Dawood Khan's Blog

Archive for May 31st, 2008

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Scott Rigot and the Great Orlando

In UK Basketball on May 31, 2008 at 7:53 am

You remember Scott Rigot right? You know…the UK assistant coach known for his connections overseas who managed to pull not one international recruit and was the punchline of nearly every joke made by a UK player in the last five years. Well guess what. That guy GOT ANOTHER JOB! It takes some bit of talent to leave the University with the greatest basketball tradition in the country and having finished working for a coach respected by his peers on both the college and NBA level and find a way to not be hired by anyone in the country….but Rigot managed to do that! Not only did Tubby decide not to take him to Minnesota (a statement in itself), but no one even pulled a South Florida and took him after the Tubster bolted town. But now someone has. DUQUESNE….the Atlantic 10 team that no one knows is even in the conference has hired Rigot as an assistant coach, where he will immediately go to work not bringing in recruits and setting a conference record for “most times looking perplexed on the sideline.” We here at Kentucky Sports Radio wish Scott well and thank Duquesne University for helping keep one of our former coaches off the street.

Scott Rigot. There has never been a sorrier tale out of the University of Kentucky. This guy was hired by the Great One. Tubby Smith. He was hired to revive the sad recruiting that was occurring at the time. Supposedly a European specialist who was going to bring the next Dirk or Tony Parker to UK. I still can’t figure out what Rigot brought to the table or what Smith saw in this guy.

This guy is all that was wrong with Tubby Smith. He was THE guy who did nothing. He brought nothing to the table. Looking back. He was the beginning of the end for Smith. One has to wonder at the ineptness of an assistant coach from the University of Kentucky who can’t get a job at a D1 School. The experts were all over UK for “chasing off” the Great Orlando and his leftover crew of has been and never were assistants. Scott Rigot is the epitome of what went wrong in the Tubby era. The Great Orlanda became mired in unworkable situations. He backed himself into a corner and was too proud to admit his mistakes. In the end, he fled the situation rather than man up and stick around for the difficult challenge of fixing it. Yet, the press and especially Dick Vitale continuously defended Smith while attacking UK and it’s fans. They did this even as they simultaneously wrote of how “down” UK was in talent and achievement. Yet, Tubby was crowned one of the greatest in the Game. lol

Dick Vitale talking out of both sides of his neck? NEVER!!! THE HELL YOU SAY!!! lol

This is one of those guys to whom Smith was supposedly so loyal that he didn’t offer him a job in Minnesota.

I say this as a joke but I almost mean it. The only thing about the end of the Smith era that I regret is that Mitch Barnhart didn’t get to fire the son of a bitch.

I give it 4 to 5 years before the Great Orlando screws up the great gig he has up there in Minnesota. UM will realize that they got played by one of the great coaching scam artists of our time. They got their second Clem Haskins. And they’ll deserve it, too. Tubby won’t cheat. He just won’t earn all that cheddar that the Golden Gophers are throwing at him. In that sense, he always cheats. He cheats you out of the opportunity to hire a coach who is truly capable of elite coaching.

They say that they will be satisfied with Sweet 16s and 20 win seasons. We’ll see how long that lasts. They aren’t paying Smith Sweet 16 money. I will laugh almost as hard when they fire him as when I heard that they hired him away from UK.

The best news days of my UK Fan-hood:

1. 1996 NCAA Championship

2. 1998 Elite 8 Win over Duke

3. 1978 NCAA Championship

3. 1998 NCAA Championship

4. The day that Smith left for Minnesota.

5. The day all of the Tubby Smith fans became UM fans and left UK alone. OOPs, that never happened. lol Too bad.

It shouldn’t be all that surprising the University of Minnesota joins Northwestern as the only two Big Ten Conference men’s basketball teams currently without a 2010 commitment. Ohio State (No. 1), Illinois (No. 3), Michigan State (No. 9) and Purdue (tied-No. 10) already have top 10 recruiting classes for 2010, according to Rivals.com.

http://blogs.ajc.com/jeff-schultz-blog/files/2010/03/182757_NCAA_Tubbys_Trials_B.JPG

Tubby Smith is right where he belongs.

Mediocrity City BABY!!!

Anyway. The Tubby Era ended one of the truly comical sagas in the history of UK. One with which UK and the fans was destined to be smeared from the beginning. Many of us saw it coming in 1999. Many more saw it in 2000. Tubby skulked off like a scared and defeated old man.  Taking with him his One Million Plus USD “loyalty” bonus.  He’d been talking to Minnesota since the previous year as the season was underway.  Clearly, his heart wasn’t in the job that he was being paid to do.  He had already all but left for the Minnesota job back in December.  He runs out with a cool Million.  UK Fans got smeared with the idiotic press corps led by that assclown Dick Vitale all but calling Kentucky the KKK of College Basketball.  Now, Billy G John Calipari is in the process of making UK a Great Team again. A true contender rather than a Tubby Paper Tiger.

Good Luck Scott Rigot. Your time at UK was probably not a lesson in how to run a great program. But at least, now you know what NOT to do. lol

Post Script:  After this past season wherein John Calipari and his uber-talented recruiting class led UK to a 35-3 record, I am even more convinced that UK should have booted Ten Loss Tubby back in 2000.

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Egyptian Proverbs and other tales

In Afghanistan, Middle East, culture on May 31, 2008 at 12:13 am

I was watching the movie Rendition with two Afghani compadres. In the movie, the main character, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, is telling a high ranking Egyptian Ministerial Officer that the interrogation is not working. That the prisoner is just telling them what they want to hear in the hopes of being released. In response, the Egyptian tells Jake Gyllenhaal the following;

In Egypt, we have a saying; “Beat your wife once each morning. If you don’t know why, she does.”

You may have had to have been in the room and/or have a really perverse sense of humor but the three of us just burst out laughing. The three of us are always discussing cultures and history. So there is a kind of understanding between us. It was one of those bonding moments that one looks back to years later.

Two Afghanis and an American in a room in Herat laughing at the utter absurdity of such a statement. I don’t know what made me think of this tonight. But there it is.

A friend of mine [Kenny D] emailed an article about the construction of the ring road and the challenges of uniting the country of Afghanistan by rebuilding the national infrastructure. It was an interesting read and I am very much familiar with the story and the challenges of rebuilding Afghanistan. I’ve been privy to many a story concerning the highways. I’ve heard the stores and reports of the highway bandits and such. I’ve heard about the corruption that is involved in the monies funding the construction. I know victims of the roads and by-ways of Afghanistan. I’ve even indirectly fell victim to these bandits myself.

The email and article were timely. Just that day, I had a humorous conversation with one of my freinds here in Afghanistan named Wahidullah. He has traveled much of Central Asia and, of course, he traveled the Afghan circle of hell. I’ve traveled some of those roads myself.

Hirat to Qandahar to Kabul…the great ring road.

When he got to Qandahar, he bedded down in a motel. (a really rundown and dilapidated travelodge).

Next morning, he awoke. Went about town in Q-har to see about getting something to eat. He asked if there was a milk seller. Finally, he’s pointed to a man holding a stick and standing next to a barrel outside a mud brick building. When he reaches the man he sees that there is some sort of black liquid in the barrel. Wahid asks him if he sells milk. The man says “yes.” Wahid asks “well, where is it?” The milk seller points to the barrel. Wahid asks him; “Where? Where is the Milk?” The milk seller then takes the stick and pokes and stirs the black liquid. Instantly, a thousand flies take flight revealing the milk.

Wahid didn’t have milk that day. He said that he didn’t eat again until the next day when he arrived in Kabul.

This was, of course, during the time of the taliban.

Wahidullah is a walking encyclopedia of entertaining stories about Central Asia and Afghanistan. If I can remember more, I will share them.