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7/13/06

TACITURN TUBBY TALKS -- BRIEFLY
Kentucky's Tubby Smith (29), possibly the least-interviewed big-time coach during the offseason, gave the media seven minutes last Friday at Nike camp before accepting an escape lifeline from Shawn Finney. (More on the former Tulane head coach (30) later.)

It might be a good idea if Tubby wore these colors out more in public.
The Minutes isn't sure that this is what Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart (31) had in mind when, in late spring, he said publicly that Smith needed to be more visible. Smith says no to the media more often than David Spade (32) says no in those Capital One commercials, and it will be difficult to move him out of that isolationist stance. The guess here is that Tubby has done his last interview until the season starts in mid-October.

Smith doesn't seem to believe that his profile and the recruiting profile of his program are intertwined -- something most of his fellow coaches would probably disagree with. But the fact is, most of the current recruitable athletes were younger than 10 the last time the Wildcats made a Final Four. It might help if they saw or heard from the Kentucky coach more often.

And given Smith's wildly inconsistent recruiting in recent years, this is a crucial summer. He needs some quality commitments. (In something of a surprise, Smith turned up in Louisville at the HoopFest on Monday afternoon, joining Marquette's Tom Crean (33) among the few high-profile head coaches at the event. Rumor was that Smith was eyeballing athletic Ohio wingman Dante Jackson (34), a star track athlete and a promising football player, too.)

Recruiting, in part, is where Finney comes in. In effect, he's serving as an extra set of eyes for Smith on the recruiting trail. The two compared notes on several prospects and watched games together on at least one occasion in Indy.

Finney is unemployed -- for now -- but The Minutes expects him to be ticketed for a director of basketball operations gig at Kentucky. Putting off that hiring means that Smith can have Finney's insight on the road, in addition to recruiting assistants Reggie Hanson and Scott Rigot.

When asked about the possibility of hiring Finney, Smith said, "I don't know nothin' about nothin'." Look for him to become enlightened on that subject later this summer.