Looking Back

I am, and have always been a Tubby Smith fan. All things being equal, I feel his game management and motivational talents are second to none, however, even Tubby cannot make chicken salad out of chicken feathers. Coach Smith’s achilles heal as a coach has always been recruiting and it has finally caught up with him. Coach Smith has on a few occasions signed sub-par prospects with the hope of landing a blue chipper that is a high school teammate and of this sub-par recruit, this has yet to materialize and the basketball program ends up with a player who is never able to make a contribution.
The UK basketball program is perhaps the most elite college program in the history of college basketball, and this program was not built with the talent of a Sheray Thomas, a Bobby Perry, a Adam Williams, a Shagari Allene, a Lukas Orbzut or several others that have come and gone over the last few years.
Coach Smith and his staff seem to be unable to close the deal with a type of athlete that it takes to keep the Kentucky basketball program at a level to which its fans have become accustomed.
Randolph Morris, a basketball player whose talents I view as very average and whose initiative appears to be less than average has suddleny become the focal points of the basketball program. It is true he would probably help given what coach Smith is forced to use at this time, but it would not make all that much difference.
My feeling is that if we are only going to be able to secure committments from the quality of players that are currently coming to UK, then recruit only in the state of Kentucky, there are plenty of players in Kentucky as good as what the Wildcats have on their current roster.
•The Corbin Redhounds of Coach Tony Pietrowski suffered their first loss of the season on the road to the Cawood Trojans, but bounced back with an impressive win over the Fighting Irish of Knoxville Catholic, of Knoxville, Tennessee. Catholic was a physically strong team ad put the Redhounds to the test with a very deliberate offense.
Coach Piettrowski’s Redhounds exhibited great patience and played very good defense in garnering the win.
As we look to the coming week, Oneida Baptist will host the ‘Hounds Tuesday night, followed by a trip to London to take on the Cardinals of South Laurel.
Kyle French had to fight illness and a sprained ankle and only played about one quarter on Friday evening, but should be well for the coming week.
Clint Cashen, better known for his football heroics was very impressive coming off the bench against Catholic and scoring 10 points along with grabbing several key rebounds. Josh Crawford is playing great and providing leadership by example. Ryan Swim continues to bang the boards and scoring valuable points down low.
Knoxville Catholic bounced back Saturday evening to down Clay County, 51-46. Clay County is rated second in the 13th region by most publications to the mighty Cardinals of South Laurel, could it be that the Corbin Redhounds have been overlooked by this group of experts who put the ‘Hounds in the best of the rest category. It is difficult to be objective when you have never had your nose out of Laurel County.
The Cumberland Falls Invitational Tournament is coming up the week between Christmas and New Year’s and it has evolved into a very good tournament which pits a few local teams against some out of state teams and gives basketball junkies like me a fix.
The first Cumberland Falls Tournament I remember was in the mid 50’s and only had four teams, but three of those teams were very strong. Louisvile Male was led by Kenny Khun, who was an all-state guard. Adair County was played by Ralph Shearer, also an all-state player along with Terry Reynolds who played and starred later at Georgia Tech.
The Redhounds had two great guards in Edd Selvey and Calvin Bird. I doublt any tournament ever held in Kentucky ever had such a start studded array of guards.