Basketball Coaching Rumors

Tubby wants to come back to UGA "this much." (Image: Star-Tribune)*

The basketball coaching search rumor mill has really started to heat up. Here are some highlights:

• Michael Wilbon has high praise for Anthony Grant of VCU. He's hoping he lands at UVA if they can't get Tubby. Like I said yesterday, he's not my favorite candidate. But we could do a heap worse.
  
  
• The Tuscaloosa News reports that Bama is set to call Anthony Grant. Although, the Mobile Press-Register doesn't expect any real sense of urgency from Bama until Mike Anderson of Missouri exits the Tournament.
  
  
• Tubby, Tubby, Tubby. Everyone is talking about what Tubby will do next. Some at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune think Tubby may be drawn to warmer weather while others at the paper think he'll stay. The Charlottesville paper absolutely hearts him.

I had an interesting discussion with someone the other day about Tubby's "inability to recruit." Tubby averaged 26 overall wins and 12 conference wins a year at UK, won the SEC Tourney or Regular Season title 7 times in 10 years, won a national title and had four Elite 8 finishes. He recruited T. Prince, R. Rondo, J. Meeks and others at UK. From the results, it looks like he recruited pretty well to me.

The comment originated from "he didn't recruit anyone in Athens." It's true that his first team that went to the Sweet 16 was made up almost entirely of an exceptional Hugh Durham recruiting class. But his second team earned a #3 seed in the tourney with mostly his own players making key contributions. When he left UGA on May 12, it was well after the Spring Signing period, when he landed Jumaine Jones as his first signature rock star recruit. Although some how Ron Jirsa (who couldn't draw flies as a head coach) managed to get credit for signing Jumaine in the eyes of some Dawg fans.

Said differently....Tubby recruits good enough to win a pile of games. I don't think we'll get him because of the difficulty of going back to where you've been before. It's like getting back together with your ex-wife. But I sure would be giddy to have him.

PWD


*I wish that were the caption.