A Minnesota mirage
By Travis
Yet another columnist from the Land of Lakes piles on us and our “mentally unbalanced basketball universe.”
Good for Tubby Smith and the Gophers. He has them eating from his palm. There was a time when he had the Kentucky media and fans in a similar trance — it was 1998 and 1999, and even to a lesser extent in 2003 and 2004.
Things are going wonderfully for the former UK coach at Minnesota. They’ve won 11 games after a win Wednesday against Northwestern, and they only won nine games all last season.
Then again, check Minnesota’s schedule and you’ll see the Gophers have wins against only three winning clubs, and that includes Santa Clara (8-7) and North Dakota State (8-7). And the signature wins for Iowa State (10-5), whom Minnesota beat 68-58, were against Purdue (10-5), Iowa (7-9) and Oregon State (6-8).
And while Tubby may not have lost to San Diego, Gardner-Webb or UAB, it’s not fair to compare his 10-3 record to Billy Gillispie’s 6-7 without comparing his signature losses — Florida State, Michigan State and UNLV – to that of North Carolina, Indiana and Louisville. Because when either team has played a legit opponent they haven’t faired well.
Sure, Gillispie’s Cats have stumbled against far inferior teams – while Tubby has padded his media butt-kissing caravan at the expense of the Dakotas, Nicholls State and Kennesaw State — but Gillispie might be sitting at 10-3 had he been given a few more teams like Central Arkansas, Florida International and Liberty instead of UAB, Houston and San Diego (admittedly, there was no excuse for Gardner-Webb).
But I’m not even trying to argue that UK is as good as Minnesota. Far from it. Minnesota would handle UK, but then again that’s because Tubby left a brutal schedule and little talent for Gillispie to work with. The point is this: Tubby has Minnesota moving in the right direction, but he won’t get the Gophers to the NCAA Tournament, yet he’s being canonized in the Twin Cities.
Let’s see how much praise Tubby gets when things get competitive, and allow me to wish the Minnesota media and Gopher fans good luck as they embark on a potential five-game losing streak beginning Jan. 17 — a stretch that includes Indiana, Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin. But by then Jim Souhan and Patrick Reusse will have ignored the Gophers because they will have no longer mattered and the feel-good story will have subsided.
And five years from now when Tubby is registering his glorious 20-win seasons — which in this age isn’t always enough to get a team in the NCAA tournament, especially at a place like Minnesota, and can be considered nothing more than above average – with no conference titles and no Final Fours they’ll have better things to write about in the Twin Cities than correcting themselves and apologizing to a Final Four coach like Billy Gillispie and his mentally-disabled universe. (Think: Adrian Peterson, Justin Morneau, Al Harrington)
That’s right. Kentucky is actually part of the basketball universe, and if we have to go through hell to get back on top of that universe, then so be it.
Minnesota is in a nether-region, just satisfying a college basketball curiosity for the time being because the NFL’s Vikings failed to make the playoffs and because the NBA’s Timberwolves are utterly inept and depressing. And that’s exactly where Tubby belongs — where he can be loved and adored, maybe even fly under the radar — instead of being critiqued by the media and fans for his comparative above-average mediocrity.