Familiar story in Memphis

[85 Fly]

Wow! Mr. Lawson is "Lavar Ball ish" without the bravado and needing media attention. What he does have in common with Lavar is he's all about keeping his four sons together (1 still in high school, 1 in middle school) funneling them into the same college to play basketball. He got an "assistant job" at Memphis and had the two oldest sons go there...so now the question becomes where is he looking to land a "job"? Watch we hear Coach Martin gets those young men to come to Mizz, wouldn't surprise me one bit!

Regarding Tubby-seems like he's outta touch, maybe he should retire.

[Westtncat]

Tubby did not do any "damage" to the University of Kentucky. He was an excellent person, a pretty good coach and a guy who either couldnt or just didnt get good recruits consistently. You cant ask for a finer person. He wasnt successful enough at UK and he paid the price.

[KevinHall]

Per Gary Parrish both Lawson's are transferring to Kansas.

[Joneslab]

Markel Crawford, who averaged 13 a game, will also transfer out of Memphis.

[KevinHall]

Markel Crawford, who averaged 13 a game, will also transfer out of Memphis.

As someone on Twitter pointed out this is like the UK's women's exodus of players last season.

[Jload]

Oh yeah another Tubby battle. Whatever else is said it is becoming obvious the man should retire. He was a horrible fit for Memphis from day one. Wrong style of play, wrong temperament

[Dwight Schrute]

Tubby did not do any "damage" to the University of Kentucky. He was an excellent person, a pretty good coach and a guy who either couldnt or just didnt get good recruits consistently. You cant ask for a finer person. He wasnt successful enough at UK and he paid the price.

The problem is, recruiting is the lifeblood of a program, and you're only as good as your players.

I hate Tubby threads because there's never any room for rational discussion with Tubby (yet I willingly participate in them). It's weird he's such a polarizing figure, because I agree with you that he didn't do any damage to the university and was pretty darn good in the community. Contrast him with Billy Gillispie who arguably DID damage the program yet doesn't seem to get nearly the amount of animosity from people.

The truth about Tubby is that he was slightly above average for his first 6-7 years here before he lost his fire for the job.

[Joneslab]

I hate Tubby threads because there's never any room for rational discussion with Tubby (yet I willingly participate in them). It's weird he's such a polarizing figure...

I think it has to do with when message boards got really popular.

They dovetailed with Tubby's tenure pretty perfectly. A lot of people were suddenly logging on to these forums with some thoughts, and we finally had a place to air out those thoughts on a venue other than call-in shows.

So you had two camps set up pretty neatly opposing each other with regard to Tubby. To me the whole battle became about proving that the person was "right" more than the argument itself. This is why it has raged for years. It's more about people going to the wall with their opinions and trying to show up guys they've sparred with for literally years. Tubby was just a backdrop.

I remember being called a Tubbite pretty often. I also remember when I grew tired of Tubby and wanted him to go the last two years being called a hater. By that point (2007-'08) the two sides were already composed and had been for years.

[Spiritof96]

The truth about Tubby is that he was slightly above average for his first 6-7 years here before he lost his fire for the job.

This is the best (or at least most accurate) summary of his time at UK.

On the bright side I joined WCN in 06 or 07 to create a fire Tubby post. I was pretty frustrated in February of his last two seasons.

[Joneslab]

On the bright side I joined WCN in 06 or 07 to create a fire Tubby post. I was pretty frustrated in February of his last two seasons.

Especially since you looked at recruiting and we had guys coming in who would never contribute on the D1 level.

[Spiritof96]

Especially since you looked at recruiting and we had guys coming in who would never contribute on the D1 level.

Yep...

[Dwight Schrute]

To be fair to Tubby, he did have a commitment from Draymond Green before he left.

[Spiritof96]

To be fair to Tubby, he did have a commitment from Draymond Green before he left.

That would have been AWESOME... under Cal

It's a good thing for Golden State that things didn't work out or elseTubby would have ground all the joy out of Draymond and ruined his career.

[BJD]

tubby did damage UK. He took UK to an also ran in basketball. As for the "good man" garbage, spare me that BS. What kind of good man is a lazy liar? What kind of good man puts playing his son ahead of the good of the university? What kind of good man lies about another player's illness so that he can keep playing his son? The people that call him a good man sure have a loose definition of what a good man is. Then he goes on PTI and implies racism when the water got hot here. That's sure enough "good man" material right there.

As for basketball, he cannot coach. The narrative is that he couldn't recruit and it wasn't his coaching. But he had the number 1 recruiting class once for sure and I think twice?

For his career he has never built anything anywhere. He has always came in on the shoulders of the previous coach and worked down from there. He hasn't had a winning record in any conference since he left UK. Not even once. Pastner was a terrible hire for Memphis but now tubby is making him look like a coaching genius.

The people at Memphis have caught on to the grifter far quicker that UK fans did. He won't make to a 3rd season there. He doesn't deserve a second season. I just wish Pitino would leave and UL is dumb enough to hire him. That's always been my dream job for tubby.

But tubby fooled me too. I called in to the Big Blue Line around Christmas of 1997 to defend him. I saw craks in the fall of '98 over the Myron Anthony deal but I gave tubby the benefit of the doubt then. I didn't know either that was just how he operated. By the end of the '99 season I knew we had bought a pig in a poke. I started posting in 2000 that tubby would never get to another final four in his career. Not here, not anywhere else. I called him "7-UP, never had it, never will". I was banned at WCF, BBN and Cats' pause by the TSF's. And then banned here by them too. Even got banned one time for calling him TLT.

tubby stole UK basketball from a generation of UK fans. Some of you can forgive him for that. I NEVER will. Nor do I want to.

[Spiritof96]

^ I don't think someone who can't coach could preside over the 02-03 Wildcats...