Poor poor Tubby.

Poor poor Tubby. I was torn last week when the announcement came out that Tubby Smith had accepted the head coaching job at Minnesota. Ending what had been 10 years of being not quiet good enough (or maybe it was white enough) for Kentucky fans. When Tubby decided to leave UGA for Kentucky I couldn't really fault him. Afterall UGA is a football school. I'm not sure that anything will ever change that, but had he stayed at UGA and continued winning at the level he was going. They would be naming buildings after him by now.

In Kentucky he took one of the top jobs in the country. There are not many schools that have the passion and tradition of Kentucky Basketball. However, no matter how well Tubby's teams did they never lived up to Ketucky expectations, which are always nothing short of National Championship. So, Kentucky has managed to run off one of the classiest coaches in the game, because he couldn't win enough. What Kentucky doesn't seem to realize is they no longer have the invincible aura that once surrounded the program. I remember the days when playing Kentucky for anyone else in the SEC was a guranteed L. You just hoped to keep it close and be competitive so that you didn't get embarassed. What Kentucky fans don't realize is the SEC today is not what it was in the 80's or even the 90's. The SEC is now a power conference in basketball as well as football. The defending national champs hail from the SEC and are playing in the Final Four this weekend. Kentucky is no longer the only team in the SEC and never will be again. You can expect Florida, LSU, and it appears UT to be annual threats for not only the SEC, but National Championships. Kentucky fans much like Alabama fans in the past still live the glory of yesterday. The days of one or two programs dominating any sport are gone. Now there will be up and down years for every program. Unfortunately for Tubby the fans in Kentucky just don't understand that.

So here's hoping that Tubby finds success at Minnesota and is able to thumb his nose at all those Wildcat fans who said he wasn't good enough the only way a classy guy like Tubby can. By winning.