HookEm

Perfect example. Michigan State is a near blue-blood. Two titles. EIGHT Final Fours in the last 25 years. One of the best players ever in Magic... Etc. If Texas and Michigan State are fighting over a basketball coach, Texas is going to get them 90% of the time. IMO

Again, it depends on what we are talking about. Texas is NOT a top-5 program. By any measure. But you could argue that we are a top-5 JOB. When Barnes was at his peak, there were rumors he was a candidate at Kentucky. He stayed put. We hired Shaka when he was the hottest coach in the country. We hired Beard from an in-state "rival" when he was a year removed from a title appearance. And all of that was without the Moody Center, NIL or the transfer portal really rolling. There was no way around hiring RT. People shouldn't read into that hire that we won't be a huge player when it comes time to replace him.

Nobody is saying we are a blue blood. But, if all jobs in the country suddenly came open and everyone was competing for the pool of coaches, I have no doubt that UT would be somewhere in the 4-10 range. We have the money, facilities, talent pool and quality of life that are going to be hard to beat. And you don't have to worry about following Coach K or Bill Self or whoever. After Kentucky, Kansas and North Carolina, you could argue that we are in the next group. If Texas, Indiana, UCLA and Duke are all fighting for a coach, I'm not certain that Texas doesn't get them.

My point wasn't really that RT is better than Shaka or not. My point is that both of them are on a different planet than anyone in this thread. And a whole lot of coaches could have F'ed up last year, when Terry and the other coaches on staff got us to the Elite 8. Just one example: Managing the egos such that possibly our best player in Rice was coming off the bench isn't an easy task. Anyway, there is no excuse for this team. The sum isn't even close to being equal to the parts, much less greater. As much as I thought Haith was a good hire, he also has to share a lot of the blame. The team just isn't playing like a team. The guards in particular are just not playing well on either end. And we have zero guard depth, despite having seemingly talented pieces on the bench. Horton sucks. Weaver has promise, but is extremely raw. Johnson never gets in the game, so I can only assume he is even worse than the others.

Losing Holland was bad, but he basically replaced AJ Johnson with Chris Johnson and the two are similarly rated prospects. Unfortunately we've gotten nothing out of Chris Johnson.

I keep hearing this and it is just ridiculous. Immediately following the Beard news, Rice... RICE took us to overtime. The team looked like crap for weeks. Everyone was complaining that our defense was falling off a cliff. We lost at home to K-State, we barely beat OU, Tech and TCU). The coaching staff eventually righted the ship, but it could have EASILY turned into a lost year. Moreover, the team wasn't THAT talented. Not a single player from the team made an NBA roster. Rice is G-League, Carr is playing in Israel, Timmy Allen is playing for the Memphis Hustle. Disu was hurt half the year. Hunter was hurt and mentally shaken up over the Beard fiasco. Bishop was a one-dimensional player. Mitchell (if memory serves), had the lowest number of shots ever for a National top-5 recruit. If you compare this lineup to the one that Shaka coached to a defeat at the hands of ACU, it isn't close. That team had loads more talent that was criminally misused by Shaka. So this ridiculous statement that anyone could have coached our team last year implies that everyone of us arm-chair coaches is better than a former National Coach of the Year. Just an eye-roll terrible take. For me (and the UT administration) RT earned the job offer. Right now though he isn't doing enough to keep it. There is no way we fire him this year though. Zero chance. He will get two years.

Challenge accepted

Also, in Big 12 typical fashion, the bottom feeders are actually all pretty decent.

That cuts both ways. We have also been unlucky enough to have our best player out or on a minutes restriction for the first 40% of the year. With Disu healthy we likely wouldn't have needed Abmas' heroics vs. Louisville. And we likely beat UConn as well. And maybe we beat Tech too if he gets 34 minutes.

My minutes distribution would be: Starters: Abmas: 30+ Hunter: 26 Mitchell: 30 (20 min at SM, 10 min at PF) Disu: 30+ (Mostly at PF) Shedrick: 25 Bench Cunningham: 18 Weaver: 20 (15 min subbing for Abmas/Hunter and another 5 min with 3 guards) Onyema: 12 (mainly subbing for Shedrick) Everybody else: The remaining ~10 min

Fine. No problem with that. Those minutes need to come from Cunningham then. Which means much more of Mitchell at the 3 then his minutes at the 4 go to Onyema. And more Weaver at the 1/2 and not at the 3.

In the post game, the first thing Disu asked was how many minutes he got. He said that he has been on a minutes restriction. I'm sure that had something to do with his low minutes vs. Tech. I really think our best lineup is: Abmas, Hunter, Mitchell, Disu, Shedrick. Brock can be the first off the bench and move Disu and Mitchell to the 4/5 respectively. But I really want him back to the 18-22 minute range. Then bring in Weaver for Hunter if he is having one of his off nights. Everybody else should get spot minutes as necessary. Disu is capable of playing at a National PoY level. That isn't hyperbole. If healthy, he could average 20 and 10 with a couple of blocks and a couple of 3s on great efficiency. And Abmas is CAPABLE of playing at an All-Region level (which is an award he has already won in a NCAA tournament). The other pieces just need to step up and play to their potential. We have plenty of talent on this team.

That was a huge win. By far our best of the year. Cincinnati is a decent team that will probably make the tourney. This shows what a monumental difference a healthy Disu makes (especially when he isn't on a minutes restriction). That was an incredible performance. I still think if Disu was healthy and got 30+ minutes against UConn we would have beaten them. (Not to mention if we had Shedrick healthy as well). Our guards are such a question mark that I can't really project us doing much. I agree with others that Weaver needs to be getting more minutes. Cunningham is best when he is capped at ~18-20 min. In our 3 losses, he averaged about 31 minutes. In our wins, he is averaging 25 minutes and probably shouldn't have gotten that many. I say that as Cunningham's biggest fan. I also think that Onyema is pretty limited. He was getting worked for like 3 straight possessions and almost cost us the game. Shedrick is a much better defender.

It would take a collapse of epic proportions to fire him this year. But if he misses the tourney both this year and next year, that would do it. Tonight is really a must win in a fairly tough road environment.

I'm not sure I have ever seen a bigger douche than Jim Harbaugh.

I don’t think you can look at what Texas has done and conclude we don’t care about winning. We just built one of the best arenas in the sport. We put the students right down close to the action. We are shelling out NIL money to get some of the best players in the portal. We hired Shaka and stole away Beard, both considered top 5 coaching prospects at the time. We had to fire Beard. We had to hire Terry. Period. UNC would have done the same thing. But I have no doubt we will quickly move on from Terry if he doesn't have sustained success here. We won't whack him this year, but he will be gone after next of he doesn't have us consistently in the top 10.

This isn't really a fair statement. The standard set by Rick Barnes was right where we all want to be. But Rick Barnes himself wasn't living up to his own standard. He had gotten complacent and hadn't made the second weekend of the tournament in 7+ years when we fired him. Everyone on this board would be thrilled with 2001-2009 Rick Barnes.

Nobody is as good as Beard at building and sustaining interest from the fans. It is his superpower. He is an incredible promoter and we will never get anyone who is that good again. Because there isn't anybody that good. More than anything, that is why the Tech fans were so butt hurt when he left. Because he had been promoting his ass off for them for years.

The atmosphere was the worst I have seen at Moody. Could be because the students are still gone. But I think it is also a symptom of the general lack of leadership on the team. SOMEBODY (Hunter?) should have been motioning for the crowd to get up and get engaged. Instead the team and the crowd were just blah.

Yay! Joke's on Yormark!

Bros... that was ugly AF.

Looking at Massey just now and adding up the game by game odds, he has us going 10-8 in conference. Looking at our schedule, it looks like a pretty balanced draw. We have to play Houston, Baylor and OU twice, but also get to play WV twice, and only have to play KU once. Home and Away: #1 Houston #8 Baylor #12 OU #33 Texas Tech #126 West Virginia Home only #34 Iowa State #46 K-State #83 UCF #95 Okie State Away only #3 Kansas #13 BYU #40 TCU #52 Cincinnati We also start conference with four winnable games in Tech, at Cinci, at WF and UCF. If we win all of those, then we get Baylor at home which should be a rowdy atmosphere.

The SEC is going to be a lot more manageable than what we have been accustomed to. There are 5 teams in the SEC that are worse than OU was last year. And currently there is only one top-15 team in Tennessee. The current Big 12 has FIVE top-15 teams. This year the SEC average is 52.1. The median is 38. A road game against middle of the pack #35 Miss State should be much easier than at #33 Tech or at #34 ISU.

Yeah the new format and new schools actually makes the league a good bit easier. Using Massey (because it is free and has good archives), last year the WORST school in the Big 12 was OU at #55. The average was 26.6. That meant that every road trip you were very likely to be the underdog. This year, they added: #1 Houston, #13 BYU, #52 Cinci, #83 UCF. Average is 37.3, which is dilutive. Then next year they add #5 Arizona, #26 Utah, #36 Colorado, #74 ASU (Average is 35.5), while losing #12 OU and #24 Texas (average is 18.0). Again, further diluting the league. The top is going to get strengthened, but a number of weak teams have been added which will make for "gimmie" home games and much easier road games.

I have more thoughts, but let's take them to the official season thread...