HookEm

Brock Cunningham is just a super senior. Ithiel Horton is a super duper senior.

I have to think there are teams who would trade a late 1st rounder for multiple 2nds. And then you can take multiple late 1sts and bundle them to move up in the draft. It is a great problem to have.

The world has gotten a lot more talented. Check out Canada's likely team: Starters: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jamal Murray, RJ Barrett, Kelly Olynyk, Dwight Powell Bench: Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Lu Dort, Dillon Brooks, Bennedict Mathurin, Thomas Scrubb That is a legit team right there.

This team has a lot of guys with the potential to be great. Abmas basically took Oral Roberts to the Sweet 16 single handedly. He could be the guy who gets us to the Final Four. Obviously Disu could be the man. He was playing like a Naismith winner his last 8 games of the season, averaging 16.5 PTS, 7.4 TRB, 1.3 STL on 70.3% FG shooting and 86.4% FT. Oh and throw in 50% from 3 for good measure. Dillon Mitchell could turn out to be the best guy on the team on both ends of the court if he has a great offseason. Hunter has a ton of talent as well. He could be a 1st Team All-Big 12 type player. I really think he was playing hurt for most of last year (in addition to the Chris Beard situation really affecting him). For a couple of month stretch he didn't look nearly as explosive and his shot was way off. Here were his splits if you separate those games... When he has it going, he can be as good as any guard we have had in the last 15 years. When he is off, it is pretty bad (but at least he still puts in a lot of effort on defense) First & Last of Season - 13.1 PTS, 3.2 TRB, 2.3 AST, 1.7 TO, 53.6% 2P, 38.8% 3P, 86.5% FT - 18 games Middle Part of Season - 7.9 PTS, 2.8 TRB, 2.8 AST, 1.9 TO, 34.5% 2P, 28.4% 3P, 73.7% FT - 20 games Best 10 Games - 18.0 PTS, 55% 2P, 48% 3P, 92% FT Worst 10 Games - 3.8 PTS, 32% 2P, 7% 3P, 63% FT

Yeah after thinking about it, my numbers are probably off. Horton is a grown assed man at 24. As a freshman, he had a similar year at Delaware to Weaver at UTA (40%+ from 3 and All Freshman team). But since then he played 3 years in the ACC and another year for UCF scoring 12.3 ppg. Apparently he is also a good defender. My only real concern is his bad efficiency, but maybe that is more of a reflection of his role on less talented teams. I think we will start with Mitchell at SF like last year, but he will play a lot of his minutes at PF when we go to smaller lineups. I also think Disu will get a ton of minutes as our small-ball center. I also probably had too many minutes going to Onyema. Chris Johnson also may not be ready for more than 10 mpg. He only averaged 6 ppg for Monteverde last year (but almost 20 ppg in a different school the year before). Hopefully he will be ok with fewer minutes this year and a larger role next year. He has better size than Morris though, so he may slot in well as our small-ball SF. It will be interesting to see what the crunch time lineup looks like. It wouldn't surprise me at all for it to be Hunter, Abmas, Cunningham, Disu and Shedrick. That would be an elite free throw shooting group. Or swap Shedrick or Brock for Mitchell if he improves a lot.

And just like that… the thread has been derailed. For fucks sake.

Here is an updated guess at our minutes breakdown once we get to conference. It is hard to find enough minutes for everyone. The addition of Horton and Johnson actually makes us deeper than last year's team. We can go 10 deep with very little drop off. If Anemekwe improves, it could be 11. I'm assuming that we are going to start big with Mitchell, Disu and Shedrick. However, it wouldn't surprise me for one of the guards to step up and we end up closing with a 3-guard lineup plus Mitchell and Disu. No matter how you slice it, there will be numerous players who are used to getting 30-35 mpg who are going to be getting more like 15. Horton has started 83 games and may end up being our 10th best player. It will be another test for Terry to keep everyone happy. A huge benefit to having this level of depth is that practices will be VERY competitive. The talent difference between the starters and the bench isn't going to be very big. For reference, here were last year's minutes once we hit conference with our crunch time lineup in orange. We were basically an 8-man rotation plus ~9 minutes carved out for Arterio Morris.

Agree completely. Tyler Hero is still pretty young... a year younger than Marcus Carr is you can believe it. Here are some comps of players at a similar stage of their career. Player 1 – 23 – Year 4 – 20.1 PTS, 5.4 TRB, 4.2 AST, 0.8 STL, 2.4 TOV, 0.378 3P%, 0.934 FT%, 0.566 TS%, 34.9 MP, 67 GS, 25.6 USG (Tyler Herro) Player 2 – 23 – Year 5 – 23.7 PTS, 4.7 TRB, 4.5 AST, 1.0 STL, 3.4 TOV, 0.374 3P%, 0.832 FT%, 0.574 TS%, 34.5 MP, 62 GS, 30.5 USG (Zach Lavine) Player 3 - 23 - Year 4 – 20.4 PTS, 2.3 TRB, 4.5 AST, 0.8 STL, 3.1 TOV, 0.336 3P%, 0.870 FT%, 0.573 TS%, 30.0 MP, 43 GS, 29.2 USG (Jordan Poole) Player 3 – 23 – Year 4 – 20.3 PTS, 6.4 TRB, 2.1 AST, 1.1 STL, 2.2 TOV, 0.382 3P%, 0.724 FT%, 0.583 TS%, 33.9 MP, 57 GS, 24.7 USG (Jaylen Brown) Player 4 – 25 – Year 4 – 25.1 PTS, 4.0 TRB, 6.8 AST, 0.9 STL, 3.2 TOV, 0.375 3P%, 0.892 FT%, 0.560 TS%, 35.7 MP, 75 GS, 31.3 USG (Damian Lillard) Player 4 – 22 – Year 4 – 26.6 PTS, 4.1 TRB, 6.8 AST, 0.9 STL, 4.1 TOV, 0.326 3P%, 0.866 FT%, 0.584 TS%, 35.0 MP, 64 GS, 32.9 USG (Devin Booker) Player 5 – 24 – Year 4 – 21.7 PTS, 3.2 TRB, 2.9 AST, 1.1 STL, 1.9 TOV, 0.439 3P%, 0.879 FT%, 0.591 TS%, 31.9 MP, 77 GS, 27.6 USG (Klay Thompson) At the same stage, Herro is a better shooter than most of the players on the list and led the entire NBA in FT% this year. His is great in crunch time. He rebounds at a high rate for his position and has underrated athleticism. He turns the ball over at a low rate and doesn't foul. He gets buckets without dominating the ball (see his 25.6 USG). I really think he would be a fantastic piece for Portland to build around alongside Scoot. But if I was Miami, I wouldn't give him up for Lillard's bloated contract.

The main thing is that it is an unselfish play by the guard to give up points for himself to feed the trailing player. After a play like that, I GUARANTEE that the trailing player will be playing harder for a while. And the whole team also gets hyped up seeing the throw down AND the unselfish play is contagious. If you are in a visiting arena, the whole place quiets down. If you are at home, the whole place erupts and you likely go on an extended run. Well worth the risk, all things considered in my opinion.

Phoenix announced that Marcus Carr made their summer league roster. Here are their guards... To me, Carr looks like both the best player and the best prospect out of this bunch. I hope he gets minutes. Marcus Carr - 24 (6’2) – College Grant Sherfield – 23 (6’2) – College Jordan Goodwin – 24 (6’3) - NBADL Eugene German – 26 (6’0) – Europe Hunter Hale – 26 (6’4) – Europe Barry Brown – 27 (6’2) – New Zealand and China Jawun Evans – 27 (6’0) – NBADL, Europe

Here is an update on our returning experience. This is now the 2nd most experienced team we have ever had in terms of average age, experience and games played. It really helps shore up our bench depth.

Agree 100%. The key will be whether he accepts that role. If so, that could be a very good add. Honestly though, I don't see the need to add anyone else. Every minute this guy gets will be time that Hunter or Abmas likely spends on the bench. I want those guys getting 32+ mpg. And I want Brock getting 20+ mpg. And I want Johnson and Weaver getting plenty of minutes so that they can take over next year.

Best of luck to him in the one year that he will stay there.

San Antonio should sign him.

Will be interesting to see if Weaver can shoot 40% from 3 in the Big 12.

I pray that one day we all might experience love like the love Derka has for RT.

You could argue that Apple was a shitty company in 1994. Then it wasn’t. What RT was 3 years ago is irrelevant. He is our coach now. The decision has been made. And his tenure will be 100% determined by what he has done since Dec 12 last year. Can we not use this thread to talk about THIS year? I’ve made a bunch of posts with detailed analysis of the team that get no discussion. Instead we keep revisiting the decision to hire RT. Holy fuck it is tiresome.

FTR - I’m also not crazy about the Nick Matson hire. But I thought the Frank Haith and new S&C coaching hires were fantastic. It is possible to criticize one move while liking another. Every time you don’t like something, it is just provoking argument to say hyperbolic shit like RT is the worst coach in the conference. And then move the goalpost by listing coaches that aren’t even in the Big 12 anymore. Cmon this board should be better than that.

Beard - disgraced Huggins - disgraced Adams - disgraced I would take RT over all of them and so would the UT administration. Boynton has made one tourney in 6 years and is overrated AF. Otzeberger has also never really done anything beyond one Sweet 16. His record at UNLV was worse than Terry at UTEP.

It still was an incredibly impressive coaching achievement IMO. You seem to disagree and completely discount it. I and many others don’t.

What a weird rant. Serious question Derka… do you honestly think that all 13 other Big 12 coaches would have taken Texas to a 3 seed and made the Elite 8 last year if they had taken over for the disgraced Chris Beard in the middle of the season? I mean you would have to if you think he is the worst coach in the whole league.

Hot take, but at this point I would MUCH rather have 23 yr old Tyler Herro for 4 years / $120M than 33 yr old Damian Lillard for 2 years / $93M. If I was Portland, I would insist on something like Tyler Herro + Nikola Jovic + 2 first rounders for Dame. And if I was Miami, I would probably make that trade. Dame gives them a real shot at a title for a couple of years.

It is crazy to me that any Longhorn fan old enough to post on this board would have any doubt about whether Frank Haith is a home run hire as an assistant coach.

Good question. All of the stats are pretty related. Teams with more experience also returned more counting stats as you would expect. I think career minutes is probably the best predictor. Admittedly though, in the early 2000s we mainly recruited super talented one and two year players and had pretty good success. But they were loaded with NBA talent... and high level NBA talent at that... and we also usually had a core group of experienced players to complement them. Here are the seasons ranked by returning minutes. Almost all of the top returning minutes teams did well, even if they didn't all have tourney success. The ones that didn't, like 2015, got Rick Barnes fired. 2016 and 2021 were both very experienced teams that should have been much better. As you go down the list, you see teams like 2017 and 2013 that were inexperienced and missed the tournament altogether. And 2012 and 2018 that never cracked the top-25. Bringing it back to 2024, we return the 3rd most minutes of any team since 2003. As such, I think a top 2-3 seed is within reach.

I got bored yesterday and decided to look at the experience we had returning for every Texas team in the last 20 years. Note that for this analysis, transfers with experience count the same as players who have played together... so it isn't perfect. Regardless, it really shows how much our strategy has changed with NIL, transfer portal and COVID extra years. This year we have a top-3 team in terms of career experience, minutes, points and starts. The starters are particularly experienced. 2012-2018 had some really inexperienced teams. And guess what, we sucked ass for that stretch. Also, check out Durant's year (2007). Yikes! Average experience for the WHOLE team was 0.4 years.