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Hot Tubby: Is Smith Going To Be Back Next Season?

The Minnesota Golden Gophers' basketball team put together a pretty epic collapse to close out this season. The team went from 16-4 and being highly ranked in national polls to finishing 17-13 and (hopefully) considering themselves lucky to get an invite to the NIT.

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For some reason, the rumors have been flying that Tubby Smith is going to be leaving the Gophers after this season, possibly to take a job at Georgia Tech or another destination. It seems kind of strange to me that a guy whose team totally fell apart down the stretch would be a hot commodity, but Smith has proven himself to be a winner in the past. Still, he doesn't sound like a man that's interested in leaving Minnesota, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

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". . .I'm not going anywhere. My wife likes it here, I like it here, and I'm going to finish my career here."

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As we all know, in the world of college coaching, words like these can have a shelf life of roughly five minutes, but I would still be a bit shocked if Tubby Smith wasn't back coaching the Golden Gophers next season. After all, with the way this year finished, there's pretty much nowhere to go but upwards.

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Photographs by Micah Taylor, clairity, and Fibonacci Blue used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.