duckgrad99 wrote:dthomas=ddixon wrote:1997-1998 Kentucky 35-4 14-2 1st NCAA Champions
1998-1999 Kentucky 28-9 11-5 3rd NCAA Elite 8
1999-2000 Kentucky 23-10 12-4 T-1st NCAA Round 2
2000–2001 Kentucky 24-10 12-4 T-1st NCAA Sweet 16
2001–2002 Kentucky 22-10 10-6 T-2nd NCAA Sweet 16
2002–2003 Kentucky 32-4 16-0 1st NCAA Elite 8
2003–2004 Kentucky 27-5 13-3 2nd NCAA Round 2
2004–2005 Kentucky 28-6 14-2 1st NCAA Elite 8
2005–2006 Kentucky 22-13 9-7 6th NCAA Round 2
2006–2007 Kentucky 22-12 9-7 4th NCAA Round 2
He definitely won the title & went to the Elite 8 with someone else's players. And after that, he never got back to the previously high level. He really hasn't had that much more success than Kent. Obviously more tourney appearances & wins but that comes with being at Kentucky compared to Oregon. Ultimately though, he has 2 Elite 8's just like Kent.
swagnatic101 makes some good points & I'm not so sure I'm as high on Smith as I was. I still think it would be an upgrade from Kent but I think we can do better.
He took his team to the tournament every season. Never had a losing season. Had at least 22 wins a season. Sorry, but you would be hard pressed to get a coach to Oregon with a better track record than this. I would be thrilled with Smith. Also, look at his conference record overall. Compare it to Kent's and it's not even close.
Agree.
Tubby is a HUGE upgrade over Kent. Here are some overwhelming stats. None of this even comes close to matching anything that Kent could even dream of doing:
University of Tulsa
From 1991 to 1995, Smith led the Golden Hurricane to a 79-43 record. Rebuilding the basketball program his first two years, he then led the team to two consecutive Missouri Valley Conference regular season titles and two appearances in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament in 1994 and 1995. Smith's 1994 Tulsa team upset UCLA in the tourney's first round before knocking off Oklahoma State. In '95, the Hurricane blew away Big Ten team Illinois to open March Madness.
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University of Georgia
In two seasons, he led the Bulldogs to a 45-19 record, including the first back-to-back seasons of 20 wins or more in school history. His teams achieved a Sweet 16 finish in the 1996 NCAA Tournament and lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament in the 1997 NCAA Tournament. The Bulldogs defeated Clemson to open the '96 tournament before upsetting the top-seeded Purdue Boilermakers.
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University of Kentucky
Since most of the players who had left after the 1996 and 1997 seasons were high NBA draft picks, he inherited a team that had the lowest pre-season ranking since Kentucky came off probation in 1991. In that first season at UK, he coached the Wildcats to their seventh NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, including a come-from-behind victory against Duke in the Elite Eight. His 1998 National Championship is unique in modern times,
as being the only team in over twenty years to win without a First Team All American or future NBA Lottery Pick. . Overall, Smith led Kentucky to one National Championship in 1998, a perfect 16–0 regular season conference record in 2003, five SEC regular season championships (1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005) and five SEC Tournament titles (1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004), with six Sweet Sixteen finishes and
four Elite Eight finishes (1998, 1999, 2003, 2005) in his nine seasons. He totaled 100 wins quicker than any other Wildcat coach except Hall of Famer Adolph Rupp, reaching the plateau in 130 games. Smith led the Wildcats to an overall record of 263–83 record for a winning percentage of .760.
In his 10 seasons with Kentucky, he averaged over 26 wins per season.[2]
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University of Minnesota
Since Monson was brought in from Gonzaga on July 4, 1999 to rebuild a Minnesota program scandalized by academic fraud during Clem Haskins' regime, the Gophers made the NCAA Tournament just one time, and in 2007 endured the first twenty loss season in their history.
The team went from 8–22 in 2006–2007 to 20–14 in 2007–2008 when Smith took over as coach. Smith lead his Golden Gophers to the Big Ten Tournament semi-finals after defeating 2nd seeded Indiana. Coach Smith also harvested a top 25 recruiting class, the best in years for the program. In the 2008–2009 season, Tubby led Minnesota to a record of 22–11, culminating in with a berth in the NCAA tournament.