HookEm

Why does Porter not have talent?

I don't think Indiana has that much better of a resume than Iowa State and it isn't even a consideration to keep them out. Using Massey rankings for easy of use: ISU Wins: #24 K-State, #28 Iowa, #30 Baylor, #47 WV, #54 Utah, #57 Cinci Losses: #34 Tech by 1, at #49 Kansas by 9 SoS: #48 Indiana Wins: #16 Michigan, #35 Washington, #41 UCLA, #45 Nebraska Losses: at #5 OSU by 23 SoS: #61 Nice OOC you have there Indiana. #113 Charlotte, #126 Florida International, UR W. Illinois. For fucks sake. At least ISU plays Iowa. If you don't play a single Power 5 or highly respected other school like Notre Dame, Boise, then F you. You don't deserve to make it.

I think the committee is going to want to put 4 SEC teams into the tourney. Selecting Bama would result in the most backlash, especially after last year. They have two good alternatives in Ole Miss and South Carolina. My guess is that if SMU loses, one of them will get in over Bama. I want it to be South Carolina just to see the meltdown by Ole Miss and Bama, who both beat the cocks.

I just really wish that Kent hadn't gotten hurt. I really wanted to see a starting lineup with him and Kaluma playing the 4/5 and with Mark and Johnson on the wings. I think that would be a great lineup and would rebound much better than what we have been starting.

There is no reason to think Porter Moser would have significantly better talent at UT than OU. OU objectively has a better basketball history than we do and has plenty of money to get recruits. If he doesn’t have top end talent, it is his own fault.

I like the approach of playing a few great teams and then a lot of middle of the pack teams. The Big12/SEC is already a murderers row, so we will be tested for close to 3 months prior to the tournament. What I don't like playing are a bunch of absolute bottom feeders in D1. Our top end is great with UConn, tOSU, Syracuse, NC State. Those are all very good historic programs. It isn't our fault that some of them are a little down this year. But man, the bottom feeder teams we are playing are terrible. Here are the 25 year program ranks for our OOC teams: 7 - UConn 13 - Ohio State 21 - Syracuse 43 - NC State 93 - St Joes 107 - NM State ------------------------ 295 - New Orleans 297 - Northwestern St 346 - Delaware St 353 - Chicago State 355 - Houston Christian 358 - Miss Valley St 360 - Ark Pine Bluff KenPom has program ranks for 362 teams. We play 5 ranked worse than 345. Holy hell, we should be beating these teams by 40+ points. That isn't fun for anybody. We need to schedule more teams in the 150-250 range. Teams like UT Arlington, Rice, Tulane, Texas State, UTSA, Tarleton. They should still be wins, but would generate a lot more fan interest.

He shot 40% from 3 as a FR at UTA. This year so far he is shooting 50% from 3 (admittedly on low volume). If he is open out there he can drain it.

I still want to see a lineup of Weaver + Mark + Johnson + Kaluma + Kent Just switch everything on defense. All those dudes can defend and all can rebound. And all have to be guarded on the 3 point line.

Fair but regardless both of these guys are 2-3 inches taller than our guys last year.

Pope is 6’2 and Larry is 6’3. Playing them together at the guard spots doesn’t make us small at all. Last year we were playing two 5’11 dudes.

I dare say that Syracuse is more talented than half the teams in the SEC. JJ Starling is a 5-star guard (#20 recruit in 2022) averaging 20 points per game Donnie Freeman is a 5-star forward (#8 recruit in 2024) averaging 11 and 8. Elijah Moore and Chris Bell are National top-100 guys both contributing well Lucas Taylor, Jaquan Carlos and Jyare Davis were all 4-star transfers And then you have Eddie Lampkin who is a load for anyone If they didn't play so undisciplined and stupid, they could be a top-30 team. I can only assume that their coach must be horrid.

Rusty

That was a frustrating game to watch. I guarantee we lose that game during the Shaka years. Syracuse has some solid pieces. Not sure why they suck so bad. Lampkin is a hoss and Starling is also a good player. I didn’t actually think Tre Johnson played that bad . Most of his shots were decent, he just wasn’t hitting them. Then for a bit he was clearly forcing them, but he redeemed himself at the line. It shows a lot of maturity that he was able to hit all of the FTs despite struggling all game. Shedrick drives me crazy. He is lost all the time on defense. I really wish we could have upgraded in the portal.

Checking in on some players who transferred. Looks like Hunter and Mitchell are doing pretty well. Tyrese Hunter, Memphis - 14.7 PTS, 4.0 AST, 4.7 TRB, 2.0 STL, 3.0 TOV, 0.563 eFG%. Record 3-0 Dylan Mitchell, Cincinnati - 12.0 PTS, 1.3 AST, 8.7 TRB, 1.0 STL, 1.0 TOV, 0.692 eFG%. Record 3-0 Chris Johnson, S.F. Austin - 10.7 PTS, 1.7 AST, 4.0 TRB, 1.0 STL, 1.7 TOV, 0.500 eFG%. Record 2-2 Gavin Perryman, Vermont - 2.0 PTS, 0.0 AST, 1.0 TRB, 1.0 STL, 0.0 TOV, 0.333 eFG%. Record 1-3 Alex Anamekwe - ??? Arterio Morris, South Plains Juco - ???

It would be interesting if the Big-12 and the ACC could combine their best 16 teams. By shedding the dead weight, all of the games would get a lot more interesting and "SEC like". I would actually say that this conference would be more interesting on average than the Big 10, who is still weighted down with crap teams like Northwestern, Maryland, Rutgers, etc. Miami vs. Utah or Clemson vs. Okie State would be much more compelling than Wisconsin vs. Rutgers or UCLA vs. Indiana. This would also position the conference as a legitimate 3rd conference if there is an eventual breakaway from the NCAA. These schools will never do this because they aren't proactive. Here is a shot at it using 5-year attendance, which is a nice proxy for how good the team is over an extended period. It is also a good indicator for how interesting the teams are, both regionally and nationally. Since this is a pipe dream, go ahead and throw in Notre Dame. You get: Clemson - 80.5K Notre Dame - 76.1K Florida St - 65.4K Virginia Tech - 61.7K NC State - 56.1K BYU - 59.0K Iowa St - 58.8K Texas Tech - 54.6K Oklahoma St - 54.0K West Virginia - 52.9K Miami - 52.5K Utah - 49.8K K-State - 49.6K North Carolina - 48.0K Colorado - 47.6K Louisville - 47.5K As a bonus, all of the schools would have 5+ schools within 800 miles of each other.

If we can beat Syracuse and probably Tech we should start getting votes. Tech is underrated at this point. KenPom has them at #9.

I suppose the post is addressing people who may have a different take.

RT isn’t a top coach, and at UT we should be able to get someone at that level. But a lot of people think Shaka is a top coach and RT is doing a lot better than he did at Texas. I will say that the teams play hard under RT and get better as the year goes on. Sometimes hard coaches like Barnes and Beard burn teams out and they get so gun shy that they crumble in tough situations. RT is also a great recruiter, both at the high school level and in the portal, so the floor is going to be pretty high. In the end we are in the worst possible place. We are going to make the tourney just about every year. We will be in the 20-30 range and win a game. Maybe we will occasionally make a run. But I don’t see us ever having an ELITE team, and we will be good enough that firing RT will be difficult. And there will be no guarantees that his successor will be substantially better.

What’s the story on tailgating? Also are there any bars where UT fans will congregate before or after the game?

This is worse than high school. Damn gentlemen, grow up. Who even remembers who attacks them on a message board.

Overall I think this year's team has the potential to be a lot better than last year's team. Better defending, better rebounding, better size, better roster construction. If the two teams played each other, I think 2025 would have the advantage at almost every position. Point Guard Hunter '24 = Pope '25 - This one is pretty close overall, but I give the slight edge to Pope due to FT% and lack of turnovers. Abmas '24 < Johnson '25 - Abmas was good, but Johnson is better in almost every way. Weaver '24 < Weaver '25 - Weaver has improved in all facets vs. last year Horton '24 < Larry '25 - Larry has better defense, handles, vision, shot, everything Forward Mitchell '24 << Mark '25 - Mark is a drastically better all-around player. Disu '24 > Kaluma '25 - Disu is better but it is close. Disu drifting out to the perimiter drove me crazy. Kaluma's approach with defense and rebounding leads to more wins. Cunningham '24 < Kent '25 - Brock was a mess last year. The refs rightfully targeted him. He was a constant technical risk. Center Shedrick '24 << Shedrick '25 - A healthy Shedrick will be much improved Onyema '24 << Onyema '25 - Onyema looks lighter on his feet and more comfortable this year Other depth Vinson and Pryor provide some depth that we didn't have last year. The main edge I would give 2024 over 2025 is in overall athleticism. Hunter and Mitchell are more athletic than their counterparts in 2025. But they are way behind in skill level.

As I understand it, the Arkansas resident kids also have an advantage. Some of the frats / sororities limit the number of Texans. All this is 2nd hand info so take it for what it's worth.

We were told that as well. It is misleading. The 30% number may be the total across the whole student body, but it is heavily weighted toward freshmen and sophomores. Rough maths for females: 3,600 new freshmen with 2,000 rushing or about 56%. With them parading around in huge groups all over campus it can seem like 90%. Just FYI so your kid knows what to expect.

Weaver is about exactly Westbrook's size from when he was at UCLA. Their college stats aren't hugely different either. That said, I appreciate that Weaver will never be in the same universe as Westbrook. I'm just saying that he could play a similar style of basketball. The main difference is Westbrook's handles are about 10x as good as Weaver's. Westbrook could drive through traffic at full speed and go up and dunk on people. Weaver always seems slightly out of control (even though he really doesn't turn the ball over much). When will Mark make his debut?

The problem is that the Big 10 is just FULL of boring schools. Even when some of them are good like Indiana, they are still boring schools. And their elite, interesting schools like USC and Michigan are boring this year. An interesting team playing a boring team is still a boring game. So really there are very very few watchable games. It is a garbage conference overall that is simply too spread out geographically. USC playing Michigan State or Iowa or Minnesota is not compelling and will rarely ever be. UCLA vs. Rutgers. That is just riveting TV. SMFH.