Quote Originally Posted by elnutsmalljaws View Post
Come on Michael, you can't be serious. Better than Tubby. Tubby Smith 1 NCAA Title - Johnny Calipari ZERO. And before you say it, "But Tubby won his title with Pitino players", Pitino, Calipari or any other Italian Stallion basketball coach could NOT have coached the 1998 team to the title. Kentucky, #2 in region, down to Region Top Seed Duke by 10 at the half and come back to win by 2 in the Elite 8, then down 5 to Stanford at the half to come back and win by 1 in OT to make it to the title game, then down 10 at the half to Utah and come back and win the title. Down a combined 25 points at the half of the Elite 8, Final 4 and Championship Games and came back in all of them. Calipari has John Wall, Eric Bledsoe, Patrick Patterson, Demarcus Cousins and the rest of last years team and he could not win it, could not even get to the Final Four - versus Tubby with Scott Padgett, Allen Edwards, Jeff Sheppard, Cameron Mills, Heshimu Evans, Nazr Mohammad, Jamal Magloire, Wayne Turner and such and he wins it all.
I think Tubby was a great bench coach - maybe the best out there along with Izzo - but as time went on he had less and less talent. He was trending downward. I agree with you that nobody else would have won the championship with that talent, but I think that was the last championship he was going to win.

I believe Calipari will eventually win one, although I do not think he's as good of an in-game coach as Tubby.