Should Tubby Smith be in the Basketball Hall of Fame? It’s a close call.
History will judge Tubby Smith’s coaching tenure at Kentucky kindly.
As was frequently noted when UK retired a jersey in Rupp Arena in Smith’s honor earlier this season, a 10-year coaching era (1997-2007) that yielded an NCAA title; four trips to the Elite Eight; 10 NCAA tournament appearances; five SEC regular-season championships; and five SEC Tournament titles holds up pretty well.
It is also true of Smith that he did not consistently recruit at the level UK expects, that his tenure went stale at the end, and that going to another Final Four (or two) would have really helped.
Nevertheless, at a time when Rick Pitino was more popular than Pappy Van Winkle in Kentucky, Smith followed him as UK coach and carved out his own successful niche.
As the first Black person to hold, arguably, the most visible coaching position in college basketball, Smith handled a complex situation with aplomb.
That’s why, overall, Smith’s time toiling in Lexington deserves a “well-done.”
A more interesting question is whether Smith’s overall body of work in a three decades-plus career as an NCAA Division I men’s coach deserves the highest honor in hoops:
Is Orlando “Tubby” Smith worthy of induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame?
Smith, 70, surprised the basketball world this past week when he stepped down as head coach at his alma mater, High Point University, after suffering a second bout with COVID-19.
The North Carolina university announced that Smith’s oldest son, G.G. Smith, the former Georgia Bulldogs point guard and Loyola, Md., head coach, would step in for the Panthers through at least the end of next season (2022-23).
If Tubby Smith’s coaching career is over — and the High Point news release announcing his exit pointedly did not include the word “retire” — the argument in favor of his being enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame goes like this:
In 31-plus years as a college head coach, Smith won 642 games versus 371 losses.
Smith is one of three coaches — Lon Kruger and Pitino are the others — to have led five different schools to the NCAA Tournament.
Tubby led three different programs — Tulsa, Georgia and UK — to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen.
He, of course, won the 1998 NCAA championship at Kentucky.
Conversely, the arguments against Smith as a Hall of Famer start with his overall career winning percentage, 63.4, which is light for Hall of Fame inclusion.
Of 19 modern men’s college coaches already in the Basketball Hall of Fame, only four had winning percentages below 70 and only one — former Ohio State and Maryland head man Gary Williams (63.7) — had an overall winning percentage in range with Tubby’s.
One Final Four berth for a career is also below the norm for a Hall of Fame college coach.
Of those 19 college hoops coaches that I consider modern who already have secured their places in Springfield, Mass., 18 of them went/have gone to multiple Final Fours.
The exception is ex-Temple head coach John Chaney, who never made the Division I NCAA Tournament national semifinals (but did win an NCAA Division II national championship at Cheyney State).
Another knock against Smith is that the back end of his head coaching career was nowhere near as successful as the front end.
After leaving Kentucky for Minnesota, Smith was fired by the Golden Gophers after six seasons yielded only one NCAA tourney victory.
Combining the eight-and-a-half seasons Smith spent at his last three coaching stops, he had a 131-145 record at Texas Tech (46-50 in three seasons); Memphis (40-26 in two years) and High Point (45-69 in three-and-a-half seasons).
That pales next to the 387-145 mark Smith compiled at his first three coaching stops: Tulsa (79-43 in five seasons); Georgia (45-19 in two); and Kentucky (263-83 in 10).
All nine of Smith’s trips to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament came in his first 14 seasons as a head coach — two at Tulsa; one at Georgia; six at UK.
Supplying some context, however, makes Smith’s work at some of his later coaching stops look better.
His winning percentage at Minnesota (60.5) is better than what the Golden Gophers program has produced (53.1) in the years since giving Tubby the ax.
At Texas Tech, Smith inherited a program that had gone 32-62 under three different head coaches in the prior three seasons. By year three in Lubbock, Tubby had the Red Raiders in the NCAA Tournament.
Another argument in favor of Smith as a Hall of Famer is the way he has represented college basketball.
Among those 19 modern coaches already in the Basketball Hall of Fame, there are those who were in place during a massive academic scandal; those with multiple vacated Final Fours; those who have vacated more than 100 career wins; and one who allegedly both threw a vase at a university secretary and choked a player.
In his comportment, Smith brought credit to college hoops.
Tubby was the guy who shook hands before every game with everyone working at the scorer’s table to acknowledge their importance and who would even apologize to a sportswriter — can you believe it? — if he felt he had given an unnecessarily curt answer during a news conference.
On balance, the case for Smith as a Basketball Hall of Famer is more compelling than the arguments against.
Tubby Smith deserves a place in Springfield.
