When Orlando “Tubby” Smith is not working behind the counter filling burritos at an on-campus Chipotle restaurant (by the way, I’ll have a steak fajita burrito), he can be found coaching the Minnesota basketball team.

Smith, who previously coached at Kentucky, was hired last March to replace interim head coach Jim Molinari after he took over eight games into the 2006-07 season when Dan Monson resigned.

Smith coached at Kentucky for 10 seasons, winning 263 games with one national championship in 1997, five SEC regular season championships, five SEC Tournament titles, and six Sweet Sixteen finishes.

But that was at Kentucky, arguably one of the premier programs in the country, and it’s not a bad resume for a man Wildcat fans dubbed, “Ten-loss Tubby,” after back-to-back double-digit seasons with losses before he resigned to become the head coach of the Golden Gophers.

Now he’s in charge of a Minnesota program that went 9-22 under Monson and Molinari, and while the Gopher faithful have high hopes for Smith, the success he enjoyed at Kentucky is unlikely to be duplicated.

The Gophers enter Saturday’s nights game against the Buckeyes at Value City Arena with an overall record of 12-5, though I think those numbers tend to be a mirage of sorts.

Ohio State currently ranks 24th in the latest RPI Index, while Minnesota is a distant 73rd, which was updated through yesterday’s games.

According to Ken Pomeroy, the Buckeyes are 3-6 against teams in the RPI Top 100, while Minnesota is 1-5. In fact, Minnesota’s lone win against a team in the top 100 of the RPI Index came against Iowa State, who currently sits at No. 100. Also, Ohio State’s strength of schedule is ranked ninth out of the 341 Division I schools, and Minnesota SOS comes in at No. 139.

In fact, Minnesota has padded its win total by playing cupcakes like Army, Central Michigan, UC-Riverside, North Dakota State, Colorado State, South Dakota State, Santa Clara, Nicholls State and Kennesaw State. Not exactly a North Carolina in that bunch.

The only ranked opponents Minnesota has taken on have all come from within the Big Ten Conference, losing twice to Michigan State, and once to Indiana. The Golden Gophers have also lost to Florida State and UNLV out of conference.

Minnesota lost a school-record 22 games last season, so having 12 wins in January is a positive. And even though Smith is walking on water right now in Minnesota, that’s pretty easy to do when that water is frozen throughout the basketball season in the Twin Cities.

Tags: Buckeye Basketball //