Charlie Simms brought me a couple articles that recently appeared in the Tulsa World newspaper. They were sent to him by his sister Pauline who resides in Pryor, Oklahoma just east of Tulsa. Here’s the link to the first story (click here.) The second one is here (click here.)
The articles discuss the 20th year anniversary of Tubby Smith taking the Tulsa University Golden Hurricanes, who were a 12 seed in 1994, to the NCAA Tournament’s round of Sweet 16. Tulsa upset UCLA and Oklahoma State before losing to eventual National Champion Arkansas. One of the articles even refers to Tubby’s tenure at Tulsa as the Golden Era of Tulsa basketball.
Tulsa’s loss to the Arkansas Razorbacks in the Sweet 16 marked their second defeat at the hands of the Hogs that season. The first game between the two teams was played on 23 December in Tulsa and Arkansas won in overtime. (I’ve discussed this in a previous post how my buddy Ronnie got Tubby to get him a court side seat to this game.)
Ironically, Tubby is now coaching at Texas Tech who will not be in today’s tournament. However, in another ironic twist, Tulsa takes on UCLA in the first round played tomorrow night. UCLA as a 5 seed is favored by 9 points.
As for Tubby, he will be on T-V as an analyst. (I still maintain that he should have been selected to take Gary Williams’ job at Maryland when Gary retired. If Maryland, who hasn’t been to the Tournament in the current coach Turgeon’s three years there, doesn’t make it next year, Tubby may yet end up back “home” as the Terps’ coach. Bet that Tubby and the Terps will be back in the tournament then.)
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