top to mediocrity.
You can't rewrite history. You may add to it or forget some of it, but Tubbys accomplishments are in the record books.

There are -no vacated final fours -no NCAA investigations
Tubby was accused of being lazy at recruiting and thats not true. He got tired of having to deal with the AAU coaches and agents who lived with the recruits looking for money deals. Tubby did more with less talent.

If you were for " winning, what ever it took", Tubby was never your man.Tubby brought a National Championship to UK without 8-10 all-americans on roster and never catered to the NBA.

Tubby was loyal to his assistants, Tubby is still the only UK coach in history to take every team to the NCAA tourney.
Along with National Championship, he took team to 4 elite Eights, 3 Sweet 16's- There is no mediocrity there.
 
Bill Self's 12 seasons:
-6 times Kansas has failed to advance past the 1st weekend of the NCAA tournament:



He's been to 2 total final 4's, one in which he won a national championship. That's "almost" tubby worthy. Those of you like 3rex bragging on Self after bashing Cal need your head examined. If Self did that at UK after 12 seasons we'd have a www.fireself.com website


Tubby Smith 10 seasons at UK:



4 times he failed to make it past the 1st weekend of the NCAA tournament (40% Tubby's tourney's...50% for Self's tourney's). Tubby had one national championship & 3 elite 8's.

It's a toss up! You can't bring up anything else since our fanbase has made it clear that tourney performance is all that really matters.
Great information Gracetoyou, can't argue with that, I wish you would have put up Coach Cals stats also, so all three could be looked at together, Tubby did win us a championship and I am greatful for that, just didn't like how he left us.
 
Great information Gracetoyou, can't argue with that, I wish you would have put up Coach Cals stats also, so all three could be looked at together, Tubby did win us a championship and I am greatful for that, just didn't like how he left us.

2004 Jayhawks came an OT away from the Final Four so that's not a first weekend exit.
 
This is not a tubby bashing thread. Thinking about it they on the same level. Both have 1 title, both do less with more and oth had high caliber teams that failed in the tournament more than once. Is this a fair comparsion? I'm not bashing just asking

In the last 10 years Tubby Smith has won 3 ncaa tourney games and has lost 133 games overall.
In the last 10 years Bill Self has won 24 ncaa tourney games and has lost 62 games overall.

So, no.
 
Bill Self's 12 seasons:
-6 times Kansas has failed to advance past the 1st weekend of the NCAA tournament:



He's been to 2 total final 4's, one in which he won a national championship. That's "almost" tubby worthy. Those of you like 3rex bragging on Self after bashing Cal need your head examined. If Self did that at UK after 12 seasons we'd have a www.fireself.com website


Tubby Smith 10 seasons at UK:



4 times he failed to make it past the 1st weekend of the NCAA tournament (40% Tubby's tourney's...50% for Self's tourney's). Tubby had one national championship & 3 elite 8's.

It's a toss up! You can't bring up anything else since our fanbase has made it clear that tourney performance is all that really matters.
As someone else pointed out, KU made the Elite Eight in 2004. Your graphic didn't include their first two wins of that tourney for some reason. Hopefully Kansas will have a better tourney this season. They seem to have a pretty good mix of talent and experience on board. Hopefully they can make it through Big 12 season a lot healthier than they have the last two seasons. Key injuries have really hampered Kansas' ability to play to their ability the last two years.
 
That '02/'03 team was one of the best that he coached.. Bogans ankle injury cost us a title that year.. After that year his recruiting regressed.
Injuries shape a lot of "could have been" seasons. Embiid missed the tourney two years ago and Ellis and Greene were severely limited by injuries this past year.
 
You can't rewrite history. You may add to it or forget some of it, but Tubbys accomplishments are in the record books.

There are -no vacated final fours -no NCAA investigations
Tubby was accused of being lazy at recruiting and thats not true. He got tired of having to deal with the AAU coaches and agents who lived with the recruits looking for money deals. Tubby did more with less talent.

If you were for " winning, what ever it took", Tubby was never your man.Tubby brought a National Championship to UK without 8-10 all-americans on roster and never catered to the NBA.

Tubby was loyal to his assistants, Tubby is still the only UK coach in history to take every team to the NCAA tourney.
Along with National Championship, he took team to 4 elite Eights, 3 Sweet 16's- There is no mediocrity there.

Rationalize however you want, Tubby simply did less. He recruited worse than Self, much worse than Cal. He won less than Self, much less than Cal. He was average coach at a great school, that inflated his accomplishments. He didn't do much after he left the platform we call UK.

There's no shame in being average or good, but there's also no reason to inflate it.
 
Tubby is/was a better x's and o's coach. Self can't touch that with a ten foot pole. OTS could find a way to win (at least in his first 5 or 6 seasons) when we had no business winning the game

Self is, however, a light-years better recruiter than OTS was, which is why Self will always likely be perceived as a better coach despite his NUMEROUS early-tournament flameouts.

End thread. Drop mic.
 
katwatcher-
Ten Loss does not deserve to be in the same discussion with Cal, Pitino or Self
You are a typical Ten Loss defender who distorts his average record and ability.
How many games did Ten Loss win during the lost decade with that great x's and o's ability that many of you continue to promote in spite of the facts.
 
katwatcher-
Ten Loss does not deserve to be in the same discussion with Cal, Pitino or Self
You are a typical Ten Loss defender who distorts his average record and ability.
How many games did Ten Loss win during the lost decade with that great x's and o's ability that many of you continue to promote in spite of the facts.
263

Which is, in FACT, a decent amount. It was 15 more than Billy Donovan won in the same time span, and still more than Donovan won if you give him a mulligan for his 1st 2 years, and count from 98-99 through 07-08.

Which goes to show how someone can be right and completely wrong at the same time. Because you're right that Tubby isn't in the same class as Cal, Pitino, or Self, and never really was, and kb22stang is 100% right in pointing out that the "more with less" argument is totally idiotic if it's being used to defend a guy who coached at UK. UK is, and always has been, a place where you're supposed to do more with more. And if you can't handle either end of that- the getting more part, and the doing more part-then you shouldn't be coaching at UK.

But the only thing you accomplish by exaggerating Tubby's deficiencies is to bring into question your motivations for doing so, particularly when the subject of an ex-UK coach who's been gone for 8 years now is pretty much the only thing you ever choose to post about on this board.
 
I see you people keep saying this, but I haven't seen any examples. A great X's and O's coach will consistently beat teams that have superior talent, and he simply didn't do that after his first year or two at UK. Regular season he stole some occasionally but in the tournament I don't remember us registering a lot of upsets.

Tubby's style forced athletic teams to play grind it out basketball, slow down the game and make it ugly. That's not great X's and O's. The only team that I remember that flat out executed people were the Estill/Daniels teams but they still didn't beat great teams.

I allow for the fact that I could be misjudging his acumen, but I'd need proof or examples to really believe that.
Ok coach Cal has done a great job bringing UK back just like Rick did. But with all that talent don't you feel like we should have more then one title to his name and I'm not bashing him.
 
Rationalize however you want, Tubby simply did less. He recruited worse than Self, much worse than Cal. He won less than Self, much less than Cal. He was average coach at a great school, that inflated his accomplishments. He didn't do much after he left the platform we call UK.

There's no shame in being average or good, but there's also no reason to inflate it.


Why people cannot see this is baffling...
 
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katwatcher-
Ten Loss does not deserve to be in the same discussion with Cal, Pitino or Self
You are a typical Ten Loss defender who distorts his average record and ability.
How many games did Ten Loss win during the lost decade with that great x's and o's ability that many of you continue to promote in spite of the facts.
Lobbyman, this is just your opinion and I disagree with it. As far as being a so called typical ten loss defender, So what!
I'm glad you brought up my distorting of his record, please point out where I have done that. You do a lot of talking without knowing the facts, but your are not by yourself on that.

To the best of my memory Tubby averaged around 26 wins per season with 8 losses. Never won less than 22 games per year! National Championship------------ 21- 7 record in NCAA tourney and the only UK coach in history to take his team to NCAA every year . That seems to be quite an accomplishment to me.

I have also mentioned that he has no wins or final fours vacated from his record or being investigated by NCAA, but never a response and all along I thought that was a major factor when grading a coach. I think it was the right time for Tubby to leave, as his entire family was trashed beyond reality.

Tubby left in a classy way. Had nothing to say negative about UK. That is the way I saw it.
 
Lobbyman, this is just your opinion and I disagree with it. As far as being a so called typical ten loss defender, So what!
I'm glad you brought up my distorting of his record, please point out where I have done that. You do a lot of talking without knowing the facts, but your are not by yourself on that.

To the best of my memory Tubby averaged around 26 wins per season with 8 losses. Never won less than 22 games per year! National Championship------------ 21- 7 record in NCAA tourney and the only UK coach in history to take his team to NCAA every year . That seems to be quite an accomplishment to me.

I have also mentioned that he has no wins or final fours vacated from his record or being investigated by NCAA, but never a response and all along I thought that was a major factor when grading a coach. I think it was the right time for Tubby to leave, as his entire family was trashed beyond reality.

Tubby left in a classy way. Had nothing to say negative about UK. That is the way I saw it.
I don't understand how making the NCAA tournament is a great accomplishment when you lose in the 1st or 2nd round, like what happened a decent amount under Smith. I'd rather have the floor of making the NIT but the ceiling of making the final 4 or further than what happened under Smith where the teams would make it to the tournament every year but lose before the final 4. That record is good and all, but let's face it: If Tubby had remained coach, Kentucky would have made the NIT with the way recruiting was going. Tubby and Gillespie both had a large role in the downfall of Kentucky. I really don't think Smith's last 2 teams at UK were better than Gillespie's 2 teams, so it was best for him to go when he did as it seemed that he had lost interest in being coach.
 
Self can & does coach circles around Tubby. One has been consistently successful at one of the historic programs in CBB history while the other almost ran his program into the ground & continue to move down the career ladder.
No comparison

And the idea of Tubby as a great x's & o's coaches is completely laughable.
 
After his first year here Tubby was just terrible at everything he did here except being nice. Just in way over his head. Recruits didn't want to play stall ball and fans didn't want to watch it. The only time in history I missed games was in the Tubby era. I would take Bill Self every day of the week twice on Sunday over Tubby. Since this is not a bashing thread I'll stop right there.
 
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Tubby had the platform and foundation to be one of the greatest 5 coaches of all time. Yes, I said top 5.

HC of the greatest program of all time? check.
Taking over during a great time for a great program? check.
Wins championship in first year as HC. check.

You'd be hard pressed to find a better situation than that at any time or place. It's impossible for a great coach to miss that mark, and it's nearly impossible for a really good one to fall short.

Tubby was a good coach, and adds to our accomplishments which makes him family in my book. I actually enjoy 5 SEC championships and the elite eights/final four. I love some of those players like Chuck Hayes and still think about the "what ifs" relating to the '05 season. Tubby wasn't a bad coach by any stretch or metric.

But if anyone can really pretend they'd rather have any version of Tubby over Bill Self, I'll just say I don't believe you.
 
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I see you people keep saying this, but I haven't seen any examples. A great X's and O's coach will consistently beat teams that have superior talent, and he simply didn't do that after his first year or two at UK. Regular season he stole some occasionally but in the tournament I don't remember us registering a lot of upsets.

Tubby's style forced athletic teams to play grind it out basketball, slow down the game and make it ugly. That's not great X's and O's. The only team that I remember that flat out executed people were the Estill/Daniels teams but they still didn't beat great teams.

I allow for the fact that I could be misjudging his acumen, but I'd need proof or examples to really believe that.

I think what you're failing to relate is how much he actually held himself back as a coach. Tubby was a good x's and o's coach but his inability to allow himself to trust his players ultimately cost him big. Rondo is still trying to figure out how to take tubby's leash off.

Another big aspect that is not questionable on Tubby is his failed, flawed, and incorrect vision on the future of collegiate recruiting. This is the thing that has completely destroyed anything he could have been as a coach. In todays game, if you're going to be on top, one must deal with handlers and guardians. It's also hurt Roy Williams to a great extent after 2009. Looking back on Tubby and the recruiting landscape today, that vision and not changing with the times were
his doom.
 
I don't understand how making the NCAA tournament is a great accomplishment when you lose in the 1st or 2nd round, like what happened a decent amount under Smith. I'd rather have the floor of making the NIT but the ceiling of making the final 4 or further than what happened under Smith where the teams would make it to the tournament every year but lose before the final 4. That record is good and all, but let's face it: If Tubby had remained coach, Kentucky would have made the NIT with the way recruiting was going. Tubby and Gillespie both had a large role in the downfall of Kentucky. I really don't think Smith's last 2 teams at UK were better than Gillespie's 2 teams, so it was best for him to go when he did as it seemed that he had lost interest in being coach.

I agree it was best for him to leave when he did. Your post makes my point.
You are saying Tubby lost in first round of NCAA a decent amount of times. That is just not true. Actually he NEVER lost in first round nor did he play in NIT in his ten year tenure.


Also going to the NCAA Tourney is an accomplishment, it means you have a shot at title. Tubby never failed to have his team in the NCAA tourney. Its ok to GUESS what would have happened if Tubby had stayed because no one knows, but I do know he and his family was treated like second class citizens by the posters on this board there was no guessing about that. .
Tubbys recruiting wasn't good the last two years. He was never one to let the tail wag the dog either. Tubby was a class person. He ran a program without any investigations or wins vacated. At one point in time Tubby had Five STARTERS in NBA, but it wasn't Tubby that announced it. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
jmho
 
This is not a tubby bashing thread. Thinking about it they on the same level. Both have 1 title, both do less with more and oth had high caliber teams that failed in the tournament more than once. Is this a fair comparsion? I'm not bashing just asking

There are two things Self does extremely better than Smith. One is recruit and the other is coach. Except for those two things, they may very well be equal.
 
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