Moving Day

Evidently today was moving day in the NCAA basketball world. There's news that Tubby Smith is leaving Kentucky to become the head coach at Minnesota. No word on whether Smith is going to hire his own staff of tutors, a la former Gopher coach Clem Haskins. I'm guessing not.

There is much rejoicing in Iowa City, with the news that Steve Alford is leaving Iowa to take the vacant head coaching position at New Mexico. The worst part of the news?

Craig Neal, Alford's top assistant at Iowa, will join New Mexico's staff after Alford secured a significant financial agreement for him.

I personally would have liked to see Neal take over. Oh well.

Iowa fans do need to be careful what they wished for - they've done this in the past. While Dr. Tom Davis was at Iowa, Hawk fans grew tired of "only getting to the second round" of the NCAA Tournament. Davis was forced out, golden boy Alford was brought in, and Alford proceeded to go the NCAA Tournament only 3 times in 8 years, advancing past the first round just once - nothing compared to Davis's 9 trips in 13 years at Iowa, never losing in the first round, compiling a 13-9 record.

The funniest angle of this story to me is that Alford's following through on what his mentor almost did. In 1988, Bob Knight was offered the New Mexico job, and was reportedly going to take it. What's funny about this to me is that I barely knew who Bob Knight was at that time. It wasn't until probably 5 or 6 years later that I found out about that news - while staying overnight at a church function, me and a couple of my friends found some old newspapers, including one with the Bob Knight to New Mexico story. We couldn't believe it. Ah, memories.

And finally, the funniest college basketball story of the day - Duke's Josh McRoberts is taking his 13 points and 7.9 rebounds per game and entering the NBA Draft. I think the Sports Guy summed up McRoberts best:

McRoberts is too soft.

And...

Here's a sentence that Chad Ford needs to add to his draft profile for Josh McRoberts in the "weaknesses" section: He's the kind of guy who flops for a foul while screaming "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" at the same time.

And finally...

If he's one of the top 20 draft prospects in college basketball, I demand a recount. He's like a homeless man's Darko Milicic, only if he spent the last seven summers at Bill Laimbeer Summer Camp.