Tubby Smith has Gophers thinking big

By: Larry Fitzgerald
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 11/15/2007

 

 We’ve had a little time to digest the reality that the great Tubby Smith, one of the legendary coaches in all of college basketball, is here as the head basketball coach at the University of Minnesota. He is coaching the same Gophers that finished 9-22 last year for Dan Monson.

 Only three Black coaches in the history of NCAA Division 1 College Basketball have won NCAA Men’s Basketball Championships: John Thompson at Georgetown, Nolan Richardson at Arkansas, and Tubby Smith at Kentucky. Tubby Smith-coached teams have reached the NCAA tournament and won 20 or more games 14 years in row.

 Yes, the Gophers are finally in good hands. I had the opportunity to sit down with Coach Smith (TS) recently to welcome him and see how things are coming along in year one.

  TS: Larry, I know about you and your reputation, and your stature has been excellent. We have not had an opportunity to get together recently, but I’m excited to be face to face with you and visiting with you.

 Fitz: Thank you so much. I’m just honored that you chose Minnesota. I mean that sincerely. I’ve been [waiting] here a while to see a great Hall of Fame-like coach say, “I want this opportunity and I’m willing to take it on.”

 TS: It’s never easy, and it’s a challenge. I realize that here, now, and I realized it then, too. Anytime when you come in where you’ve had a down year, you have apathy that sits in with fans.

 So, you need to get the excitement back, and they’ve had some excitement here in the past under Clem Haskins, and even Dan Monson when they were in the NCAA Tournament and post-season play, and certainly with Jim Dutcher and others that have been before.

 I know that I’m succeeding and following some good coaches and excellent coaches that have been here previously. So, I know that I’m not a miracle worker, either. I know you have to have good players to win, and we’ve gotten off to a good start in recruiting. I think that’s going to be very beneficial to us.

 Fitz: From the SEC-Southeastern Conference, I know you’ve always looked at the Big Ten from afar, and now you’re in the Big Ten.

 TS: We’ve had our skirmishes with the Big Ten, certainly with Tom Izzo and Michigan State a number of times. They stopped us [Kentucky] twice from going to the Final Four, and we’ve played Calvin Sampson a number of times when he was at Oklahoma, and now at Indiana the last couple of years.

 We locked horns with the teams like Purdue and Michigan, so when you mention those schools, basically they are the same because everybody wants to win. They all fly their colors, and you know their fans are going to support them big in the Big Ten…

 I was at Media Day the other day, and I’m seeing those big players and seeing those coaches, and I’m saying we better get our act together some. You come back here and you work a little bit harder.   

Fitz: When you look at this situation in terms of the Gophers program and where it’s been and where you want to take it, have you had time to really look at that and say, “I can get here in a certain length of time?”

 TS: No timetables — we have goals, and those are individual goals, and we have team goals we want to achieve, but they are ones that are our goals, and they are not anybody else’s goal. We feel like they are reasonable, and we feel like they are obtainable.

 That’s the first thing we do, is try to be realistic about what we can accomplish. And for this team to reach its full potential, we are going to have to overachieve. If we are going to surpass expectations, we’ve got to learn to overachieve in practice, and that’s where you learn to do the little things better.

 This group is getting close to that. I like their intensity level. I like their focus. They are excited to come to practice even though it’s morning time. They have given us a good effort.

 Fitz: You have received a huge welcome and [seen the] excitement that’s been generated by you coming here. Has that been overwhelming to a degree?

 TS: It has been. It’s been powerful. It’s been humbling is one way to put it. It’s also gotten my juices flowing, because you want to do the best job you can, not just for your team and your players, but for everybody that’s involved, for the administration that’s given me this wonderful opportunity to lead the Gopher program during this tenure.

 We are all here for a short while when you think about it, but I know the potential is here, and the commitment is here to have a top program. And that’s what we’re selling when we’re telling kids when we are out there that the vision is sincere, the commitment is sincere.

 Larry Fitzgerald can be heard weekday mornings on KMOJ Radio 89.9 FM at 8:25 am, and biweekly he commentates on sports 7-8 pm on Almanac (TPT channel 2). He welcomes reader responses to lfitzgerald@spokesman-re corder.com, or visit www.Larry-Fitzgerald.com.