Add Alabama to Tubby Smith Rumors

Apparently, Tubby Smith's departure from Minnesota can't come soon enough in the eyes of the media. When Lute Olson retired at Arizona, Tubby was tied to the job through pure conjecture, and now it's happening again. Earlier this week, Mark Gottfried "resigned" from his post at the University of Alabama. Today, everyone's favorite talking heads -- Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon -- got the ball rolling.

I guess the fact that Tubby Smith's two previous head coaching jobs came in the same conference as Alabama make it a quasi-logical destination. Other than that, though, there is little substance here.

Let us consider that Smith is only in his second year at Minnesota, and he's got the Golden Gophers off to their best start since the scandalous Clem Haskins era. The Gophers are currently 17-3, with a 5-3 Big Ten record. They are easily in the NCAA tournament should things stay as they are, and that only happened once in the Dan Monson years. If he's been able to build this sort of a team in only his second year, Smith has to be thinking he can build a national contender here in the next few years. Why would he pack it up and start over?

Secondly, no real sources have ever been able to say with certainly that Smith is looking to leave Minnesota or is specifically interested in either the 'Bama or 'Zona jobs. It's nothing more than throwing something against the wall and hoping it sticks -- so that later you can come back and say, "I was right!"

These types of situations should be very maddening for Minnesota basketball fans. They have their most exciting season in years, and have to deal with constant speculation that their coach is looking to jump ship. It's not like he's a Larry Brown-type mercenary.

Is living and coaching in Minnesota really so undesirable?

UPDATE: Tubby says he's staying put, and that he's excited about the program's current direction, including next year's recruiting class.