Monday, June 18, 2007

Before Feeding Donovan Waffles, Maybe Tubby Deserved Some Too; Andy Katz IS An Opinionated Columnist

Via Kentucky Sports Radio, our former coach Tubby Smith was on an Atlanta radio show recently talking about his time with Kentucky. It's your normal interview, you know the normal sucking up answers you always here until he was asked whether he was ever offered any NBA jobs during his ten years at Kentucky …

Well, I have had turned down literally six jobs in the NBA over my ten years at Kentucky, and uh, that were … I just felt like college basketball is where I belong. I enjoyed it. Certainly I have had talks with Atlanta a couple times.” - Tubby Smith

Whoa! Six jobs? You were offered six times in ten years? That leaves four years he was left alone. Sixty percent of his seasons spent he was subpoenaed by the NBA and it never leaked out? Dang, that Tubby Smith knows how keep things on the down low, you know yo? He flirted with Atlanta twice and the Lexington Herald Leader didn't know? Amazing.

But that's not what's really amazing though. Check this out, Tubby Smith admittedly and actually took two jobs to unspecified NBA teams before waffling back to Kentucky and kept it on the down low between he and anyone else that knew of his Billy D waffling.

Oh yes. Oh yeah, there was about three of them, I thought, hey this is it. Much like Billy Donovan, you emotionally attached to a job but you go in there, in fact, I did what Billy did. I took one job, actually took two jobs and then decided hey.”

That would be hey, I'm a college coach. Thanks but no thanks but thanks but really no thanks. Wait. Yeah, no thanks. Not one time but twice. Without the public even knowing. Yo, that's keeping things on the down low for real. No wonder Tubby sucked at recruiting on a consistent basis, 60% of his time at Kentucky he was entertaining offers from the NBA. It all makes sense now, and when people caught on, that's probably why he left for Minnesota because the expectations aren't as high and entertaining offers from the NBA probably wouldn't be news there for anyone to report, but at Kentucky of course it would be. I'm just saying that's how I see it going down now. It's obvious that if Tubby's telling the truth that being offered six times in his ten years at Kentucky that there are some teams in the NBA that really want Tubby. Maybe he couldn't handle the heat to decide because he was coaching Kentucky but at Minnesota it wouldn't be too bad to handle. Just saying. It makes sense to me. Maybe it's not going to be too long before we see Tubby Smith leaving Minnesota for the NBA. You heard it here first!

Andy Katz Brown Nosed Big Blue Nation But To No Effect

I don't know what's worse: sucking up to Kentucky fans because you were caught slacking on your Top 10 college teams, or being in denial that you're an opinionated columnist. Anywho, Andy Katz, the ESPN columnist who's had a knack for misspelling lately, made it on the Sports Mob last week and I have to give Andy the two thumbs up for showing up though after, what, cancelling like two dozen times right? That Andy Katz has to have some man parts to show up on the show after world record dissing the Sports Mob, but actually Katz didn't make a very good case for himself. It ended up after all said and done, he basically was sniffing the behinds of the Sports Mob and Kentucky fans because well, I got the impression that ego and the way people think of Andy Katz really matters to Andy Katz. I mean talk about another waffler, wait till you hear how he'd go back and put Kentucky back in the Top 5 college teams after seeing Kentucky's practice facility. What you say? Serious yo. The practice facility should automatically put Kentucky #1. LoL. I'm just reporting what Andy Katz was reporting. LoL. But wait, check this out when he says he's not an opinionated columnist. Funny stuff man,

(23:00 mark)… I'm not an opinion columnist. I mean that's the thing. I mean I understand that the slant may look like we were critical of Kentucky with the UMass situation, but it was UMass that ignited the whole thing by being upset, by the AD sorta saying some inflammatory comments. Um, you know, Billy Gillispie when I talked to him, he did not wanna … he wanted to pass it off to Mitch, which is fine. So he did not want to make it a big issue, so Kentucky did not want to get into sorta a tit for tat deal with this which I totally respect and understand.

On Donovan, you know, Jay wrote an opinionated piece and was a very strong voice on it and was critical and I thought it was really good strong piece. My charge and my job there was to get him on the phone, Billy that is, and for him to explain himself, and that's all that I was suppose to do, and I was not you know because we had Jay's strong opinion piece there wasn't going to be another one from me, so I mean we sorta bouncing out with a strong opinion piece, and then Donovan's, you know, not excuses, but his reasoning, his reasoning for why he did what he did. I don't condone it by the way, I mean, he signed it and now he's obviously paying the consequences
.”

Did you catch that?

and I was not you know because we had Jay's strong opinion piece there wasn't going to be another one from me.

Let me remind you that Andy Katz is ‘an opinion columnist’.

Sounds like we caught someone not telling the whole story or something because obviously by these words he admits he IS an opinionated columnist.

The only other thing the Sports Mob did not address was the ESPN poll asking if Kentucky should be forced to play UMass. I mean, that's a PRETTY STRONG SLANT AGAINST KENTUCKY MR. KATZ. How do you explain that? Is it because the rest of the world likes to think all Kentucky fans are racist rednecks and that Kentucky deserves to be portrayed in this sorta negative way? Is this the truth we don't want to hear Mr. Katz? Anywho. I thought Matt Jones and company would have addressed that poll when talking about the UMass situation. Obviously my opinion of ESPN or Andy Katz hasn't changed for the worse or better, and at the 31:00 mark the Sports Mob gang gives out their take on Andy Katz which is quite true and amusing at the same time. Give it a listen.


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