HookEm

It is possible the record number of new Covid cases and Austin being Stage 5 is keeping some people from attending. And when the DO attend, maybe they aren't quite as likely to yell at the top of their lungs. Plus the generally crappy weather makes people want to hunker down. I have zero doubt that Beard is going to get our home atmosphere improved by about 100X within the upcoming years.

Not when they don’t get minutes.

Maybe it’s just me, but I find that tomatoes ruin chili. Even more than beans if that is possible. I made a batch the other day but made 4x the chili paste. Put the excess paste in a pan in the freezer and then cut it into 4 cubes and vacu sealed them. Each cube is enough chili paste for ~3 pounds of meat. I used 3-1 guajillo to ancho ratio. I still had about an hour to cook it down at this point:

LeBron’s team is underperforming because LeBron the GM hand selected an inferior coach and old ass teammates. Steph may have recruited KD. Fair. But he doesn’t hold his team hostage with threats to leave. Or trade off all the young talent to get veterans because he doesn’t want to waste his window. Or whine constantly and insist on always inserting himself into the conversation. Or hamstring his organization by demanding to get PAID. If you swapped Curry and LeBron, the Lakers would be immediately better and the Warriors would be worse. And that is day 1. After a year of meddling, all the young talent would be traded, the Warriors culture would be destroyed and LeBron would be looking to leave again.

Steph is +200% at improving team culture and not being a bitch.

Is that supposed to make me not like Klay? Confused. If anything that clip reinforces why he is awesome.

With about 12 min to go we were up 4 and the real-time line was UT -8.5. That was free money. We weren’t going to win by less than 10.

Somebody gonna need to post a viewing link up in here.

Another great defensive performance today. With this team, if we get up 20 points, we aren’t losing the game. Period. They don’t take forced shots in the half court. They don’t force a 1 on 2 fast break. They make free throws. With about 10 min to go we were up by like 22. I was thinking, WV may not get the ball more than 10-12 more possessions. This is over. We could dribble out the shot clock every possession and they aren’t beating us. It is amazing how many times we will get a steal at near half court and STILL take a full 30 seconds to shoot. The other team simply doesn’t get many possessions and our defense is so good that the other team has to resort bad shots. Honestly that was one of the best wins in the last 5+ years.

To me, the main issue with Carr is that he doesn’t seem to be playing with any joy. He generally seems frustrated or angry. I want my PG out there smiling a little, encouraging teammates, having some fun. TJ Ford and DJ Augustin at Texas. Magic, Isaiah, Steph and countless others are the prototype. Askew shows some shades of what I’m talking about. I really like his game.

I liked what Beard did with the nonconf games. We could have pushed the pace and won every game by 40. But instead he ground down the pace and forced our team to work on the half-court offense. Yes, it looked bad, but the practice will eventually pay off. It looked like for the end of the 1st half and first 10 min of the 2nd half, Beard gave them a green light to push the pace and take shots. Maybe this is him starting the engines a little before conference play. Our defense is looking great on many levels. If you can’t appreciate a smothering, frustrating defense, then you need to expand your horizons. I thought his defense was beautiful at Tech and it is getting prettier by the day here. Imagine being the other team and scoring 35 points in a game. That is ugly. The fact we are causing it is beautiful.

Brock would be well served to hang in there and get his free UT education. He can still improve his game quite a bit. And don’t discount how important players like him are in practice. He is exactly the kind of player Beard likes to have on the team in some capacity.

If you want to make money, always take the opponent's under. Our defense is great and the overall pace is sloooooooow. Think Alabama St O/U was 51.

Beard has the team playing very hard. Like I said earlier this week, it is likely that the extra exertion and short rope is making it tough for players to get into a groove. We have some good shooters on this team. It isn’t like Carr just suddenly forgot how to score. Either it is a personal problem like conditioning or he isn’t used to the scheme yet. I was actually really impressed with Askew today. I thought his defense was outstanding.

Our team is great defensively. We are holding teams 20 points under their average. No different tonight. Stanford is averaging 70. Tonight? Maybe 50. Stanford is also an ugly it up type of team. This is a really good win IMO.

That “old” should be vaccinated or maybe avoid an indoor gathering with 15,000 people.

As the year wears on, I expect we will start seeing bigger lineups for large stretches: Ramey, A Jones, Allen, Disu and Mitchell. If Carr gets it together, then maybe he would replace Jones. Regardless, Allen + Disu + Mitchell should see the court together. A lot. Right now we have 10 players getting 10+ minutes per game. I expect that Disu will eat up a lot of Bishop's minutes sooner or later. In a close game, I would expect minute splits like the following, with the top-6 players run in a variety of big or small lineups. 25 - Carr -- PG 27 - Ramey -- SG / PG 25 - Jones -- SG / SF 28 - Allen -- SF / PF 26 - Disu -- PF / C 22 - Mitchell -- C 13 - Askew -- PG 11 - Bishop -- PF 10 - Cunningham -- PF 13 - Febres + Tyson + Licon

Poor conditioning isn't an excuse. It is a criticism. Watching Carr play, I'm not impressed at all with his speed or bounce. He isn't pushing the ball. He isn't attacking. It could be that he just isn't a great athlete. But it seems reasonable to me that he could also be out of shape - especially if his shooting is sucking. Like you, I'm sure he would likely say he hasn't been good enough. The reason is why? - and what can he do to get out of it.

Watching the game last night, it looked like Beard was forcing the team to slow down and get into the half-court set. Every possession. We passed up a lot of transition buckets to slow things down. This is one of only a couple of times this year where we scored less than our opponent yields on averages. We could have named our score in that game. Pine Bluff was terrible. Literally one of the worst college teams I have ever seen. On the year we are holding teams 19+ points below their scoring average. Gonzaga is the only team that exceeded their scoring average (by 3). Every other game we have held our opponent below their average by double digits, and usually by 20+ points. With Disu back, our solid defense is going to be truly nasty. My guess is that this level of defense is new to some of the players (like Carr). As such, it may be taking a toll on his shooting due to conditioning. I bet we will see gradual improvement from everyone on the offensive end as their conditioning and chemistry improve.

My Tech parents warned me of this. They told me “it isn’t going to be pretty basketball, but it will be winning basketball”. I was like “winning basketball IS pretty basketball”. I was wrong. They were right. This has been ugly AF. I’ll still take it tho.

This board is about as interested in the game as our players are.

This is ugly basketball

My Texas over 85 bet is looking to be a loser

I can get on board with that, but I would still try to reduce the subjectivity and recency bias. If I broadened, I would go in priority order: National Player of the year NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player --------------------------------------------- 1st Team All-American Conference Player of the Year NBA Hall of Fame Major National Award: Cousy (top PG), West (top SG), Erving (top SF), Malone (top PF), KAJ (top C)

I'm gong to go ahead and disagree. I like the bar being set at National Player of the Year. It is fairly unambiguous and identifies a true superstar player during their time at UT. There is a LITTLE wiggle room since there are several awards that qualify, but overall it is pretty cut and dry and I like that. Maybe I would make an exception if a player led us to a National title In basketball, we have only had seven 1st team All-Americans: Clyde Littlefield - 1915 - 1st Team AA + world record in hurdles + All-SWC football Abb Curtis - 1923 - 1st Team AA + Undefeated SWC champs Jack Gray - 1935 - 1st team AA + Coached 1947 Final Four Chris Mihm - 2000 - 1st Team AA, top-10 Wooden, #7 NBA draft pick TJ Ford - 2003 - Consensus NPoY, 1st Team AA, Final Four, #8 NBA draft (retired jersey) Kevin Durant - 2007 - Consensus NPoY, 1st Team AA, #2 NBA draft (retired jersey) DJ Augustin - 2008 - 1st Team AA & Academic AA (only 16 in history), Top-5 Wooden, Cousy Award winner, #9 NBA draft, Elite 8 We've had three additional 2nd team All-Americans: John Hargis - 1947 - 2nd Team AA, 2x All-SWC, 1943 Final Four, 1947 Final Four PJ Tucker - 2006 - 2nd Team AA, Big 12 PoY, Elite 8, Israeli League MVP, NBA Champion Jordan Hamilton - 2011 - 2nd Team AA, All Big-12 If you extend to conference Players of the Year you get: Kevin Durant (2007), PJ Tucker (2006), BJ Tyler (1994), Travis Mays (1989, 1990), John Brownlee (1986), Ron Baxter (1980), Larry Robinson (1972, 1974), Billy Arnold (1968) Aldridge had a nice resume at UT and has had a great NBA career, but if you didn't earn All-American or conference PoY honors for your time on the 40, then I don't support retiring your jersey. I would retire half the players above before Aldridge, starting with DJ Augustin (Cousy winner) and then PJ Tucker (One of only 2 Big-12 PoY winners).