University of Memphis Athletics
Men's Basketball
Smith, Tubby
Tubby Smith
- Title:
- Head Coach
- Phone:
- 901-678-2346
Legendary basketball coach Tubby Smith, who guided the University of Kentucky to the 1998 NCAA title, is in his second year with the University of Memphis program after becoming the 18th head coach in the storied history of the program.
Smith has a 576-289 career record as head coach at Memphis, Texas Tech, Tulsa, Georgia, Kentucky, and Minnesota, is a three-time National Coach of the Year, and in 2016 was named The Sporting News National Coach of the Year, Big 12 Conference Coach of the Year, and John Wooden Legends of Coaching Award recipient. Since being named head coach at Memphis, Smith has also been the recipient of the Mannie Jackson Human Spirit Award. During a 10-year span between his tenures with three different programs (Tulsa, Georgia, and Kentucky), he advanced his team to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 or beyond eight times.
“A historic hire for the University of Memphis,” said President M. David Rudd of Coach Tubby Smith. “He is the most accomplished coach the UofM has ever hired. For the University of Memphis and our basketball program, Tubby Smith is simply the right guy at the right time."
“Tubby Smith is one of the finest collegiate basketball coaches and is a man of tremendous character,” said Memphis Athletics Director Tom Bowen. “Nationally, he is highly respected as a leader of young men and as a teacher of the game. I am honored that Coach Smith has agreed to become the next head men’s basketball coach at the University of Memphis.”
Smith has led teams to one National Championship, four NCAA Tournament Elite Eight appearances, nine NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 appearances, and 17 overall NCAA Tournament berths. He has coached nine NBA draft picks and 19 former players have gone on to play in the NBA.
In his first season with the Tigers, he led Memphis to a 19-13 overall record, including a win over eventual NCAA Final Four participant South Carolina. He guided redshirt freshman K.J. Lawson to American Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year honors, while Dedric Lawson was named First Team All-Region following a season in which he became the second player in the NCAA since 1992-93 to score 600+ points, pull down 300+ rebounds, dish out 100+ assists, and block 60+ shots in a season.
Prior to UofM, Smith served as head coach at Texas Tech for three seasons. During his time there, the team improved from 11-20 in 2012-13 (the year before Smith took control of the program), to 19-13 in 2015-16, and earned the program's first NCAA Tournament berth since 2004-05.
In 2015-16, Texas Tech made the program’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2004-05, finishing with a record of 19-16. For his efforts in turning around the program – which included a 9-9 mark in a strong Big 12 Conference – he was named the Big 12 Coach of the Year, in addition to being named The Sporting News National Coach of the Year.
As an assistant and head coach, he has been a part of 758 collegiate wins and 23 trips to the NCAA Tournament since he began his collegiate coaching career as an assistant at Virginia Commonwealth (VCU) in 1979.
Smith first began his collegiate coaching career serving as an assistant at VCU for seven seasons from 1979 until 1986, where he helped guide the Rams to five NCAA Tournament appearances. Then, he spent three years assisting the South Carolina Gamecocks (1986-89), working with head coach George Felton to lead the program to its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 15 seasons., After leaving the Gamecocks, he joined Rick Pitino's first coaching staff at Kentucky, and helped turn around a team that had a 13-19 record in 1988-89 to a team that went 22-6 two seasons later in 1990-91, and ended the year ranked ninth in the Associated Press (AP) poll.
Following the 1990-91 season with the Wildcats, he earned his first head coaching position in 1991-92 with the Tulsa Golden Hurricane. At Tulsa, he went 79-43 over his four seasons, including back-to-back NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 appearances – the Golden Hurricane’s first NCAA berths since 1986-87.
In the 1994 NCAA Tournament, Smith’s 12th-seeded Golden Hurricane squad upset 17th-ranked and fifth-seeded UCLA in the opening round, before recording a second-straight upset with a victory over 19th-ranked and fourth-seeded Oklahoma State 82-80 in a game played in Oklahoma City. The run for Tulsa that season ended in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, where the team fell to top-ranked and eventual NCAA champion Arkansas.
A year later in 1994-95, Tulsa went 24-8 and earned a No. 6 seed for the 1995 NCAA Tournament. As a higher seed against 11th-seeded Illinois, the Golden Hurricane picked up a 68-62 win, before topping 14th-seeded Old Dominion 64-52 to earn a second-straight NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 berth. His tournament run came to an end against the University of Massachusetts in the NCAA Tournament regional semifinals.
Smith continued his run of NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 appearances in his first season at Georgia, where he was named head coach starting with the 1995-96 season. He guided the Bulldogs to a 21-10 record in his first season, including the program’s first NCAA Tournament win since the 1984-85 season, and the longest tournament run for Georgia since 1982-83.
As the No. 8 seed, Georgia topped Clemson 81-74 in the first round, before knocking off top-seeded and fifth-ranked Purdue 76-69. The run came to an end in the NCAA Tournament regional semifinal, where the Bulldogs fell to fourth-seeded and 15th-ranked Syracuse – the eventual NCAA runner-up.
A year later – in what was his final season with the Bulldogs – he led the program to a 24-9 overall record, was ranked 17th at the end of the season, and earned an NCAA Tournament berth.
After the 1996-97 season, he was tabbed as the head coach at Kentucky. He took the reins of a program that had just seven players returning from an NCAA title game appearance the year before, and had the lowest preseason ranking for the program since 1991.
He orchestrated a run through the season in which the team was ranked in the top-10 the entire year. The team closed out the regular season with four-straight wins, before sweeping through the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Tournament, winning each game by double figures.
A No. 2 seed in the South Region for the 1998 NCAA Tournament, the Wildcats breezed past South Carolina State (No. 15 seed) and Saint Louis (No. 10 seed). In the regional semifinal, the team topped 19th-ranked and sixth-seeded UCLA 94-68, before beating third-ranked and top-seeded Duke. In the national semifinal, his squad beat Stanford in overtime, before topping Utah in the NCAA championship game.
In 1998-99, the Wildcats finished 25-8 and earned the SEC automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, where they were a No. 3 seed in the Midwest Regional. Kentucky knocked off New Mexico State in the opening round, before needing overtime to top sixth-seeded Kansas in the second round. A 58-43 win over 10th-seed Miami (Ohio) in the regional semifinals advanced Kentucky to the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight for a fifth-straight season.
The 1999-2000 Kentucky squad went 23-10 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, topping St. Bonaventure. A year later in 2000-01, the Wildcats topped Holy Cross and Iona to advance to a second-straight NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 appearance.
A third-consecutive NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 appearance came a year later with wins over Valparaiso and Tulsa in the first two rounds during a 22-10 season.
The 2002-03 team suffered just four losses throughout the entire season and had a 32-4 record. Wins over IUPUI, Utah, and Wisconsin put the Wildcats into the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight. A season later in 2003-04, Kentucky finished with a 27-5 record, an SEC Tournament title, and an NCAA Tournament win.
In 2004-05, the Wildcats won the SEC regular-season crown and went 28-6, beating Eastern Kentucky and Cincinnati en route to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, and a win over Utah advanced the team to the Elite Eight.The 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons both saw Kentucky record 22 wins and an NCAA Tournament win.
2007-08 marked Smth’s first season in Minnesota with a 20-14 record. A 22-11 record in 2008-09 and a 21-14 record in 2009-10 gave the Gophers basketball program its first string of three-consecutive, 20-win seasons in program history. In all six of his seasons with Minnesota, Smith's teams finished above .500, the first time that the Gophers had that long of a stretch in over 50 seasons (1949-55).
During his time at Minnesota, Smith advanced to the postseason five times, including three NCAA berths (2009, 2010, 2013) and two NIT appearances (2008, 2012). Included in those runs were the program’s 2013 NCAA appearance, which saw the Gophers’ first NCAA Tournament win since 1989-90 and an NIT run to the championship game in 2011-12.
He has sent 19 players to the NBA during his coaching career, including NBA Champions Rajon Rondo, Tayshaun Prince, and Shandon Anderson, as well as Jodie Meeks, Chuck Hayes, Nazr Mohammed, Scott Padgett, Jamaal Magloire, Kelenna Azubuike, and Keith Bogans. Nine of the players that he sent to the NBA heard their names called on draft day, as Rondo, Magloire, Mohammed, Padgett, and Prince were each first-round draft picks. Prince was also a member of the United States basketball team that won the Gold Medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
He earned an Olympic Gold Medal as an assistant coach at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games as a member of the United States men’s basketball coaching staff, working with Olympic team head coach Rudy Tomjanovich. Team USA posted a perfect 8-0 record.
A native of Scotland, Maryland, Smith is the sixth of 17 children of Guffrie and Parthenia Smith. He is married to his wife Donna, and has three sons and a daughter: G.G. Smith, who is the head coach at Loyola University in Maryland; Saul Smith, who is an assistant coach at UofM; Brian Smith, an Ole Miss graduate, who last season worked as a physical education teacher in Florida; and daughter Trisch Smith, the Executive Vice President and Managing Director for Edelman, a global communications marketing firm.
Smith is a 1973 graduate of High Point (N.C.) College, and was an all-conference performer as a senior, finishing his career as the seventh all-time leading scorer in program history. Smith, who earned his degree in health and physical education, was honored on Dec. 8, 2011, by his alma mater with a banner bearing his name that currently hangs from the rafters at the Millis Center. In May 2016, he was named to the High Point University Athletics Hall of Fame.
HIGHLIGHTS
COACHING HISTORY
1979-86 VCU (assistant)
1986-89 South Carolina (assistant)
1989-91 Kentucky (assistant)
1991-95 Tulsa
1995-97 Georgia
1997-07 Kentucky
2007-13 Minnesota
2013-16 Texas Tech
2017-pres. Memphis
Smith has a 576-289 career record as head coach at Memphis, Texas Tech, Tulsa, Georgia, Kentucky, and Minnesota, is a three-time National Coach of the Year, and in 2016 was named The Sporting News National Coach of the Year, Big 12 Conference Coach of the Year, and John Wooden Legends of Coaching Award recipient. Since being named head coach at Memphis, Smith has also been the recipient of the Mannie Jackson Human Spirit Award. During a 10-year span between his tenures with three different programs (Tulsa, Georgia, and Kentucky), he advanced his team to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 or beyond eight times.
“A historic hire for the University of Memphis,” said President M. David Rudd of Coach Tubby Smith. “He is the most accomplished coach the UofM has ever hired. For the University of Memphis and our basketball program, Tubby Smith is simply the right guy at the right time."
“Tubby Smith is one of the finest collegiate basketball coaches and is a man of tremendous character,” said Memphis Athletics Director Tom Bowen. “Nationally, he is highly respected as a leader of young men and as a teacher of the game. I am honored that Coach Smith has agreed to become the next head men’s basketball coach at the University of Memphis.”
Smith has led teams to one National Championship, four NCAA Tournament Elite Eight appearances, nine NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 appearances, and 17 overall NCAA Tournament berths. He has coached nine NBA draft picks and 19 former players have gone on to play in the NBA.
In his first season with the Tigers, he led Memphis to a 19-13 overall record, including a win over eventual NCAA Final Four participant South Carolina. He guided redshirt freshman K.J. Lawson to American Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year honors, while Dedric Lawson was named First Team All-Region following a season in which he became the second player in the NCAA since 1992-93 to score 600+ points, pull down 300+ rebounds, dish out 100+ assists, and block 60+ shots in a season.
Prior to UofM, Smith served as head coach at Texas Tech for three seasons. During his time there, the team improved from 11-20 in 2012-13 (the year before Smith took control of the program), to 19-13 in 2015-16, and earned the program's first NCAA Tournament berth since 2004-05.
In 2015-16, Texas Tech made the program’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2004-05, finishing with a record of 19-16. For his efforts in turning around the program – which included a 9-9 mark in a strong Big 12 Conference – he was named the Big 12 Coach of the Year, in addition to being named The Sporting News National Coach of the Year.
As an assistant and head coach, he has been a part of 758 collegiate wins and 23 trips to the NCAA Tournament since he began his collegiate coaching career as an assistant at Virginia Commonwealth (VCU) in 1979.
Smith first began his collegiate coaching career serving as an assistant at VCU for seven seasons from 1979 until 1986, where he helped guide the Rams to five NCAA Tournament appearances. Then, he spent three years assisting the South Carolina Gamecocks (1986-89), working with head coach George Felton to lead the program to its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 15 seasons., After leaving the Gamecocks, he joined Rick Pitino's first coaching staff at Kentucky, and helped turn around a team that had a 13-19 record in 1988-89 to a team that went 22-6 two seasons later in 1990-91, and ended the year ranked ninth in the Associated Press (AP) poll.
Following the 1990-91 season with the Wildcats, he earned his first head coaching position in 1991-92 with the Tulsa Golden Hurricane. At Tulsa, he went 79-43 over his four seasons, including back-to-back NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 appearances – the Golden Hurricane’s first NCAA berths since 1986-87.
In the 1994 NCAA Tournament, Smith’s 12th-seeded Golden Hurricane squad upset 17th-ranked and fifth-seeded UCLA in the opening round, before recording a second-straight upset with a victory over 19th-ranked and fourth-seeded Oklahoma State 82-80 in a game played in Oklahoma City. The run for Tulsa that season ended in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, where the team fell to top-ranked and eventual NCAA champion Arkansas.
A year later in 1994-95, Tulsa went 24-8 and earned a No. 6 seed for the 1995 NCAA Tournament. As a higher seed against 11th-seeded Illinois, the Golden Hurricane picked up a 68-62 win, before topping 14th-seeded Old Dominion 64-52 to earn a second-straight NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 berth. His tournament run came to an end against the University of Massachusetts in the NCAA Tournament regional semifinals.
Smith continued his run of NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 appearances in his first season at Georgia, where he was named head coach starting with the 1995-96 season. He guided the Bulldogs to a 21-10 record in his first season, including the program’s first NCAA Tournament win since the 1984-85 season, and the longest tournament run for Georgia since 1982-83.
As the No. 8 seed, Georgia topped Clemson 81-74 in the first round, before knocking off top-seeded and fifth-ranked Purdue 76-69. The run came to an end in the NCAA Tournament regional semifinal, where the Bulldogs fell to fourth-seeded and 15th-ranked Syracuse – the eventual NCAA runner-up.
A year later – in what was his final season with the Bulldogs – he led the program to a 24-9 overall record, was ranked 17th at the end of the season, and earned an NCAA Tournament berth.
After the 1996-97 season, he was tabbed as the head coach at Kentucky. He took the reins of a program that had just seven players returning from an NCAA title game appearance the year before, and had the lowest preseason ranking for the program since 1991.
He orchestrated a run through the season in which the team was ranked in the top-10 the entire year. The team closed out the regular season with four-straight wins, before sweeping through the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Tournament, winning each game by double figures.
A No. 2 seed in the South Region for the 1998 NCAA Tournament, the Wildcats breezed past South Carolina State (No. 15 seed) and Saint Louis (No. 10 seed). In the regional semifinal, the team topped 19th-ranked and sixth-seeded UCLA 94-68, before beating third-ranked and top-seeded Duke. In the national semifinal, his squad beat Stanford in overtime, before topping Utah in the NCAA championship game.
In 1998-99, the Wildcats finished 25-8 and earned the SEC automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, where they were a No. 3 seed in the Midwest Regional. Kentucky knocked off New Mexico State in the opening round, before needing overtime to top sixth-seeded Kansas in the second round. A 58-43 win over 10th-seed Miami (Ohio) in the regional semifinals advanced Kentucky to the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight for a fifth-straight season.
The 1999-2000 Kentucky squad went 23-10 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, topping St. Bonaventure. A year later in 2000-01, the Wildcats topped Holy Cross and Iona to advance to a second-straight NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 appearance.
A third-consecutive NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 appearance came a year later with wins over Valparaiso and Tulsa in the first two rounds during a 22-10 season.
The 2002-03 team suffered just four losses throughout the entire season and had a 32-4 record. Wins over IUPUI, Utah, and Wisconsin put the Wildcats into the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight. A season later in 2003-04, Kentucky finished with a 27-5 record, an SEC Tournament title, and an NCAA Tournament win.
In 2004-05, the Wildcats won the SEC regular-season crown and went 28-6, beating Eastern Kentucky and Cincinnati en route to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, and a win over Utah advanced the team to the Elite Eight.The 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons both saw Kentucky record 22 wins and an NCAA Tournament win.
2007-08 marked Smth’s first season in Minnesota with a 20-14 record. A 22-11 record in 2008-09 and a 21-14 record in 2009-10 gave the Gophers basketball program its first string of three-consecutive, 20-win seasons in program history. In all six of his seasons with Minnesota, Smith's teams finished above .500, the first time that the Gophers had that long of a stretch in over 50 seasons (1949-55).
During his time at Minnesota, Smith advanced to the postseason five times, including three NCAA berths (2009, 2010, 2013) and two NIT appearances (2008, 2012). Included in those runs were the program’s 2013 NCAA appearance, which saw the Gophers’ first NCAA Tournament win since 1989-90 and an NIT run to the championship game in 2011-12.
He has sent 19 players to the NBA during his coaching career, including NBA Champions Rajon Rondo, Tayshaun Prince, and Shandon Anderson, as well as Jodie Meeks, Chuck Hayes, Nazr Mohammed, Scott Padgett, Jamaal Magloire, Kelenna Azubuike, and Keith Bogans. Nine of the players that he sent to the NBA heard their names called on draft day, as Rondo, Magloire, Mohammed, Padgett, and Prince were each first-round draft picks. Prince was also a member of the United States basketball team that won the Gold Medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
He earned an Olympic Gold Medal as an assistant coach at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games as a member of the United States men’s basketball coaching staff, working with Olympic team head coach Rudy Tomjanovich. Team USA posted a perfect 8-0 record.
A native of Scotland, Maryland, Smith is the sixth of 17 children of Guffrie and Parthenia Smith. He is married to his wife Donna, and has three sons and a daughter: G.G. Smith, who is the head coach at Loyola University in Maryland; Saul Smith, who is an assistant coach at UofM; Brian Smith, an Ole Miss graduate, who last season worked as a physical education teacher in Florida; and daughter Trisch Smith, the Executive Vice President and Managing Director for Edelman, a global communications marketing firm.
Smith is a 1973 graduate of High Point (N.C.) College, and was an all-conference performer as a senior, finishing his career as the seventh all-time leading scorer in program history. Smith, who earned his degree in health and physical education, was honored on Dec. 8, 2011, by his alma mater with a banner bearing his name that currently hangs from the rafters at the Millis Center. In May 2016, he was named to the High Point University Athletics Hall of Fame.
HIGHLIGHTS
- 18th head coach in Memphis men’s basketball history
- Has a 576-289 career record
- His win total is the 57th-highest total in NCAA history, and 18th highest among active coaches.
- Has 92 career wins over nationally-ranked opponents, including 33 victories against top-10 teams.
- Is one of seven active head coaches with 500 or more wins and an NCAA title
- One of two coaches in NCAA history to lead five different teams to the NCAA Tournament
- Is 31-17 all-time in 18 appearances in the NCAA Tournament
- His 1997-98 Kentucky team won an NCAA Division I title
- Four NCAA Elite Eight appearances
- Nine NCAA Sweet 16 appearances
- Three-time National Coach of the Year (2003, 2005, 2016)
- Five-time NABC District Coach of the Year (1996, 1997, 1998, 2003, 2016)
- 2016 Big 12 Conference Coach of the Year
- 1998, 2003, and 2005 Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year
- 1994 and 1995 Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year
- Third-fastest coach in Kentucky history to accumulate 100 wins
- Six SEC regular-season titles (1998, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005)
- Five SEC tournament titles (1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004)
- Two Missouri Valley Conference regular-season titles (1994, 1995)
- Won an Olympic Gold Medal at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia
COACHING HISTORY
1979-86 VCU (assistant)
1986-89 South Carolina (assistant)
1989-91 Kentucky (assistant)
1991-95 Tulsa
1995-97 Georgia
1997-07 Kentucky
2007-13 Minnesota
2013-16 Texas Tech
2017-pres. Memphis
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