its just such a disingenuous argument. the two situations are not analogous, and you know that, especially being that you’re one of the people around here who wants to give rodney terry credit for the elite 8 run last year. beard’s first team being top 5 preseason = texas being overhyped; this Texas team being preseason top 15 = completely reasonable, and you know that. but if we’re really going to pretend like you don’t know this, let’s break down how different the two situations are/were:
chris beard year one:
takes over this roster in april: andrew jones, courtney ramey, jase febres, brock cunningham.
the program hasn’t won a tourney game since 2014, the previous coach was just let go for failing to perform, the team lost three nba draft picks and its senior leader PG, and the cupboard was haplessly bare. had shaka remained as HC we were looking at an even worse season than his 2017 catastrophe. that’s what chris beard was stepping into during april of 2021 when he took over this program.
beard had just a few months to build a team via the transfer portal and get it ready for his inaugural season, and while he did sign a very good class considering everything he had working against him, the guys he signed (carr, allen, bishop) were guys who all had serious limitations, and who were five-year college players because they are nowhere close to being nba level talents. he also signed tre mitchell who we all know turned out to be a bitch made flake who left the team mid year. so that’s what chris beard was working with heading into his first season here. are you seriously the argument that calling that team a preseason top 5 is just as bad as calling this team a preseason top 15 team? come on man.
now let’s compare that with RT’s situation from this year.
RT this year:
returns four key players from an Elite 8 team, HIS OWN team, a team whose success you and several others here credit to RT and his coaching. RT returns Dylan Disu and signs Max Abmas, two players better than anyone that chris beard had on his patchwork team which he assembled in ~90 days. RT starts off his first full season as HC with a bunch of experience on the job and cohesion in binding. he also starts it off with his second best player on the naismith award watch list (abmas also made the mid season naismith watch list as one of the top 25 players in america, and again, he’s our second best player). nobody who was lost from last year’s team was an nba draft pick, and only one of them is even playing in the g league.
we lost those five year, non-nba players from last year, and then RT signed a really good transfer class of his own, and found himself with a deeper, more experienced, more athletic, MUCH better shooting team than what beard had, a team that already has chemistry from the previous year’s Elite 8 run and which is being led by the same coaching staff from the year prior. and you’re seriously going to sit here and make this argument? again, stop it.
the AP poll ranked chris beard’s first team in the top 5, and that was nonsensical and dumb. none of the computers agreed with that ranking, and no rational fan did either. this year, all of the computers, all of the polls, all of the coaches, and all of the fans agreed that this Texas team was a top ~15 preseason team, because it deserved to be, ESPECIALLY when it’s being led by the great rodney terry who just single handedly led last year’s team to the Elite 8. and i really have to sit here and lay all of this out to make this argument? really?
ftr, kenpom had Texas at #14 preseason in 2021 (we finished 15th (lowest we fell was #21) with the aforementioned 6-man rotation), while kenpom had Texas at #16 going into this season, where we currently sit at #26 with a low-point ranking of #48.
so yeah, in conclusion, the two situations have nothing in common, and to argue otherwise is wildly disingenuous, particularly from the pro-RT crowd.