The Morning According to Us

Jodie Meeks, we forget, came to Kentucky for Tubby Smith.

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Tubby Smith felt he had to get out. He left Jodie Meeks behind.

Just as it was last night during his record-setting performance, 2005 was was a fine time for Jodie Meeks. That was when he signed on to play for Kentucky, and gave a shout out to the Kentucky faithful. "They have great fans. It's a great atmosphere. I came up for my visit this past weekend, and I was really amazed how the fans really appreciate basketball."

Of course, those same fans tend to ignore the other part of the Meeks equation, the stunningly successful coach the kid came to play for. As Meeks said back then, "Coach (Tubby) Smith is a great guy. Who wouldn't want to play for coach Smith? He's one of the best coaches in the country."

Meeks had a point. Who wouldn't want to play for Tubby Smith?

At Kentucky, all Smith did was win a national title in 1998, a season in which the team had not one All-American or a future NBA lottery pick, the first team in 20 years to say as much. In his 10 seasons at Kentucky, he dominated the SEC, with six regular season titles and five tourney titles. He averaged over 26 wins per year, an absurd total by any standard. He was as good or better in his first ten years at Kentucky—which was preceded by time spent as an assistant with Rick Pitino rebuilding the program from a deserved state of rubble—as Lute Olson at Arizona, Coach K at Duke, Roy Williams at Kansas, Jim Boeheim at Syracuse, Tom Izzo at Michigan State or Mark Few at Gonzaga in terms of winning games and winning titles.

But he wasn't cut from the same cloth as those guys, and we mean that in precisely the manner it looks and sounds.

Smith had his supporters at UK, the kind of people who could see a more recent trip to the Final Four was almost flukey based on on his level of success, but they were drowned out by the worst kind of mob fervor, the kind of fans who give message boards their "cesspool" rep. He couldn't get it done, they said. Or his teams played too slow. Or they weren't as good as Billy Donovan's. Or they couldn't recruit a one-and-done rental like Carmelo Anthony. Or even a player-of-the-year talent.

Which is exactly the kind of player Jodie Meeks is, a kid who came to play for Smith.

Smith is, we know, doing just fine. He turned around Minnesota—from 8—22 in 2006-2007 before he arrived to 20—14 in 2007-2008, to now ranked #17 and with one loss (15-1) this season—in far faster time than Billy Gillispie has (ahem) salvaged some supposed mess at UK.

In fact, he's well on his way to doing for Minnesota what he maintained at Kentucky. We doubt long-suffering Gopher fans will forget it.

We hope Kentucky doesn't either.

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