“I don’t mean to disrespect Coach Monson at all, but it was a change that needed to happen,” said the senior center and tri-captain Spencer Tollackson, who as a freshman played on the Gophers’ last N.C.A.A. team, in 2005.  Tollackson said he reacted with “utter shock” to the news of Smith’s hiring. “Coach Smith, you have no choice but to listen to him 100 percent,” Tollackson said. “He’s been there, done that — won a national championship, five or six SEC championships or whatever. You have to listen. If you don’t, you’re an idiot.”  This year’s Gophers team, though not as athletic as others in the Big Ten and still adapting to Smith’s emphasis on defense and rebounding, is 8-1, thanks in part to six home games and a soft nonconference schedule. The loss came at Florida State, 75-61.  “We feel like we have to overachieve,” Smith said. “We don’t have the depth, so we have to do the best we can.”  Smith is already a hero in the Barnyard, the student section at Williams Arena, where gold “It’s Tubby Time!” T-shirts are standard issue. Once terms of Smith’s seven-year, $13 million contract became public — a contract that made Smith the university’s highest-paid employee ever — a student attending Minnesota’s 78-72 victory over South Dakota State on Dec. 12 held up a sign that read, “$13 Million And Worth Every Penny.”  That was a refreshing contrast to Smith’s last two years at Kentucky, when the Wildcats lost 25 games and twice were bounced in the second round of the N.C.A.A. tournament. The nine years since the 1998 national title represented the longest span without a Final Four appearance in team history. With public support for him wavering, Smith resigned with four years left on his contract to move to Minnesota.  It meant selling the seven-bedroom home in Kentucky where Smith and his wife, Donna, lived and moving into a two-bedroom condominium in Minneapolis. “We left a bunch of stuff in Kentucky,” said Smith, who still has not unpacked all the boxes.  Donna Smith said the change had been good for both of them. “He looks better,” she said. “He’s having more fun. He’s more relaxed, and he loves what he’s doing.”  Coaching on Williams Arena’s raised floor, with his reserves and his assistants below and behind him, took some adjusting for Smith, who sits on a folding stool at floor level. But having familiar faces around him helps. On game nights, Donna Smith sits five rows behind the home bench, shaking a white pompom on a stick and cheering as boisterously as she did for the Wildcats. And Tubby hired their son Saul, who played for him at Kentucky, as an assistant coach.  Smith’s players took quickly to his demanding three-hour practices that start at 7 a.m. Tollackson said he dropped 24 pounds while adapting to the regimen. When Smith considered changing to afternoon practice, players talked him out of it. “It forces guys to go to bed early,” Tollackson said, “and puts a certain amount of discipline on us this year, which I think we needed.”  Smith feels comfortable enough to look to the future. His first recruiting class included Ralph Sampson III, the 6-foot-11 son of the former Virginia great. Smith said he wanted a new facility to replace Williams Arena, the venerable field house known as the Barn and the Gophers’ home since 1928, but was willing to wait while the university completes football and baseball stadiums.  “How much longer can you play in the Barn?” he said. “I know it’s sacrilegious to mention that, but it’s going to be 80 years old next year. How many 80-year-old buildings are still being played in? I’m sure it’s a long-term project, but what do you do in the meantime? We can’t play here forever.  “For now, we can make this a great environment, which it has been in the past.”  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: Fewer Expectations But More Enjoyment. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
After 10 seasons at Kentucky, Tubby Smith is settling into his new coaching assignment at the University of Minnesota, a situation with less scrutiny and more modest expectations.