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What a difference a year can make - from nowhere to a Nat'l contenders team.

By DAVID McNABB / The Dallas Morning News

Jimmy Tubbs' return to Dallas came as a typical day in the life as an assistant basketball coach.

Tubbs woke up from a recruiting trip to Lakeland, Fla., at 4 a.m. for a 6:30 a.m. flight. He arrived in Dallas at 8:30 a.m. Then he caught up on preparations for Oklahoma's Big 12 Phillips 66 tournament at 8:30 p.m.

"The perception of it, is that it's glamorous, " Tubbs said. "But it's long hours. And I love it."

Tubbs returned with Oklahoma, where he is in his first year as an assistant. He's made his reputation as Kimball's coach in the 1980s and as an SMU assistant under three Mustangs coaches before moving up I-35 to Norman, Okla.

Tubbs never gets too far away from his Texas ties.

He watched South Oak Cliff and Lincoln and Kimball and Hillcrest in the playoffs. And he talked to former assistant Chris Dyer, who guided DeSoto to the Class 5A state championbship. Dyer's best player was senior guard Dez Willingham.

How tied is Tubbs to Texas? Tubbs coached Willingham's dad, Ken, at Kimball.

"Ken was my point guard," Tubbs said.

It is those ties that made him attractive to Oklahoma's drive toward a national championship under Coach Kelvin Sampson.

After Oklahoma reached the NCAA Final Four last year, Oklahoma assistant Ray Lopes became coach at Fresno State. Tubbs left SMU in May.

"I knew who Coach Sampson was," Tubbs said. "We'd see each other on the road. And we'd know who each other were. But it's not like we were great friends."

Tubbs spent 12 years at SMU helping establish a solid program. But at Oklahoma, Tubbs has the chance to win a national title.

"Every day in practice, it's intense," Tubbs said. "You can see our team get better every day. You can see it. But when you know the reward can be a national championship, you can work hard for it."

Tubbs has his eyes on a national title with Oklahoma. He said he's been impressed with Sampson's knowledge and style.

"It's all about the kids," Tubbs said. "And he knows how to get them to play at their best."

Tubbs was one of the state's most successful high school coaches during his eight years at Kimball.

He had five 30-win seasons that culminated in 1990 when the Knights won the Class 5A state title and Tubbs was named Texas High School Boys Basketball Coach of the Year.

He still has ties at Kimball. Knights coach Royce Johnson and assistant Jayson Walton were Tubbs' player on the '90 championship team.

Tubb could be a head coaching candidate again. He was a finalist at Southwest Texas in 2000 and North Texas in 2001.

But with March Madness under way, the only goal in Tubbs' sights is a national title.


[This message has been edited by Pony_Fan (edited 03-18-2003).]

The man knows everyone, which is why he's such a great recruiter.

I've never been an OU fan, but I hope the Sooners fare well in the tournament. Coach Tubbs deserves a nice long ride in the NCAA tournament.

hmmm the same guy who couldn't control Sasser, Davis, Hancock et al, and who couldn't teach SMU to play good defense, pass or shoot the ball is now the coach of a Number 1 seed.

[This message has been edited by Stallion (edited 03-19-2003).]

Funny how that works, eh Stallion?

Stallion, is your only point that coaching doesn't matter?Talent levels completely dictate coaching success? If so, I don't necessarily disagree. That said, if you are going to get talent you might as well really get talent. Not get a few here, get a few there like Dement.

On the other hand, If we are to be of average talent, give me a coach that plays exceptionally disciplined and works for wins. gets the most out of his kids.

Dement is neither of these guys. He's an overrated recruiter and whiffs quite a bit. Certainly not a closer. On top of that, his teams have some perenially horrible tendancies.

Not sure about your point since most think Tubbs would be an excellent candidate to replace Dement . He'd probably get some great classes on paper and we couldn't be any more clueless on the court.

so I guess that's finally an admission from you that SMU only gets talent here and there and that we whiff on many, many top recruits each year who are interested in us -which is EXACTLY TRUE. SMU- except perhaps- in one year has never had tourney talent from a quality conference and for you to consistently blame Dement's basketball coaching for our problems is a bunch of crap. The issue is talent acquisition- My position is that if Mike Dement were recruiting on an equal basis with all the Texas schools, WAC schools and for god sakes UCLA that Dement would have SMU in the tourney because the very teams beating him are the ones who have done it with the players Dement can't touch-he's already gone to the NCAA Tourney starting from scratch at UNC Greensboro. As for Tubbs-I've never said that he is not a good candidate-only pointing out that you are intellectually dishonest when you point out coaching deficiencies in a team that was trained by the very person who you want to come in an solve the same problems which he couldn't as an assistant.

[This message has been edited by Stallion (edited 03-19-2003).]

I have a related question - can someone in the know tell me how much Dement lets his coaches actually coach/teach?

BTW I bet Tubbs maybe glad to get away from SMU-now he doesn't have to worry about critiscm from people like those on this board that don't know how coaches build teams for a place in the NCAA Tourney. See OU-which is limited by Big 12 Rule on the number of non-qualifiers it can take instead has 7 JC/Transfers including Ebi Ere averaging 13.1, Quannas White averaging 8.9, Jabhri Brown averaging 6.1. Now how good could SMU be in the next two years if Dement was allowed to go out and get 2-3 missing pieces like that to fit around Simpson, BHop, Castro, Isham, and the rest-I'll tell you if he found 1 kid like Ere, or the two All-Conference Centers from Tulsa a few years back or the two All-conference centers like TCU had a few years back or the 3 JC players from Fresno this year that received Conference honors Mike Dement would have SMU in the tournament.

First of all, Dement's only team in the NCAA's was Cornell, after he took over for someone else. As he did here, he took the talent that came with the job and during the two year honeymoon that accompanies a coaching change, backed into the Ivy Championship by losing the last game while the other contender did likewise. His record went down hill after the first two years.

My understanding is that Dement lets the assistants coach as long as they do exactly what he says and when he says to do it. He is not the most self secure individual you will ever want to know and is constantly worried that someone is out to make him look bad and undermine him. Especially when that person is an assistant. Ask Tubbs sometime about the atmosphere.

To me, Tubbs indirectly is speaking to Dement's coaching ability when he made these remarks

Tubbs has his eyes on a national title with Oklahoma. He said he's been impressed with Sampson's knowledge and style.

"It's all about the kids," Tubbs said. "And he knows how to get them to play at their best."

Note the emphasis on Sampson's "knowledge and style", and as to players "he knows how to get them to play at their best".

In a very quite way, he is saying he has not been witness to this any time recently.

I think Mullet and Stallion both have very valid points which have been stated in the past.

I am in both camps although I think Dement could do better with what he has since he has been here...no doubt he would be better with an even playing field but I still don't think there is any way he would be able to coach a team (even with JC's, non-qualifiers, or partials)to the Final Four - he would get outcoached. I see too many breakdowns in his coaching and execution.

Sounds like a SUPER CONTROLLER, they never make mistakes.

I'd take Sampson. Has Tubbs improved since he was at SMU? I think that was Stallion's point. Tubbs may be good but we don't really know. My ad nauseum point has been- Why didn't he recruit Dallas boys until Dement arrived? The top Dallas guys all came under Dement's watch.

And I believe I've answered that question at least once before. Shumate didnt want local players. Didnt want to look at them, didnt even want to talk about them. Went out of his way to avoid them. When I asked about guys like Randy Duck or Jasyon Walton, he acted like he didnt know who they were. Jimmy King told me once he never even got a recruiting letter from SMU.
The head coach controls who you offer a scholarship to, if the head coach would rather sign 3 kids from California and a couple from Michigan, then thats who gets signed.
Tubbs recruiting coups at OU this year werent Dallas area kids, either. They were from Ohio.

I appreciated your answer back when you gave it but I find it hard to believe that Shu didn't want any Dallas guys. We have heard nothing on this board but how we just need to keep the Dallas boys home. I know he was a crummy coach but why did he want Tubbs as an assistant if he didn't use him as a recruiter? We did have one Dallas boy, the irrepessible Hannibal, so there had to be something else going on. Maybe Shu only liked the ones he saw play personally and didn't trust Tubbs?