Posted March 22, 200718 yr Tubby Smith is leaving Kentucky after 10 seasons to take the head coaching job at Minnesota. Smith, who had four years remaining on his contract, will be introduced at a 1 p.m. ET news conference Friday in Minneapolis. He made his intentions known to Kentucky players and athletic director Mitch Barnhart earlier Thursday and also phoned former Minnesota coach Dan Monson, who was fired in November, to tell him he was accepting the job. Minnesota is expected to pay Smith $1.8 million per year. In 10 years at Kentucky, where he replaced Rick Pitino, Smith was 263-83 and reached the NCAA Tournament every season, winning the national championship in 1998 -- Smith's rookie season in Lexington. But the Wildcats have not been back to the Final Four since. This season, in which the Wildcats finished 22-12 overall, 9-7 in the SEC and lost to Kansas in the second round of the tournament, saw a growing faction of Kentucky fans calling for Smith's ouster. Earlier this month, before the Wildcats played their first-round NCAA Tournament game, Barnhart issued a statement supporting Smith, saying "Tubby's our basketball coach." But Barnhart also said that he and Smith would sit down after the season to discuss potential changes -- and declined to say whether any of Smith's assistants might be replaced. According to sources, Marquette coach Tom Crean, Michigan State's Tom Izzo, Memphis coach John Calipari, Gonzaga's Mark Few and Notre Dame's Mike Brey are expected to be candidates for what is one of the few premier jobs in men's college basketball. MORE HERE
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