Nebraska basketball: Tubby Smith says basketball transfer rules ‘teach kids to quit’
Tubby Smith doesn’t like the way teams like the Nebraska basketball program have managed to build themselves up with multiple transfers.
There is very little doubt that the Nebraska basketball program would not be where it is, without the rather liberal transfer rules of its sport. Whether the team makes the NCAA tournament or not this season, two of the Cornhuskers’ best players once played for other colleges.
Legendary head coach Tubby Smith recently had a bit of a rant about how often kids transfer in college basketball. While some are holding it up as being what these players need to hear, there’s a bit of hypocrisy mixed in there as well.
In his rant, Smith talked about how he wanted to transfer away from High Point when he was a player. The coach says he called his dad, who promptly told him that he was either going to stay there or join the Army.
Tubby Smith had a must-listen rant on college basketball today, citing 800+ transfers last year.
— Clayton Collier (@ClaytonJCollier) March 4, 2018
"We're teaching them how to quit."
When Smith said he called his dad wanting to transfer from High Point, he told him to stay there or join the Army.@LocalMemphis pic.twitter.com/ywfJDJbLaZ
Talking about the fact that 800 players transferred last year, Smith said that the NCAA, its fans and coaches are “teaching them how to quit,” by allowing kids to change schools. It’s a fairly decent message, until you look at Tubby Smith’s career as a head coach.
Smith got his first head coaching gig at Tulsa, where he stayed for four years. In 1995, after going 24-8 for the Golden Hurricane, he took the head job at Georgia.
Just two years later, after compiling a 45-19 record for the Bulldogs, he jumped ship to conference rival Kentucky. Take note of that, because if a player did the same thing, he’d have to sit out two years if no special circumstances existed.
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Smith stayed with the Wildcats for quite a while, but eventually fled the school because fan expectations were apparently too high for him. In 2007, he moved to Minnesota, where he coached until 2013.
That year, Smith moved to Texas Tech. This particular move was out of the coach’s control as the Golden Gophers fired him following an investigation into some recruiting irregularities.
The man who has maligned players who transfer as “quitters” from his bully pulpit stayed with Texas Tech for three years. In March of 2016, he took the Red Raiders to the NCAA Tournament and was named Big 12 and Sporting News coach of the year. One month later, he took the head coaching job at Memphis.
Smith has now been with the Tigers for two seasons. While his stay at Kentucky was a long one, it’s important to note that Tubby Smith had tenures of four years or less at four of the six schools he’s coached at.
Why is that important? Because it means he’s left more often than not in the same time frame than quite a few of the kids he’s talking about have left their own schools.
In other words, Tubby Smith is trash talking players like James Palmer Jr and Isaac Copeland, not to mention the many other transfer kids who have helped the Nebraska basketball team in the not to distant past, while engaging in the same practices. If that’s not the pot calling the kettle black, I don’t know what is.
If Tubby Smith wants to teach Nebraska basketball players, and all the other college basketball players out there not to “quit” it seems like he might want to follow his own advice once in a while.