My Take on Why Tubby Left Kentucky

One Word PRESSURE

University of Kentucky men's basketball coach has reportedly left the Bluegrass state to take over as the new coach at the University of Minnesota. Smith will replace interim head coach Jim Molinari who took over midseason for Dan Munson who was fired by the Gophers after six seasons. Smith himself has been under constant fire for "underachieving" teams while at Kentucky ever since he won the National Title in 1998, however many Kentucky fans now deem this as a fluke which only happened because Rick Pitino, the previous Kentucky coach left the program fully stocked with talent before Pitino left to coach the Boston Celtics. Smith has also been criticized for losing recruiting battles with schools from other states to keep the homegrown talent at the University of Kentucky. Despite Smith's outstanding regular season record, the Wildcats have a long and illustrious history of great coaches coming through there such as Adolph Rupp, Joe Hall, Eddie Sutton, and the above mentioned Rick Pitino just to name a few. Because of the standard of high excellence that most of these coaches set Smith was under constant pressure with the point of view of Kentucky boosters being "Final Four or Bust."

Smith would also come under scrutiny for letting his son Saul be the starting point for several years at Kentucky, charges of nepotism were rampant. However, there was precedent for Tubby making such a move as his other son G.G. who player for his father at the University of Georgia was a standout player at Athens in his time there, but Saul was a different type of player and either Kentucky fans got their hopes up too high or being a star really wasn't Saul's way of getting things done in order to win games. Due to the endless pressure that is placed on a Kentucky men's coach it was becoming more and more likely that Smith would leave for the University of Virginia following last season, but Smith decided to tough it out in Lexington for at least one more year. The University of Virginia decided to go in another direction anyway after they hired former DePaul head coach Dave Leitao.