HookEm

Actually, just looked it up and it seems I'm right. Historic odds by seed:

Is an 8 seed really better than an 11 seed? If the goal is making the Sweet 16 or farther, I think the 11 seed might be better. By my rough maths: 8 seed: ~6% you make Sweet 16 Round 1: 55% vs. 9-seed Round 2: 10% vs. 1 seed. Almost no chance you get the 16 seed in round 2. 11 seed: ~15% you make Sweet 16 Round 1: 40% vs. 6-seed Round 2: 30% vs. 3-seed (or) 65% vs. 14-seed

You need to slow down and read better. Here is what I said: "At that point, we COULD bow out in round 1 OR make a deep run." And I stand by that. We could easily lose in the first round. Or we could make it to the Sweet 16, or possibly beyond. I doubt we face a team with TWO better players than Disu and Abmas before the Elite Eight. I mean hell, we took the #1 team in the country to OT. Abmas took Oral freaking Roberts to the Sweet 16 with a worse supporting cast than this. I wouldn't bet on us making a deep run, but it definitely could happen.

Tell me you're not a college basketball fan without telling me you're not a college basketball fan. I'm not saying we WILL make the 2nd weekend. But way worse teams than us have in recent years.

He really does play like a WWE villain, even down to how he interacts with the crowd and his facial gestures. The condescending smile. Standing proud and looking directly at them and giving the horns up. All of it. I love it.

Updated odds based on Massey: 0-3: 6.5% - Probably an 11 seed if we make it in. Maybe First Four as well. 1-2: 36.7% - Likely 9-10 seed 2-1: 49.9% - Likely 7-8 seed 3-0: 6.7% - We are top-5 in the conference at this point. 6 seed IMO. Maybe even better.

I think we can all blame Beard.

Every school in the Big 12 hates Texas, but none as much as Texas Tech. They desperately want to be our rival, but know that at best they are 3rd or even 4th in our pecking order of rivals. They promote a rebellious culture... a "F you, Us vs. the world, Everyone is against us" type of mindset. Kids that go to TCU or Baylor come from rich families, which makes it tough to play the victim card. Aggy thinks they are equal to Texas and are mad that they don't get the same props. But Tech stokes the inferiority complex with Texas being the big bad villain. And when we "stole" Chris Beard, it just fed into that complex. This game was huge for Tech because basketball is a source of pride for them. They know they have better hoops fans than us, and honestly better on-court performance over the last 15 years. This was their chance for scoreboard in basketball, and really in life. The stakes went beyond the game last night. I say all of this as a product of the panhandle with two Tech parents and Tech parents in-law. My daughter will likely go there and my nephew is a football student assistant. This was their David vs. Goliath moment. Their chance to once and for all hit the bully in the mouth. And all that passion came to a head when Brock made his play. I really thought it had Malice at the Palace potential. It was delicious.

SMH. I’m not supporting Terry. To be clear, I wish we hadn’t hired him and don’t think he will ever be very good. But there is no need to have revisionist history. Just go look at threads from a year ago. It is possible to give Terry a lot of credit for last year and also think we made a mistake in hiring him.

The level of doom and gloom around here was off the charts in December and January. Every game was followed by Derka posts showing how our defense was falling off a cliff. The negativity really picked up after K-State worked us at home, a full month after Beard was arrested. It all peaked in February when we lost 4 of 6 and narrowly avoided a 5th loss, again to OU. The program was absolutely a mess for those 2+ months. Then we beat Kansas at home and got hot in the Big 12 tourney. But things were pretty bleak in February.

Or maybe Tech was looking ahead to its Super Bowl on Saturday?

The season could still swing wildly with 4 games to play. Based on the Massey probabilities: 0-4: 3% 1-3: 20% 2-2: 45% 3-1: 25% 4-0: 7% At 8-10 we definitely get in, regardless of the Big 12 tourney. At 7-11, it is definitely dicey. Probably no better than 50/50 in that case and we would definitely have some work to do in the Big 12 tourney. Still, if those odds hold that gives us over 80% chance to make the tourney. At that point, we could bow out in round 1 or make a deep run.

We probably would have started 3 guards from day 1 if Love would have come here. Hunter + Abmas + Love + Mitchell + Disu would have been interesting.

The program was certainly in a mess when RT inherited it. Rice... RICE took us to overtime in his first game. And we barely beat OU, who had a losing record. The team was reeling and it looked like the wheels were about to fall off. Then the ship got righted and the team kept improving through the end of the season. Many want to credit Beard for the culture, but all that was gone in the month following his arrest. RT deserves a lot of credit for not jacking with the rotations, including having Sir'Jabari coming off the bench. I thought a lot of his game management and play calling was very good at the time. Disu also showed a ton of improvement over the course of the season. Some of that could be getting healthy, but his actual game also improved - including his little push shot in the lane. I thought in the offseason that the Frank Haith hire was great. Turns out, maybe it wasn't. And maybe losing Donewald hurt more than I thought at the time.

I recall us being one of the finalists for his services. Thought most here were cool on the idea. He definitely would have been a better add than Horton.

For tournament games, it is insanely easy to "upgrade" your tickets by moving into sections vacated by teams that just played. Just pay attention during the game to see where they are sitting. I would get the cheapest nosebleed seats available and then move down to better seats. For the S16 and E8 games last year, we were basically on the 3rd row at the FT line.

Either way, Texas isn't firing RT this year. And if we miss the tourney this year AND follow it up with a 12 win season next year, I'm still not SURE we fire him.

Correct. He isn't going anywhere for a while. This season, while a disappointment, is nowhere close to the worst seasons of Shaka and even Barnes. It would take a lot more than this to get him fired.

You have to hand it to Texas Tech, they have a decent hit rate with hoops coaches over the last 30+ years. And when they miss, they seem to move on from it quickly. Bob Knight - Great hire. Made them relevant and won 20+ games every year Pat Knight - Bad hire, but fired after 3 years Billy Gillispie - Great hire. Could have been one of the best coaches in the Big 12. But that alcohol tho Tubby Smith - Good hire. Previous NCoY winner. Won Big12 CoY. But on tail end of his career Chris Beard - Great hire. Stole him from UNLV. Mark Adams - Bad hire (who still got them to the Sweet 16), but they moved on quickly Grant McCasland - Seems like a great hire

You conveniently forgot his time at UNLV in his bio. He was winless there. WINLESS!!!

Out of curiosity, what did the Tark years look like?

Back in 2016, Terry had Fresno at 25-10, they won their conference tourney and they made it to the NCAA tourney. Fresno has only made the tourney three times in the last 40 years. Once in seven years by Terry and twice in seven years by Jerry Tarkanian. Even a Hall of Fame coach like Tark couldn't get them into the tourney without landing them on probation.

I was looking at historic Massey rankings today. I realize they aren't perfect, but they are at least objective, free and easy to access. Anyway, I pulled the final Massey ranking each year going back to the start of the Barnes era. Here they are with the years ranked best to worst. Barnes 2006 – 5 2003 – 6 2008 – 8 2011 – 9 2004 – 11 2000 – 12 2010 – 20 2009 – 21 2001 – 22 2007 – 23 2012 – 27 2005 – 27 2015 – 28 2002 – 29 2014 – 34 1999 – 49 2013 – 86 1998 – 95 Shaka 2021 – 18 2019 – 25 2018 – 31 2016 – 32 2020 – 39 2017 – 62 Beard 2023 – 7 (Partial Year) 2022 – 20 Terry 2023 – 7 (Partial Year) 2024 – 25 Some takeaways.... We are currently 25th. The median season rank since 1998 is 25. The average season is 28.6. So this terrible season from Terry is actually slightly better than our average for the last 26 years - at least from a computer ranking perspective. Also Terry's first full year really isn't that far off Beard's first year and is considerably better than Barnes' first couple of years. I realize they all started in different places, but it isn't like any of them fielded a top-10 team their first year. I appreciate that we all have higher expectations for this program than what we have averaged, but I still thought it was interesting to have a historical reference. And to be clear, I'm not using this to say that RT is an awesome coach.

I like Weaver better than Horton by a huge margin, but if we are going to advance in the tourney we will need Horton. I have to believe he is better than he has played for us this year. And nobody could hit anything on Monday, so I didn't really have a problem with him getting minutes. I just thought they should have come the expense of Hunter. Last 5 games: Hunter - 32.4 min, 35.4 FG%, 26.7 3P%, 8.2 PTS, 4.0 REB, 4.6 AST, 1.6 STL Weaver - 25.0 min, 58.3 FG%, 0.0 3P%, 8.0 PTS 5.0 REB, 1.6 AST, 0.2 STL Horton - 16.4 min, 26.7 FG%, 25.0 3P%, 2.6 PTS, 1.4 REB, 0.4 AST, 0.2 STL - Dude is just playing BAD. Overall, with the exception of Horton, I like the fact that RT seems to know who his best players are, and tends to keep them on the court. Abmas absolutely has to stay on the floor, and he is averaging 37 mpg in conference. Disu... if he isn't in foul trouble (big if), should also be getting 30+ min. Mitchell has been getting 32 mpg in conference and he is critical, being really the only guy on the team who rebounds consistently well. The delta in quality between the starters and the bench is just massive.

He was a starter last year and we were a Brock over the back call from making the Final Four. If we got there (in Houston), all bets are off. We probably would have been favored to win the whole thing. And the year before that he was a freshman starter on an Iowa State Sweet 16 team. Hunter has his flaws, but he absolutely could be the starter on a great team if he has the right pieces around him. Abmas isn't a perfect fit. And when we go small, Weaver isn't either. But Tre Johnson might be a really good fit at SG/SF. And maybe Weaver will get there with another year.