By LARRY VAUGHT
If Tubby Smith needed any convincing that he should publish his memoir, he quickly got it after the University Press of Kentucky announced the former Kentucky basketball coach planned to do so.
“I started getting calls from all over the world after the release went out. I didn’t even know they were going to do it and then it seemed like everybody was calling and asking me about the book,” said Smith.
The forthcoming memoir will be written with sports journalist Terence Moore, a 25-year veteran with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and author of The Real Hank Aaron: An Intimate Look at the Life and Legend of the Home Run King.”
“I had thought about something like this before and Terrence Moore, who used to live and work in Cincinnati, and I started talking. The people at Kentucky Press seemed excited and I said I would get back to them,” Smith said. “The more I thought about it, the more I thought why not.
“Maybe I will do a series of books on my life, schools where I worked and just coaching in general,” the former UK coach said. “I am still trying to decide how to break it down (the memoir will be released in 2025). It’s crazy how many stories I have. I have been at seven different Division I schools. I moved my family 14 times. I have got a lot to say.”
Smith, the sixth of 17 children in his family, spent 31 years as a NCAA Division I head coach at Tulsa, Georgia, Kentucky, Minnesota, Texas Tech, Memphis and High Point. He was the first African-American head coach at UK and won the national title in 1998 as his first year as head coach. His teams won five SEC regular-season championships and five SEC Tournament titles in his 10 years. He is also one of only two head coaches to take five schools to the NCAA Tournament.
Smith still remembers some heart-breaking NCAA losses when he thought his team was good enough to win a national title again. “We lost to Michigan State in the Elite Eight and they won it. We lost to Maryland and they made the Final Four. We lost to Marquette when they had Dwayne Wade and Keith Bogans hurt his ankle for us. We had some close calls but I am sure Cal (John Calipari) felt the same way.”
Smith knows new Kentucky coach Mark Pope and likes what he has seen and hard.
“I think Mark Pope will do a great job. Get ready to write about him and what he’s going to do,” Smith said.
Smith returned to Lexington again in September when Jodie Meeks, one of his recruits, was inducted into the UK Athletics Hall of Fame.
“I appreciated him saying in his (induction) speech that a bunch of coaches came to Georgia to recruit him and offer playing time, money and this and that but that coach Smith always told him he would have to earn his playing time,” Smith said. “He told me thank you for doing that and I appreciated that.”
When Smith left UK for Minnesota after Meeks’ sophomore season, the player wanted to transfer to Minnesota.
“I never took a player with me. I reminded him that I told him in his home when I was recruiting him that I could drop dead tomorrow and to pick Kentucky not because of me but because someday that might be where you want to live and raise a family,” the former UK coach said. “Don’t pick Kentucky for me. I told every player that.
“The two best players in the history of Tulsa basketball wanted to follow me to Georgia. One was our leading scorer, the other was the leading rebounder but I left them there. At Georgia kids wanted to follow me to Kentucky but I told them to stay.
“I’ve got a lot of stories and memories like that and now I just have to figure out how to get them in some kind of order to make it fun for fans to read.”
Before UK pulled off its highest ranked road win by beating No. 6 Ole Miss 20-17 last week, SEC Nation co-host Paul Finebaum offered a brutally honest assessment of UK’s season.
“Kentucky, to me, is a one-hit wonder. They put it together against Georgia, and they were brilliant. Everybody has made that point, but I also saw them against South Carolina and they flat-out sucked. They can’t be like that,” Finebaum said.
A few hours later Finnebaum and the nation knew Kentucky might be for real after all because it went back to playing the brand of football Stoops knows best and coaches best. He called it “dirty, tough, hard yards” with Kentucky always being the aggressor.
“This is our style. Dirty, hard nosed, tough, gritty,” Stoops said after the win. “I love these players. We had a game (South Carolina) earlier not to be proud of. I thought they didn’t respond but they did. We played hard as hell but we just played stupid.
“Since then our team has learned. We made critical plays today when it mattered and that is the difference in winning and losing against good teams.”
Stoops understands the fast, high-paced offense like Ole Miss uses is popular with fans. He’s tried to adjust and be a more offensive-minded coach but that’s not his DNA.
“Everybody wants to be pretty. That wasn’t pretty but the result was,” Stoops said after the Ole Miss win. “It is tough and dirty and hard and gritty. It is defense playing effectively and the offense making plays. We talk about being fearless. I wanted to go after it. I wanted to be relentless.
“We have been concentrating on playing with an attitude and edge but also talking about executing better.”
Kentucky’s three freshmen guards — Travis Perry, Trent Noah and Collin Chandler — are not the most talked about players on coach Mark Pope’s first team even with Perry and Noah being in-state standouts.
“They are all three really talented. They are all good enough to help this year,” Pope said. “Collin is a really good player. He’s better than a top 25 dude. He put down the basketball (to go on a two-year mission trip) and all the guys he was lighting up three years ago are now in the NBA but he went and served people he did not even know. I don’t know if you will ever meet a better human being. I think he is one player who will win the heart and soul of Kentucky fans in a way that will be very, very special.”
“Those two Kentucky kids are special. You know how those Kentucky kids raise up and win national championships. Cameron (Mills) and Scott (Padgett) did it with me. The Kentucky kids are just built different.
“The other players understand and appreciate what Kentucky is but they have never had Kentucky in their veins like a kid from Kentucky does and that matters. They came in here just glad to be here but they are both so much more confident now.”
Pope recently noted that Perry had three straight days where he went 100-for-100 at the foul line, something he’s never seen done before.
Pope said Noah had trouble hitting shots early in summer practices but has found his footing recently.
“He’s also got a physicality about him that is really impressive,” Pope said.
The Kentucky coach wants his players to understand every day is about getting better whether they are freshmen or fifth-year players.
“We’ll be tyrannical about that because that’s how you achieve the long-term goal of hanging (championship banner) number nine,” Pope said. “That’s why guys come here. They have dreams and goals but it all comes down to setting a daily goal every day and reaching that goal.”
Madison Lilley was a four-time All-American setter at Kentucky and led UK to four straight SEC championships. Kentucky also won its first volleyball national championship when Lilley had 53 assists in the title game and a career-high 19 digs. She was named the 2020 NCAA Division I Player of the Year and SEC Female Athlete of the Year.
She committed to play at Kentucky as a freshman. She became the No. 4 player in her recruiting class and won the Andi Collins Award for best high school setter in the nation her senior season in Kentucky. She won two 6A state championships and was the Kansas Gatorade Player of the Year and National Junior Player of the Year.
Lilley is now a Kentucky assistant coach who has seen the impact of name, image and likeness (NIL) funding on recruiting. There was no NIL money for athletes when Lilley played.
“NIL changes recruiting immensely. It changes coaching for sure,” Lilley said. “It is something else distracting girls. When you are recruiting, there are more questions coming in. You can’t just throw numbers at recruits. It has made recruiting very different and it is something we are getting better at navigating.
“It is an amazing opportunity for players. Our girls are loving the opportunities they have. I tell them they should be so grateful because in the real world there are not always opportunities like this. We are stoked with the way our team has capitalized on NIL.”
Lilley admits she sometimes thinks about what NIL might have meant for her during her playing career but “quickly brushes that off my brain” because she knows it didn’t happen.
“It would have immensely changed my college experience. I had opportunities when I went pro to find brands and work with them. I was so happy, go lucky when I was here. I had free time to go bowling and not worry about a photo shoot for some promotion,” Lilley said. “Monetarily it might have been different (with NIL) but I am very grateful for the amount of time I got with my friends with no monetary incentives. I loved my time here so much and don’t regret that things are different now financially.”
Former Cats’ Pause publisher/owner Oscar Combs recently was inducted into the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame. He started his publication on UK sports in 1976 and sold the publication in 1997.
He also spent 20 years on the UK Radio Network pregame shows before giving that up in 2016. “I enjoyed that so much and it made me a better person and I tried to be a kinder person when older people would call in or maybe folks did not have their facts straight when they called,” Combs said.
Combs was an icon not only in Kentucky but across the nation for the work he did covering UK athletics.
“I wanted to go out on top and feel like I did that when I stepped away,” he said.
However, while Combs left the UK Radio Network, he didn’t exactly quit sharing stories. Instead, he started a podcast on OscarCombs.com where he mainly talked with former UK players for about an hour letting them share their stories.
“All the podcasts are still available and some are unbelievable stories,” Combs said. “One must listen is with (former Kentucky governor) John Y. Brown and his involvement with UK sports.
“(Former UK coach) Joe (Hall) put us off a long time before finally coming over and saying he would do 30 minutes. He got there at 9:45 (a.m.) and left at 2:45 (p.m.). We did four episodes with him and he held nothing back.”
Combs believes one of his “very best interviews” was with LeRoy Byrd in 2018.
“His son had been killed about two months before and he brought up how his life changed so much. It brought tears to my eyes,” Combs said. “But there are a lot of interviews like that.”
Combs worked with WLAP producer Beau Robinson on the podcast. Robinson is a huge UK basketball historian and the two originally had 100 episodes when they were going to call it quits.
“But I told Beau we had to do one more show to make it 101 as a final show of appreciation to the Committee of 101 for all that group has done over the years to help UK athletics,” Combs said.
Quote of the Week: “I have seen people downplaying us after the way we lost to South Carolina. This win shows the world we are nothing to play with,” sophomore safety Ty Bryant after UK’s 20-17 win over No. 6 Ole Miss.
Quote of the Week 2: “He’s playing like a second-year guy instead of a first-year. You see his physicality, how he looks, how he goes about it, he reminds me of a young (Josh) Kattus. He really cares. He’s going to be a good player here,” UK associate coach Vince Marrow on freshman tight end Willie Rodriguez who had his first catch against Ole Miss..
Quote of the Week 3: “I have never seen in my years of playing volleyball someone work harder than her. She changes shirts at practice because she works so hard and gets so hot. But she is also the kindest person ever. Seeing the work she puts in and how hard she studies and goes to the absolute max, she will always be very fun to watch play,” Kentucky volleyball assistant coach Madison Lilley on redshirt freshman Brooke Bultema.