Mustangs B ball success is only Tubbs away

[PlanoStang]

If Tubbs was at SMU for 12 years, then he had to have coached a SWC championship on his own ability alone. Don't know any other coaches we've had do that unless it was Shumate. Couldn't be Shumate because Copeland fired his butt.

[ponydawg]

Hoop Fan, Yes I do know that Tubbs is working for Kevin Sampson right now......but I think he only has 2 seasons under his belt there. If it was more like 4 or 5 I might think differently. Not sure if watching 2 seasons of practice and preparing for games can erase many years of Coaching under Dement's Strategy. And yes I know he is a great recruiter. I believe that someone credits him for bringing b-hop here away from UT.....but they left out the part about our little 2 for 1 deal we had that UT would not match. And I think that is great and I am proud to have both Hopkins here! If Tubbs gets the job I will be excited and support the team. I just think we have a lot of great canidates who are after this Job and that we should not be narrow minded. I believe that the Board will make the right decision and I believe that Copeland.....well.....I believe that Copeland will......um......try hard?

[BigEasyPony]

Well said Ponydawg! I am very impressed with the candidates we've attracted for this job. We are all well aware of the drawbacks SMU has, but let's face it we have shown a tremendous amount of patience with our programs (especially basketball) unlike most other programs. I know there is a downside to that, but most coaches are attracted to a situation where they'll enjoy the support of the AD and President for an extended period of time.

I think all of the candidates we have for the job (Roberts, Reveno, Wojcik, Tubbs, Treloar, and Jones) have the potential to do great things with our program. Each candidate has their strengths and I am sure the committee is looking at each of them closely. Just b/c initially one candidate has the support of many of the local HS coaches does not mean he would be the only one to recruit well in Dallas. I think any other candidate would hire a prominent Dallas area HS coach as an assistant on his staff and that would go a long way to getting the support of the local HS coaches.

[EastStang]

And while recruiting in Dallas is great, look at our about to be dismantled track program. It has been hugely successful recruiting in of all places Eastern Europe as has our Women's swimming program. Getting a Dallas recruit or two is nice, but its a great big world out there. I'll take 10 great basketball players where-ever I can get them.

[Stampede]

I agree SMU should be better than most at reruiting the foriegn basketball player. That being said, Tubbs already has the mechanism in place for the successful recruitment of the foriegn student/athlete basketball player.

This is not to say others can not establish the same process but Tubbs is on top of the situation. Trust me on this point.

[LA_Mustang]

Exactly who are all these "great" head coaching candidates that you guys are talking about?? Am I missing something? The candidates I've seen so far (Roberts, Reveno, Wojcik, Tubbs, Jones, and Treloar) have absolutely no experience as a college head coach. How can you call any of them great?? Just because they have been at Mich St, Kansas, Indiana, and OU must qualify them as a great candidate, huh? I follow college bball very closely and I have no idea if any of these guys will be a successful head coach. A couple might and most probably won’t. Yet, some of you are coming on here and acting we should be thrilled about these candidates and that it is a mistake to suggest that Tubbs is the man. We are dealing with unknowns. I agree that we should slow down with the Tubbs rah rah unless someone has something new. The only sure thing is that Tubbs can recruit the hell out of Dallas, and when it comes down to it, everything else is a guess. Being able to say the right things in interviews is overrated and working at big-time programs is overrated (for the most part). Relationships and the ability to recruit DFW is not. We are going to have to take a chance on one of these guys and I believe that we should go with the one we know can recruit DFW, Tubbs. But to call anyone with a 0-0 career college coaching record a great candidate is a joke.

[ponydawg]

wow! Settle settle......
The whole point of my post was to get people from just talking about Tubbs only, so we can see and hear about all of the canidates. Maybe the word "great" was a little much, but it is all relative. When you think Great I am sure you think of the Head Coaches at UNC, Duke, ect., and if that is what you call great then we will never have a GREAT proven coach come to SMU. You know that, I know that, SMU knows that. And yes, anytime you gamble on a asst. coach that is what you are doing.....gambling. But I believe we can gamble on a guy who has the ability to become a Great Head Coach. And no coming from big time schools does not qualify them as a great canidate.....but it is a start. Coaches learn a lot from there surroundings and who they coach under. I think it is a good thing that they are coming from big time schools, i would be very disappointed if we were only interviewing asst. coaches from sam houston, or small schools that have never experienced any success. So, no, maybe these coaches are not great (yet), but I think as a canidate they can be discribed as above average.....or "great" if i dare.

[moodymadness]

Disrespecting assistant coaches because they have a 0-0 record as a head coach is absurd. Every great head coach got their foot in the door as an assistant. The latest example is Gillispie from UTEP...without any head coaching experience, he took that program from worst to first in the WAC and within a basket of upsetting Maryland, the ACC champion, in the tournament. Now he is likely going to A&M and a big time conference just a few years after being an lowly assistant coach with zero head coaching experience. So my vote is for Tubbs and his decade-plus as an assistant college coach after proving himself as a great high school coach IN DALLAS. Plus he has already proven he can get great players to come to SMU dispite the fact that Dement-ed was head coach. Without Tubbs, Sasser, Willie Davis, QRoss, and BHop (just to name a few) would not have been in SMU jerseys. Tubbs would OWN metroplex recruiting and I believe SMU basketball would experience a UTEP-like turnaround. But the best part is Tubbs wouldn't look to bolt because this is already his dream job.

[LA_Mustang]

Who said anything about disrespecting any of these assistant coaches?? I simply said that calling a candidate with no head coaching experience a great coach is a joke. And for every Gillispie, there are five that fail.

[EastStang]

What mechanism does Tubbs have in place for recruiting in Europe? I thought his zone was Texas at OU and at SMU? Enlighten me please. I figured that Tubbs knows Dallas and that's it. We'd end up with one great player from Dallas every now and then and a couple of decent role players and that would be all he could land for us. Dallas has some great players but only about five per year(at most). And most of them have eyes looking elsewhere. If you have an offer from an ACC or BE school and SMU which one do you take? The rest of Dallas area recruits are mediocre on a national scale.

[Dement-ed]

And while recruiting in Dallas is great, look at our about to be dismantled track program. It has been hugely successful recruiting in of all places Eastern Europe as has our Women's swimming program. Getting a Dallas recruit or two is nice, but its a great big world out there. I'll take 10 great basketball players where-ever I can get them.

If Coach Bennett has a recruiting radius of about 300 miles around Dallas, I can't imagine the basketball team has the cash to hop over to Europe too often.

[EastStang]

There's a difference between football and basketball. In Texas, they have one of the best high school football programs in the Country. You can find everything you need in that radius. In basketball let's say its adequate. Name four 6'10' (or taller) centers who are juniors in high school within 250 miles of SMU (leaving out Houston) and who can actually handle a basketball? Name four high school running backs within a 300 mile radius of Dallas who had Division 1 numbers? See the difference. The Washington Post had an article today which focused on all the foreign born players in the NCAA tournament.

[tmustangp]

this is a very important decision because lets look back about 15 years ago when Pie wouldn't let LJ come to smu... i think it would be a terrible decision to let another dallas icon leave smu... plus i bet that there are atleast 5 dallas recruits who are just waiting for Tubbs to named the head coach before they say "Here I come SMU"... to name one big name how about Byron Eaton, imagine Eaton and Hopkins in the backcourt when Hopkins is a Sr. ... that is all

"your all growns up and your all growns up"

[KnuckleStang]

this is a very important decision because lets look back about 15 years ago when Pie wouldn't let LJ come to smu... i think it would be a terrible decision to let another dallas icon leave smu

In fairness to Pye, I believe he told LJ to take a hike because 1.) he was borderline [deleted], and 2.) because one of our coaches suggested trying to change his test scores (and this was right AFTER the DP).

Anyway, I take your point about Dallas players, and agree that we need a strong recruiting presence in the Metroplex. Let's hope we can get the right coach for the job.

[LA_Mustang]

Eaton will likely play both basketball and football in college. I believe UT has already offered him in basketball and he is very high on OU (Tubbs) and Okie St. If Tubbs is hired and we got him it would be an incredible coup for SMU. An even bigger prize could be Darrell Arthur (SOC High and Q's cousin). He's a 6'9" PF, 5 stars on rivals, and the top sophomore in Texas. Supposedly, Tubbs is still very close with Q and his family. I'm telling you, if Tubbs comes in here and signs these guys we could see something very special, very soon on the Hilltop.