Is Pope the best x and o's coach we have had?
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Tubby had a winning record ever place he coached except his last stop at High Point,he did win before here and after.
Tubby coached 6 seasons before he took the UK gig and was only 46. During that 6 year time period he made it to three Sweet Sixteens in lowly Tulsa and Georgia. The guy was trending in the right direction.
Ball Line Defense! To quote Tubby " I learned it from JD Barnett at Virginia Commonwealth University" It was designed to stop penetration to the basket and was very affective, but.. It opened up the perimeter which was Tubby's achilles heel. In the age of modern basketball, ball line defense is obsolete. Respectfully.
I thought Tubby did a really good job at UK and he's a true class act, just a different time and a much changed sport.
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That is a good question. The first three, UK came back to win and those teams had some great coaches/talent in their own right. I think USC just got hot at the right time. Marquette was the unfortunate injury to Bogans. Kansas did have more talent, I'll admit that. Michigan State that year was one of the best teams in the nation, which UK came back to nearly pull that one off too.
Tubby's body of work was good before and after. He was at programs that didn't have much history and he did elevate them. For a long while Tulsa was one of the premier mid majors after Tubby built them up. Georgia was a 3 seed in 97, which they fell to Chattanooga that year in the tournament. He also did well at Minnesota and Texas Tech. Won the first NCAA Tournament game at Minnesota for the first time in 16 years or so, and got Texas Tech back in the tournament and left them in great hands. Memphis was foolish for firing him.
Tubby was the best on the fly-in game adjustments coach, it's how he won the '98 NC.
Tubby has taken 5 teams to the NCAAT. Only three other coaches have done so (Steve Alford, Lon Kruger and of course Ricky P).
The man could coach. Game just go the point it passed him by for the most part. Doesn't mean he was never good.
Same thing has happened to Cal. Cal will probably have FOUR schools he took to the NCAAT unless he hangs it up before he gets Arky there. And we all know how bad Cal has been lately. But he took 3 schools to the FF.
It's just a lot of coaches just refuse to adjust their styles and it costs them.
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For the most part, ball line is dead. But it comes in handy when you face a team that's not a great perimeter shooting team. It's a neat tool to keep around to mix it up.
That Marquette team was pretty damn good too. And what a weird tournament. ALL the one seeds made the E8. ONE of them made the FF.
And guess where we'd be with Cal? I don't think we can truly answer this until sometime next sesaon
Yeah 98 you just chalked it up to the personality of that team and the quality of opponent. But the Jeff Boschee Kansas team? USC? UAB? Marquette? Those last three got smoked in their next game. As did Michigan State in 05.
For whatever reason we never seemed to be ready at the start of all those games. We came roaring back in all of them, but used up all our energy in doing so and petered out at the end.
No. In fact I’ve been a bit disappointed with his x/o’s given what was said about him being basically a basketball savant.
I’d say the best is Pitino, possibly Tubby.
The worst is a fight between Cal and Billy. I’d lean towards Billy being better though.
I’d say the best is Pitino, possibly Tubby.
The worst is a fight between Cal and Billy. I’d lean towards Billy being better though.
Joe B's teams were as good on day 1 of the season as they were on the last day of the season
If the NCAAT had been played in December he would have won 4 or 5 championships. His game
planning was good as long as things went like he thought they would. In game adjustments
were not his strong suit. Sitting the starting 5 at the beginning of the 2nd half of the game
vs Michigan St (and Magic) was his greatest move ever.
Sutton also took 5 schools back when everyone didn't get in. But that's a nonsense argument anyway.
Tubby never sniffed an E8 before UK nor even a S16 after UK. He never built even one program. His best year at every school he's ever coached was his first year with the previous coaches players. At Tulsa he followed Nolan. At UGA he followed Hugh Durham, here he was handed a title ready team that had already been to previous FF's. At Minn he followed Monson and so on. He never had a winning record in any conference after leaving UK until his last season at Memphis. in which he was 1 game over 500. And got fired.
He is a world class grifter. But he is not a basketball coach.
The two teams that lost to Michigan State in the Elite Eight were certainly good enough to make the Final Four, as was the team that lost to Marquette. It takes some luck, and Tubby kind of used up all his luck in Year 1. The "Flintstones" were better than UK, but that game in Austin against MSU with the Sparks shot was tough. We just couldn't get that one rebound to close it out. I don't even want to rehash the Marquette DWade game.
The thing about Tubby's X's and O's is that we had a really high percentage of scoring out of time outs, at least it seemed to me that we did. Pope is good at that too.
Let me clarify that preparation IS a part of “Xs and Os”. Scouting opponents and coming up the the right game plan definitely, and Pitino is/was a master of that. At least at Kentucky he was not as good at in game adjustments as he was at pre-game planning, certainly not the equal of Tubby or Pope.
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Pitino has adapted to the game as well. Not many have done what he has in that area. He was one of the first to realize the benefit of "bombing" threes. He also understood that over time, players have gotten to be better ball handlers. Now he doesn't press as much as he did 30 years ago. Still has a pretty nasty defense. Just knocked UConn out of the 25.
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