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I think too fondly of Tubby Smith to think he’d leak such lies — especially since Smith looks forward to having conversations with sports journalists as much as I look forward to Christmas traffic — but Smith, or someone trying to defend him, has told a reporter in Minnesota that Patrick Patterson and Florida point guard Jai Lucas both had already verbally committed to UK (membership required) and only wavered about their decision once Smith left for the Gophers.

Of course, Lucas chose Florida and Patterson still chose Kentucky.

So, if Patrick Reusse needs a source close to the Patterson recruitment who will actually go on the record, I’m pretty free these days and easy to look up.

It’s as much an attempt to take credit away from UK coach Billy Gillispie, who did in less than two months what Tubby couldn’t in two years — get Patterson’s commitment – as it is to defend Smith. But it’s completely false. First of all, why would Patterson not make his verbal public in order to help support Smith (same for Lucas) if they really wanted to play for Smith?

Not that Patterson disliked Tubby. He may have wanted to play for him, but he most definitely had not made up his mind. He liked Tubby a lot, and his parents allowed Smith and his wife, Donna, to get closer to the family than Mike Krzyzewski, Billy Donovan or any other coach. Tubby was closer with the family than Patterson’s high school coach. So, if Patrick had given Tubby a commitment, then he would have made it public because he knew the coach was potentially in trouble even though the family kept saying they expected Smith to stay at UK.

When I broke the news to Patrick and his mom that Tubby was going to Minnesota, their first reaction was shock that Tubby would do so and not call to give them a heads up. Then, they heard rumors that Tubby was forced out and they were confused. They were close to writing UK off. After they investigated the circumstances and found out that Tubby was never asked to leave they had an even more open mind about UK than before.

From there, Gillispie worked a miracle. UK was fifth among six schools the day after Tubby left and up until Gillispie met Patrick. Yet, with each passing day confidants at his high school hinted that UK was making up huge ground on Florida, who had always been the leader in his recruiting battle.

In fact, there was only about a one-month period (immediately after Patterson’s UK visit for Big Blue Madness) that UK was considered the leader. And that was just because he was so taken aback by 24,000 UK fans chanting his name.

Makes you wonder how many past recruits Tubby thought he had a verbal from that it turned out he never had a commitment from. Brandan Wright sound familiar? Tyler Hansbrough? Darius Rice?

This entry was posted on Friday, December 21st, 2007 at 10:48 pm and is filed under Blue Goggles, College Basketball, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.