Big 12 Tourney Quote

[Hoop Fan]

Kind of like you ingnored my post concerning Coach K and the recruiting class he brought in after his first year...................

Told you, Mickey.

Someday Hoop, you and I will chat and I'll explain why I am not enamored with our coach.

my bad then, I guess I missed it, but I dont doubt that K brought in what ultimately proved to be a great class after his first year. He did have the Duke tradition to work with, after all they appeared in the Final Four just fours years earlier in 1978. Point is, K did not magically turn over the roster and start winning in his second year. In fact, his record in year two was much worse than year 1. One step forward, two steps back. And no one can dispute that the mob of Duke alumns wanted him fired for all of the same reasons people are down on Tubbs right now. Relatively speaking, Tubbs is doing just fine in recruiting Morris, Fall, and Dez. Not all-americans, but definite upgrades in the big man and point guard departments for smu. Can't we wait to see what these guys become before condemning tubbs?

[Mickey]

Hoop Fan,

What was the Coach K example from Eaststang?

I don't think that Tubbs is doing just fine in recruiting ( although it probably isn't his fault), but we will just be a 500 club in CUSA with Morris, Fall, and Dez. We need a big time playmaker.

Incidentally, I think that Dez is one of the worst defenders in the conference among the PGs.

[Hoop Fan]

here is the Eaststang quote. it is in a thread about 10 down from the top.

"I'm not asserting the Tubbs is the next coach K, but look at his record at Duke the first four years. 1981 17-13 with a 6-11 conf. record. 1982 10-17 with a conference record of 4-11. 1983 11-17 with a conference record of 3-12. 1984 24-10 with a conference record of 9-8. It was not until his sixth year that he won a conference title. 37-3 with a 15-2 conference record. As you can see one of the best coaches in the past 25 years started his first two years with a 27-30 record and had a 38-47 record by his third year.

Also, if one player can turn around a program why hasn't consensus high school All-American Bryan Hopkins done that? Basketball is also a team game last time I checked. Sure one player can dominate a game now and then, but night in and night out, unless there is some balance in scoring between back court and front court, its hard to win games consistently. It takes time to grow a program."

[Hoop Fan]

Hoop Fan,

What was the Coach K example from Eaststang?

I don't think that Tubbs is doing just fine in recruiting ( although it probably isn't his fault), but we will just be a 500 club in CUSA with Morris, Fall, and Dez. We need a big time playmaker.

Incidentally, I think that Dez is one of the worst defenders in the conference among the PGs.

I agree we need two big time scorers and go to guys. Tubbs needs to find those guys. In the meantime he appears to me to be putting some pieces in place that will complement the playmaker when he gets him. That way we wont have another Jeryl Sasser or BHop situation. Sassers teams were one dimensional and did not complement one another. No go to guy on the block or defensive presence either. Get a scorer, and when Morris and Fall mature you might have something. You have to start somewhere, you cant always get your star recruit right out of the shoot. It took Tubbs several years to get Sasser and Davis to come to smu together. its a combination of circumstance and patience at smu, you are not gonna just snap your fingers and get studs to come here no matter who you are.

[Mickey]

here is the Eaststang quote. it is in a thread about 10 down from the top.

I can't find it. I admit that I am computer illiterate. What is the topic?

[EastStang]

Hoop Fan printed it for you up above. I said that Coach K had losing records his first three years at Duke. And that his conference record was even worse. The retort was that his first class was a great class and by their senior year they set the world on fire. So, I guess my answer is why don't we wait until Tubbs 4th year to see if this team sets the world on fire? And as I also said, who would come here if we fired Tubbs after two years? Answer - someone none of us would want.

[jtstang]

Patience fellas. Jimmy's gonna show improvement next year, even though we are going to be young and we're gonna have injuries. And he's gonna recruit better so the next year - even with the loss of 2 scholarships - we're gonna get better, even though we're gonna be real young because we have to play those younger, better players. And dangit, without those injuries, we would have really done good. And then Jimmy's gonna get even better players because his friends are really helping him and yeah, we're young because we gotta play those better, younger, players and Jimmy couldn't concentrate because the mean old administration only gave him a two year extension and he's only got one year left and dang those injuries.....................

You're just a well-known Tubbs basher. When it comes to Tubbs, your incessant bashing precludes any credibility your thoughts might otherwise be entitled to.

[angryfan04]

Hoop fan asks: Also, if one player can turn around a program why hasn't consensus high school All-American Bryan Hopkins done that?

Because he wasn't that great. Yes - he was good guy & a good ball player, but he did not live up to his hype. There were better players on other teams that were not HS all americans. Being HS all american means nothing once you start your college career

[ASpelling]

For all of you trying to make comparisons to Duke...please stop! For all of you wanting to make some sunshine out of our current situation, you obviously did not attend SMU in the last 20 years.

I truly believe in supporting SMU athletics...

but not another day like this!

[EastStang]

I agree that comparing us to Duke is a stretch and I said so, when I made the Coach K comparison. Duke is currently in a great conference (but note that the NCAA tournament committee only gave it four bids, but those four bids went to highly seeded teams), we are in CUSA, the 10th best conference or worse. Duke is a methodist school in North Carolina. We are a methodist school in Texas. Duke has about the same student population that we do. They care passionately about their sports teams, our students care passionately about (1) whether their hair is okay, or (2) whether they're going to drink Black or Red Label tonight. And Duke's students were passionate even when they were near the bottom of the ACC. Duke has a better academic reputation than we do in general. The fact of the matter is though, that we can and should improve and we are in a place where we can improve and we should give the coach time to get his team in place and then criticize him.

[Hoop Fan]

Hoop fan asks: Also, if one player can turn around a program why hasn't consensus high school All-American Bryan Hopkins done that?

Because he wasn't that great. Yes - he was good guy & a good ball player, but he did not live up to his hype. There were better players on other teams that were not HS all americans. Being HS all american means nothing once you start your college career

those werent my words, I was quoting Eaststang which I think was made clear. My opinion is that Bhop was never the same player physically after he got hurt in the 2002 State Championship game. Anybody who saw him in high school knows the guy just could not sky and explode in college anywhere near like he could at Lincoln. Still was a good player for us though, no doubt about that.

[Hoop Fan]

For all of you trying to make comparisons to Duke...please stop! For all of you wanting to make some sunshine out of our current situation, you obviously did not attend SMU in the last 20 years.

I truly believe in supporting SMU athletics...

but not another day like this!

you're an idiot like your daughter VSpelling, learn to read and understand the context of the point. You see the word Duke and freak out. Nobody is suggesting anything remotely close to SMU being comparable to Duke.

[MustangIcon]

As HoopFan will tell you- I am not the biggest Tubbs supporter on this board. With that said I do not think that he is the only problem. We do NEED to be able to bring in Juco players more easily than we can now. That is on the administration, not Tubbs. Tubbs needs to continue to work on getting restrictions loosened so he can fully use his "great recruiting skills" on the highschool level as well as the Juco level.

Another example of coaches to consider in the Coach K and Gillespie debate off- Tom Penders. Hired the same spring as Tubbs, Penders took over a UH team who was 44-72 the previous four seasons. That '04 preseason CUSA coaches picked UH to finish 13th out of 14 Conference USA teams for the 04-05 season (this was the season before CUSA was realigned). All Penders did with that team is win 18 games (more than the previous two seasons COMBINED) leading UH to the NIT tourney. He followed that up with with a 20-9 season this year and another NIT bid. And this was no pathetic 20 win schedule. Wins vs Arizona and LSU this season.

The previous 11 seasons UH averaged 10 wins per year and went to only 1 NIT. Hofienz Pavillion is not exactly a gem. Their program was in worse shape than ours. They immediately turned it around. I think this is another example that with the right coach AND academic restrictions putting us on level with our competition a program such as ours can easily be turned around. It is not fair to directly compare Tubbs to Gillespie and Penders bc his restrictions are more difficult but these examples do show that you should expect some progress from a new coach who comes into a situation that relatively speaking is not so bad.

[SMU Football Blog]

Regarding Penders, look at his roster this year. Fifteen players. TEN of those fifteen are junior college or transfers.

[Hoop Fan]

that is a reasonable post. But like you said, there is a reason Penders would go to UH and I guarantee would never come to SMU. He was able to immediately stockpile a bunch of jucos, transfers and academic risks. Tubbs cant do that because SMU does not want Tubbs to do that. So what a reasonable man has to do is wait and see what Tubbs can do the slower and more traditional private school way.