PHILADELPHIA -- Tubby Smith hit the road shortly after taking the job at Minnesota, sharing his vision of what the Gophers will be about and hoping that everyone liked his pitch.
Only instead of prized recruits, Smith met with people from all over Minnesota as part of a coaches' caravan that allowed him to reach out to a depressed fan base that, much like the program he inherited, was sorely in need of revitalization.
What Smith found out was that the kind of winning percentage that caused grumbling in Kentucky earned him a welcome worthy of a returning native son from the disillusioned fans.
"There's a sense of people wanting to be excited," Smith said. "I needed a new challenge and something to really get the blood going again. This is it. Minnesota's that place."
Smith was one of more than 50 coaches to take a new job this offseason and easily the highest in profile, with a national championship at Kentucky and 14 straight 20-win seasons. All had their reasons -- heading home, more money, better program -- but all had one thing in common:
"It is always hard," said John Beilein, who left West Virginia for Michigan. "But sometimes it's just refreshing to start anew."
All the coaches scouting at this week's elite Reebok high school basketball camp at Philadelphia University looked straight out of a merchandise catalog with school logos and names stitched all over their polo shirts, only it seemed slightly off to see the coaches wearing them.
Only months ago, Kansas' Bill Self chat with Bob Huggins and Billy Gillispie in the bleachers may as well have been an impromptu Big 12 coaches conference. Instead, Huggins bolted from Kansas State after one year to fill Beilein's spot at West Virginia and Gillispie left his blossoming Texas A&M program for the more prestigious Kentucky job vacated by Smith.
While the demands of appeasing an often finicky fan base, along with five double-digit loss seasons in the last eight years, started to wear on Smith, Gillispie is ready for the challenge.
Gillispie has made his mark rebuilding programs like UTEP from 2002-04 and then at Texas A&M, where he just led the Aggies to the Sweet 16 for the first time in 27 years. The expectations are higher at Kentucky and Gillispie knows he can return the program to among the nation's elite.
He made an instant impact, quickly signing one of the final blue-chip high school prospects available. Without playing a game, Gillispie is already a winner at Kentucky only instead of topping the Top 25, he's a hit on the public opinion polls on Internet message boards and blogs.
"I like expectations, I like passion," Gillispie said. "That passion has enabled them to win the most games in college basketball history and hopefully that passion is going to help us win."
While all the coaches insisted they're recruiting from the same pool of top recruits, Gillispie likes how easier some of those stars are now looking back at him and his school.
