Texas basketball 2020-21: Not even Shaka can fuck this up...right?

[Catdaddyhorn 3,448]

8 hours ago, dcar00 said:

none of those guys were sharpshooters.  were they good shooters in high school? maybe.  too many years to say its bad luck.  sometimes you gotta make your own luck.

I posted a barking carnival article a few years ago detailing the progression of elite college shooters through their careers.  The basic conclusion is that outside of a few elite shooters who come into college shooting at an extremely high rate as freshmen, the overwhelming proportion of makes made by what one would call an elite shooter are made by juniors and seniors. Like 75% of all makes made by upper tier shooters are made by upperclassmen. The belief that one RECRUITS elite shooters rather than DEVELOPS players with potential to become elite shooters needs to be refined. Unless the kid is Steph Curry from the jump (in which case he won't be around long enough to see his junior & senior years) chances are that he won't become what one would term as an elite shooter until his junior or senior year.  

[dcar00 14,600]

10 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

I posted a barking carnival article a few years ago detailing the progression of elite college shooters through their careers.  The basic conclusion is that outside of a few elite shooters who come into college shooting at an extremely high rate as freshmen, the overwhelming proportion of makes made by what one would call an elite shooter are made by juniors and seniors. Like 75% of all makes made by upper tier shooters are made by upperclassmen. The belief that one RECRUITS elite shooters rather than DEVELOPS players with potential to become elite shooters needs to be refined. Unless the kid is Steph Curry from the jump (in which case he won't be around long enough to see his junior & senior years) chances are that he won't become what one would term as an elite shooter until his junior or senior year.  

sure that is partially what I am saying.   you have to make your own luck. yes, they have to get used to not being either wide open or being covered by a guy as tall or taller and as athletic than they are. I still think you can target recruiting very good shooters(maybe one every other year). 

More to the point, it shouldn't have taken 6 years to get to what may be a very good shooting team.  Hopefully they continue.  I don't know where to get the advanced stats but I wonder how our shooting looks relative to Shaka's other years and how we are doing this year.

from just the eyeball test, IMO, Coleman has obviously gotten better. Kai seems to be solid.  the others seem as streaky as ever.  Brown I expect to be streaky.

Edited January 7, 2021 by dcar00

[Catdaddyhorn 3,448]

https://www.barkingcarnival.com/2017/12/20/16803880/so-you-want-shooters-a-look-at-texas-path-to-getting-perimeter-help

From the research of

@Bitterwhiteguy

Data and Stuff

The data set is from the three-point percentage leaders for each year; they had to average at least 2.5 makes per game and play in 75% of the team’s games in that particular year. In other words, a bench guy who went 4-6 over a couple of games couldn’t get in because he was hot and never played again. A couple of things are pretty noticeable in the data. First off, the NBA analytics revolution is starting to really insert itself into the D-I game. In the first six years the number of players who qualify for this list hovers somewhere around 70, but the last two years it’s been closer to 100 with the 2015-2016 season nearly hitting 120 players. That’s a massive rise in the number of players who are able to qualify for this list with their quantity of makes, and this season the number is 161. That will inevitably fall as players cool off, get injured, or otherwise fail to hit the two minimums, but we’re still in line for a significantly higher number of players than even four or five years ago.

Second, and the most statistically stable numbers on this spreadsheet to me — the guy who is not a statistician — is how this list breaks down by class. There are 618 entries in this spreadsheet (counting duplicates as some players show up multiple years) and just over half of them are seniors. Every season of available data has seniors making up the largest individual category in this list, never less than 45% of the qualifying players in a single year. Second-most on the list? Juniors in aggregate (just under 28%), as well as every individual year except one. Third-most on this list is sophomores (about 17%) and bringing up the rear are freshmen with not quite 5%. It doesn’t take a genius to notice the pattern, and it’s not a particularly shocking find when you think about it. Buddy Hield is a favored example people want to bring up about guys who come back and get better at shooting, and he plays into this pattern quite nicely. He’s not on here as a freshman, and his next three seasons he’s ranked 46th (90 makes on 223 attempts), 63rd (93/259), and 6th (147/322, good lord), respectively. As is true with most college sports, the best thing about a freshman is that they become a sophomore, a sophomore becomes a junior, and a junior becomes a senior. It seems fair to say that shooters in general aren’t recruited as much as cultivated. There are exceptions to this idea — hello, Trae Young — but those exceptions are generally not likely to stay in college for three to four years — goodbye, Trae Young — either.

 

Speaking of development as it stands now Courtney Ramey has a better career 3pt% than Buddy Hield. 

 

 

[dcar00 14,600]

1 minute ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

https://www.barkingcarnival.com/2017/12/20/16803880/so-you-want-shooters-a-look-at-texas-path-to-getting-perimeter-help

From the research of

@Bitterwhiteguy

Data and Stuff

The data set is from the three-point percentage leaders for each year; they had to average at least 2.5 makes per game and play in 75% of the team’s games in that particular year. In other words, a bench guy who went 4-6 over a couple of games couldn’t get in because he was hot and never played again. A couple of things are pretty noticeable in the data. First off, the NBA analytics revolution is starting to really insert itself into the D-I game. In the first six years the number of players who qualify for this list hovers somewhere around 70, but the last two years it’s been closer to 100 with the 2015-2016 season nearly hitting 120 players. That’s a massive rise in the number of players who are able to qualify for this list with their quantity of makes, and this season the number is 161. That will inevitably fall as players cool off, get injured, or otherwise fail to hit the two minimums, but we’re still in line for a significantly higher number of players than even four or five years ago.

Second, and the most statistically stable numbers on this spreadsheet to me — the guy who is not a statistician — is how this list breaks down by class. There are 618 entries in this spreadsheet (counting duplicates as some players show up multiple years) and just over half of them are seniors. Every season of available data has seniors making up the largest individual category in this list, never less than 45% of the qualifying players in a single year. Second-most on the list? Juniors in aggregate (just under 28%), as well as every individual year except one. Third-most on this list is sophomores (about 17%) and bringing up the rear are freshmen with not quite 5%. It doesn’t take a genius to notice the pattern, and it’s not a particularly shocking find when you think about it. Buddy Hield is a favored example people want to bring up about guys who come back and get better at shooting, and he plays into this pattern quite nicely. He’s not on here as a freshman, and his next three seasons he’s ranked 46th (90 makes on 223 attempts), 63rd (93/259), and 6th (147/322, good lord), respectively. As is true with most college sports, the best thing about a freshman is that they become a sophomore, a sophomore becomes a junior, and a junior becomes a senior. It seems fair to say that shooters in general aren’t recruited as much as cultivated. There are exceptions to this idea — hello, Trae Young — but those exceptions are generally not likely to stay in college for three to four years — goodbye, Trae Young — either.

 

Speaking of development as it stands now Courtney Ramey has a better career 3pt% than Buddy Hield. 

 

 

good stuff. ha. that is interesting.  Hield was a volume guy for sure.  Ramey seems like is 6-8 and then 1-8

[Catdaddyhorn 3,448]

13 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

good stuff. ha. that is interesting.  Hield was a volume guy for sure.  Ramey seems like is 6-8 and then 1-8

Yeah that's been our problem.  Guys like Ramey and Febres are streaky as hell. They may ultimately end up with a 37 to 40 3pt% at the end of the season but there were a bunch of 1-6s to go with the couple of 5-6s to get them there. 

[Machinator 32,099]

Ramey has been awesome this year from beyond the arc. 33% or better in 8/10 games.

[Hornlover 8,849]

18 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

https://www.barkingcarnival.com/2017/12/20/16803880/so-you-want-shooters-a-look-at-texas-path-to-getting-perimeter-help

From the research of

@Bitterwhiteguy

Data and Stuff

The data set is from the three-point percentage leaders for each year; they had to average at least 2.5 makes per game and play in 75% of the team’s games in that particular year. In other words, a bench guy who went 4-6 over a couple of games couldn’t get in because he was hot and never played again. A couple of things are pretty noticeable in the data. First off, the NBA analytics revolution is starting to really insert itself into the D-I game. In the first six years the number of players who qualify for this list hovers somewhere around 70, but the last two years it’s been closer to 100 with the 2015-2016 season nearly hitting 120 players. That’s a massive rise in the number of players who are able to qualify for this list with their quantity of makes, and this season the number is 161. That will inevitably fall as players cool off, get injured, or otherwise fail to hit the two minimums, but we’re still in line for a significantly higher number of players than even four or five years ago.

Second, and the most statistically stable numbers on this spreadsheet to me — the guy who is not a statistician — is how this list breaks down by class. There are 618 entries in this spreadsheet (counting duplicates as some players show up multiple years) and just over half of them are seniors. Every season of available data has seniors making up the largest individual category in this list, never less than 45% of the qualifying players in a single year. Second-most on the list? Juniors in aggregate (just under 28%), as well as every individual year except one. Third-most on this list is sophomores (about 17%) and bringing up the rear are freshmen with not quite 5%. It doesn’t take a genius to notice the pattern, and it’s not a particularly shocking find when you think about it. Buddy Hield is a favored example people want to bring up about guys who come back and get better at shooting, and he plays into this pattern quite nicely. He’s not on here as a freshman, and his next three seasons he’s ranked 46th (90 makes on 223 attempts), 63rd (93/259), and 6th (147/322, good lord), respectively. As is true with most college sports, the best thing about a freshman is that they become a sophomore, a sophomore becomes a junior, and a junior becomes a senior. It seems fair to say that shooters in general aren’t recruited as much as cultivated. There are exceptions to this idea — hello, Trae Young — but those exceptions are generally not likely to stay in college for three to four years — goodbye, Trae Young — either.

 

Speaking of development as it stands now Courtney Ramey has a better career 3pt% than Buddy Hield. 

 

 

That's a great breakdown. Comparing 3 pt shooting from Hield and Ramey is an interesting exercise.

Hield definitely had a higher volume of 3pt shots, and his senior season was otherworldly. Ramey's Junior season so far (small sample size, and regression to the mean caveats notiwthstanding) looks similar to Hield's soph/junior seasons, but that volume difference is big.

I've also omitted the 2 pt stats in these images, but Junior Ramey makes 2 pt shots at a much lower rate than So/Jr. Hield, and also generates FTs at a lower rate too.

 

 

[Catdaddyhorn 3,448]

30 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

sure that is partially what I am saying.   you have to make your own luck. yes, they have to get used to not being either wide open or being covered by a guy as tall or taller and as athletic than they are. I still think you can target recruiting very good shooters(maybe one every other year). 

More to the point, it shouldn't have taken 6 years to get to what may be a very good shooting team.  Hopefully they continue.  I don't know where to get the advanced stats but I wonder how our shooting looks relative to Shaka's other years and how we are doing this year.

from just the eyeball test, IMO, Coleman has obviously gotten better. Kai seems to be solid.  the others seem as streaky as ever.  Brown I expect to be streaky.

According to kenpom here are our team 3pt% numbers over Shaka's tenure. Basketball reference may differ a bit. 

20-21 34% #151

19-20 33.4% #169

18-19 34.8% #150

17-18 32.0% #316

16-17 29.2% #345

15-16 34.1% #202

Beginning in the 19-20 the NCAA moved back the 3pt line to the international line so these numbers aren't necessarily apples to apples. 

 

 

 

[dcar00 14,600]

Hield was/is better at creating his own shot(2 or 3pt).  If Ramey can stay consistent it is huge for the offense.

[Catdaddyhorn 3,448]

4 minutes ago, Hornlover said:

That's a great breakdown. Comparing 3 pt shooting from Hield and Ramey is an interesting exercise.

Hield definitely had a higher volume of 3pt shots, and his senior season was otherworldly. Ramey's Junior season so far (small sample size, and regression to the mean caveats notiwthstanding) looks similar to Hield's soph/junior seasons, but that volume difference is big.

I've also omitted the 2 pt stats in these images, but Junior Ramey makes 2 pt shots at a much lower rate than So/Jr. Hield, and also generates FTs at a lower rate too.

 

 

Yeah Ramey tries to play like he's much more athletic than he really is. He's gotten better with his ability to change pace while driving, but he's nowhere near as savvy as someone like J'Covan who had a similar level of athleticism. Eric Davis was another guy who, like Ramey, had average athleticism and was abysmal when trying to finish at the rim during his freshman and sophomore years, but improved a lot during his final season before he was unceremoniously released from scholarship.

[dcar00 14,600]

8 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

According to kenpom here are our team 3pt% numbers over Shaka's tenure. Basketball reference may differ a bit. 

20-21 34% #151

19-20 33.4% #169

18-19 34.8% #150

17-18 32.0% #316

16-17 29.2% #345

15-16 34.1% #202

Beginning in the 19-20 the NCAA moved back the 3pt line to the international line so these numbers aren't necessarily apples to apples. 

 

 

 

good stuff.  you can see the 34% correlate to the moving of hte 3pt line.  34 put you at 202 before, now you are at 150.  interestingly our best shooting year we didn't make the tourney.  maybe it moved up because we shot well in the NIT, don't know.

seems like 34% is a good number to get to.  equates to hitting 50% from 2.

teams have to respect your 3pt shooting or the offense dies a slow death when they pack it in.

Edited January 7, 2021 by dcar00

[Catdaddyhorn 3,448]

2 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

good stuff.  you can see the 34% correlate to the moving of hte 3pt line.  34 put you at 202 before, now you are at 150.  interestingly our best shooting year we didn't make the tourney.  maybe it moved up because we shot well in the NIT, don't know.

seems like 34% is a good number to get to.  equates to hitting 50% from 2.

I'm firmly of the belief that Shaka's #1 issue here has been rebounding and all the intangible ingredients that are inherent to teams that rebound at a good to an elite level. Rebounding on both ends can mask a number of other issues. A good offensive rebounding team can all of a sudden increases their offensive efficiency when they tick up a few notches on their offensive rebounding numbers. And the tenacity and grit that it takes to be a great rebounding team unveils itself in other areas of the game.  

[dcar00 14,600]

Ramey is right where he needs to be on attempts.  If he tried to up his volume I think he'd get worse.  he needs to take good shots in rhythm and not press the 3 ball.

[ztejas 43,741]

16 minutes ago, Machinator said:

Ramey has been awesome this year from beyond the arc. 33% or better in 8/10 games.

Yeah - you called him a sharpshooter a couple pages back and I was going to take issue with it, but I looked it up and really he's only had two poor shooting nights from behind the arc - 0/3 against Okie Lite and 2/7 against Davidson. Even the 0/3 game is forgivable since that's only 3 possessions he used on a 3P miss. The Davidson game was the only one where he came out as a "chucker".

I think part of the reason it's tricky to recognize him as a 3p threat is because a lot of his shots are difficult - either taken off the dribble or from NBA range - but he's been hitting enough of them to not have it be a cause for concern.

More of a cause for concern, ironically, is his efficiency inside the arc. Rather than list every game I'll just say that him being poor from 2 has been the norm rather than the exception. Ramey cleaning up his looks a bit both inside and out is something that could take this team from a 2nd weekend one to a 3rd weekend one.

[Hornlover 8,849]

12 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

According to kenpom here are our team 3pt% numbers over Shaka's tenure. Basketball reference may differ a bit. 

20-21 34% #151

19-20 33.4% #169

18-19 34.8% #150

17-18 32.0% #316

16-17 29.2% #345

15-16 34.1% #202

Beginning in the 19-20 the NCAA moved back the 3pt line to the international line so these numbers aren't necessarily apples to apples. 

 

 

 

The overall team number is probably deflated by too many ill-advised 3 pointers jacked up early in the shot clock by guys like Osetkowski, Lammert, Davis, Roach, Febres, Yancy , etc.

[dcar00 14,600]

Just now, Hornlover said:

The overall team number is probably deflated by too many ill-advised 3 pointers jacked up early in the shot clock by guys like Osetkowski, Lammert, Davis, Roach, Febres, Yancy , etc.

yes BMW we were not...but damn it if we didn't try.

[jeevsie 3,740]

9 hours ago, orangecat92 said:

Yeah, that is the tough decision.  Watch the best Texas team since T. J. or find something else to do.  In the great Rick Barnes tradition, this would be the time of year for the team to start falling apart and that super tough defense to start magically giving up big numbers.  About now, all of a sudden games start to become 88 to 86 over a team with far lesser talent.  BUT, this 2021 is different, and I am gonna make a big call. THIS TEXAS team will not rip our hearts out, will continue to outwork all opponents, and even though possibly losing a game or two or three, will go strong into the NCAA tourney, and proceed to win at least 2 games.  It IS the CDC firing Herm mojo.  It IS the kickstart of the rebirth of TEXAS athletics, and the basketball team IS the first team to receive the blessings of the mojo.  HOOK EM!!

BDE

[Bitterwhiteguy 153]

26 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

I'm firmly of the belief that Shaka's #1 issue here has been rebounding and all the intangible ingredients that are inherent to teams that rebound at a good to an elite level. Rebounding on both ends can mask a number of other issues. A good offensive rebounding team can all of a sudden increases their offensive efficiency when they tick up a few notches on their offensive rebounding numbers. And the tenacity and grit that it takes to be a great rebounding team unveils itself in other areas of the game.  

I understand that offensive rebounding is for the most part significantly deemphasized in college basketball the last several years as most coaches would rather get back and setup their defense, and so I don't have a theoretical issue with Texas being average in this regard. (My preference is that they prize ORs more on average as it's now been deemphasized to the point it's a pretty easy marginal gain, but on its own that's a preference rather than an 'issue'.) What has been biting them in the ass is that they weren't good enough at defensive rebounds as well; if you deemphasize ORs that means you're tacitly giving up second-chance points with the idea that you'll make it up with defensive stops, but if you're also not great at DRs then you're kneecapping your own designs. So it's great that they're better at grabbing ORs than normal, but it's even more important that they're snagging a higher percentage of DRs (relative to D-I) than most years.

EDIT to add: the rebounding thing has been especially frustrating to me because rebounding is one of the primary things Shaka & his staff look at when evaluating talent, so they know these guys are good at it but they haven't been able to reliably do it at the D-I level.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Bitterwhiteguy

[Nolacycling 893]

Very much looking forward to Saturday's game vs. WVU. Call it what you want but our upbeat style of play vs Huggins will be fun to watch.

[Catdaddyhorn 3,448]

2 minutes ago, Bitterwhiteguy said:

I understand that offensive rebounding is for the most part significantly deemphasized in college basketball the last several years as most coaches would rather get back and setup their defense, and so I don't have a theoretical issue with Texas being average in this regard. (My preference is that they prize ORs more on average as it's now been deemphasized to the point it's a pretty easy marginal gain, but on its own that's a preference rather than an 'issue'.) What has been biting them in the ass is that they weren't good enough at defensive rebounds as well; if you deemphasize ORs that means you're tacitly giving up second-chance points with the idea that you'll make it up with defensive stops, but if you're also not great at DRs then you're kneecapping your own designs. So it's great that they're better at grabbing ORs than normal, but it's even more important that they're snagging a higher percentage of DRs (relative to D-I) than most years.

I didn't highlight it in the post you quoted, but if I weren't a completely lazy bum I'd dig into the granular effects of how our increased defensive rebounding % numbers affect our overall defensive efficiency numbers. In the same way that offensive rebounding numbers can ultimately have the effect of ticking offensive efficiency rates up a bit. The more frequently a team limits an opponent to one shot per possession the obvious resulting effect is increased defensive efficiency. There's no doubt in my mind that the defensive personnel on the 17-18 team with just Kerwin Roach and Mohammaed Bamba were better on an individual basis than this year's team, yet we've consistently been 9 to 10 spots higher in defensive efficiency rankings this season than that 17-18 team with Bamba and Roach. I believe the 2nd half against KU was one of the all-time halves in Shaka's tenure in terms of defensive efficiency and that was all mostly based on their offense being limited to one shot per possession for damn near the entire half. 

[Hornlover 8,849]

8 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

I'm firmly of the belief that Shaka's #1 issue here has been rebounding and all the intangible ingredients that are inherent to teams that rebound at a good to an elite level. Rebounding on both ends can mask a number of other issues. A good offensive rebounding team can all of a sudden increases their offensive efficiency when they tick up a few notches on their offensive rebounding numbers. And the tenacity and grit that it takes to be a great rebounding team unveils itself in other areas of the game.  

Yes, rebounding makes a huge difference. That correlates so highly with buckets close to the basket, which if Shaka has paid any attention to the analytics at all he'd understand those are the most important shots.

Mid-range 2 pt. jump shots are the least valuable shots in basketball. Here are shot charts from our games against ISU, KU, and OK St. 

Against OSU, look how many terrible 2 pt shots we took. (OSU only took one 2pt. shot outside the paint.)

We did so much better against KU. I have no idea what KU was doing shooting so many bad 2's, but likely our frustrating defense and an inability to make 3's put them off their game.

Against ISU it was a mixed bag. Even though Coleman has leaned on that pull up jumper from the elbow a few times to great effect, we need to wean ourselves off of the bad 2 pt jump shots.

[Catdaddyhorn 3,448]

21 minutes ago, Hornlover said:

Yes, rebounding makes a huge difference. That correlates so highly with buckets close to the basket, which if Shaka has paid any attention to the analytics at all he'd understand those are the most important shots.

Mid-range 2 pt. jump shots are the least valuable shots in basketball. Here are shot charts from our games against ISU, KU, and OK St. 

Against OSU, look how many terrible 2 pt shots we took. (OSU only took one 2pt. shot outside the paint.)

We did so much better against KU. I have no idea what KU was doing shooting so many bad 2's, but likely our frustrating defense and an inability to make 3's put them off their game.

Against ISU it was a mixed bag. Even though Coleman has leaned on that pull up jumper from the elbow a few times to great effect, we need to wean ourselves off of the bad 2 pt jump shots.

IMO Shaka has been overly reliant on analytics, especially considering the fact that when he arrived here 6 years ago most of the analysis used to develop strategies were based on professional basketball datasets. You can see his reliance on basketball analytics based strategies in a number of areas (ie the number of 3PA relative to our total shots and our lack of effectiveness, our total abdication of offensive rebounding. He goes so far as to not even put rebounders on the lane when we're attempting free throws, the slow pace of play which is often philosophically employed to limit turnovers). 

[Happy Gilmore 1,001]

Alright so someone refresh my memory. Is this season seen as a free year as it was with football? Theoretically Coleman for example could come back next year? Or was the free year given last year since the season wasn't completed. 

[Js1 85,744]

1 hour ago, Happy Gilmore said:

Alright so someone refresh my memory. Is this season seen as a free year as it was with football? Theoretically Coleman for example could come back next year? Or was the free year given last year since the season wasn't completed. 

They passed the free year for 2019-2020 winter sports athletes to get an extra year for 2021-2022. 

So on the roster, anyone who is a senior is a senior and next year would be a Super Senior. 

[Catdaddyhorn 3,448]

Best 68 teams according to Jay Bilas:

 

1. Gonzaga
2. Baylor
3. Villanova
4. Michigan
5. Illinois
6. Texas Shaka Smart is one of the best coaches in the country and always has been. This is his best team at Texas, and the recent win at Kansas was proof of that. Texas handed the Jayhawks as bad of a loss as they have had in that building in 30 years, and it was a solid tail-kicking. Matt Coleman III and Courtney Ramey are the team's rock and heart and soul, respectively, and they provide experience and leadership. What sets the Longhorns apart is the length, athleticism and togetherness of a title contender. This team can defend, both in the paint and at the arc, and is the best defensive team in the league. If Texas can cut down on fouls without losing its intensity on defense, this team will get even better.
7. Iowa
8. KU
9. Wisconsin
10. Rutgers 

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/insider/story/_/id/30658275/a-complicated-season-best-68-teams-notable-exception-all-according-jay-bilas

 

[Braff Zacklin 13,672]

2 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

Shaka Smart is one of the best coaches in the country and always has been.

[Catdaddyhorn 3,448]

After 4 years we finally hear Jericho speak.

 

 

Among other things Shaka talks about coaching Greg hard. 

 

 

[HookEm 2,468]

For some reason, when Jericho talked I expected him to sound like Michael Jackson.

[ztejas 43,741]

1 hour ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

Best 68 teams according to Jay Bilas:

 

1. Gonzaga
2. Baylor
3. Villanova
4. Michigan
5. Illinois
6. Texas Shaka Smart is one of the best coaches in the country and always has been. This is his best team at Texas, and the recent win at Kansas was proof of that. Texas handed the Jayhawks as bad of a loss as they have had in that building in 30 years, and it was a solid tail-kicking. Matt Coleman III and Courtney Ramey are the team's rock and heart and soul, respectively, and they provide experience and leadership. What sets the Longhorns apart is the length, athleticism and togetherness of a title contender. This team can defend, both in the paint and at the arc, and is the best defensive team in the league. If Texas can cut down on fouls without losing its intensity on defense, this team will get even better.
7. Iowa
8. KU
9. Wisconsin
10. Rutgers 

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/insider/story/_/id/30658275/a-complicated-season-best-68-teams-notable-exception-all-according-jay-bilas

 

So Shaka is one of the best coaches in the country but Bilas ranks us 2 spots below basically a consensus 4th ranking by the AP? 

[dcar00 14,600]

5 hours ago, Nolacycling said:

Very much looking forward to Saturday's game vs. WVU. Call it what you want but our upbeat style of play vs Huggins will be fun to watch.

hopefully the refs don't decide to let "Press Virgina!!" get away with murder.  I always hate when they say WVU is awesome on defense.  no they just foul the shit out of people and dare refs to call it all game.  Does Marketing Work?  Just Did!

[shadow_operative 15,932]

25 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

hopefully the refs don't decide to let "Press Virgina!!" get away with murder.  I always hate when they say WVU is awesome on defense.  no they just foul the shit out of people and dare refs to call it all game.  Does Marketing Work?  Just Did!

then they get to the tourney, get whistled all day, and flame out before the second weekend. 

[perfectchaos007 6,713]

So both the mens and womens team play @ WVU saturday. I guess thats one good way to cut down down on travel expenses this year.

[Ignatius 4,080]

8 hours ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

Yeah Ramey tries to play like he's much more athletic than he really is. He's gotten better with his ability to change pace while driving, but he's nowhere near as savvy as someone like J'Covan who had a similar level of athleticism.

Great point; JCB was chunky and slow, but that dude knew how to hoop even though he was a meathead.

[ztejas 43,741]

15 hours ago, Ignatius said:

Great point; JCB was chunky and slow, but that dude knew how to hoop even though he was a meathead.

J'Covan was not slow. He wasn't an NBA level athlete but he had plenty of shake - esp with the ball in his hands - at the college level. 

[Hornlover 8,849]

4 hours ago, ztejas said:

J'Covan was not slow. He wasn't an NBA level athlete but he had plenty of shake - esp with the ball in his hands - at the college level. 

Like a poor man's Luka Doncic. He shot the ball well from outside, wiggled his way to the basket for layups, found open guys for assists, threw no-look passes that were completely unnecessary, tried behind the back or through the legs passes that clanked off of Alexis Wangmene's hands over and over again, had nights where he didn't care at all about playing defense. 

Here's some highlights of him in Israel playing. He seems to still be able to ball, even if it's not at an NBA level. 

 

[sstarrx2 0]

21 hours ago, dcar00 said:

hopefully the refs don't decide to let "Press Virgina!!" get away with murder.  I always hate when they say WVU is awesome on defense.  no they just foul the shit out of people and dare refs to call it all game.  Does Marketing Work?  Just Did!

They have not been Press Virginia since two seasons ago...did you watch the games against Texas last year?

[Bitterwhiteguy 153]

12 minutes ago, Hornlover said:

Like a poor man's Luka Doncic. He shot the ball well from outside, wiggled his way to the basket for layups, found open guys for assists, threw no-look passes that were completely unnecessary, tried behind the back or through the legs passes that clanked off of Alexis Wangmene's hands over and over again, had nights where he didn't care at all about playing defense. 

Here's some highlights of him in Israel playing. He seems to still be able to ball, even if it's not at an NBA level. 

 

Maybe my favorite J'Covan moment of the past 5 years was when he posted a somber Instagram photo from the Wailing Wall using his "murderseason_aaf" username. I laughed about that for like a week.

[Machinator 32,099]

This is good. It's not all Shaka-slurping, either.

https://theathletic.com/2305940/2021/01/08/texas-longhorns-basketball-shaka-smart-2021-greg-brown-matt-coleman/

Shaka Smart’s Texas Longhorns got good when they got mean

Spoiler

On the morning of Feb. 25, 2020, Shaka Smart was still a man without hair or the inviolable assurance that he’d be doing his job in another month or so. He was the men’s basketball coach at Texas, yes, riding over to the Longhorn Network studios to tape his weekly show, bantering with host Lowell Galindo about bringing “the juice” for the episode, and in fact feeling pretty good about three straight double-digit wins against Big 12 teams. All that did, though, was dump some water on a simmering calamity. There was still a little smoke thanks to the struggles preceding it. Texas back? Not quite. Not entirely.

As for Shaka back? Well, as we walked into his office following his television duties, that was more or less the topic of conversation. I’d spent the season visiting Texas for The Athletic, going behind the scenes in what we figured would be a declarative year for a coach once considered a can’t-miss hire. What I had witnessed ran the gamut from inspiring to dispiriting and back. But conclusions? Those weren’t plain or easy. I had no expectations Smart would tell me he was sure he’d return for a sixth season when we sat down, and he didn’t. Mostly it was time to talk about the preponderance of evidence from his tenure and how close, or not, he was to figuring this out.

Normally, a team pulling out of a tailspin through sheer desperation isn’t wildly commendable. It seemed like something here, though. It seemed like a hint. It seemed like the Longhorns had started to learn to be mean. And as thoughtful and amenable as Smart is, it seemed like he’d long been best at coaching teams who knew how to be mean, however they arrived at that mentality. Not to put too fine a point on it, I asked Smart if he wished his players more consistently had some nasty in them, except instead of “nasty” I used an expletive that rhymes with “other trucker.” His one-word answer: Yes.

“I can tell you what I’m not good at coaching is apathy,” he said, after I followed up by asking if he was better at coaching players with some, uh, nasty in them. “The best guys I’ve coached have been good at two things. We can connect over a common desire for them to go play well. And guys that have just a passion level. So whether that comes from being underrated or whatever it may be, it doesn’t really matter where it comes from.”

A little less than a year later, Shaka Smart has hair. He has every assurance he’ll be doing his job for a while, because Texas is now the fourth-ranked team in the country. While it’s overstating it to say everything that happened in 2019-20 led to what’s happening in 2020-21, lessons were learned. We’re seeing what it can look like when Texas plays a little angry. We’re seeing what it can look like when Smart has the kind of group he knows how to coach.

There are plenty of other reasons Texas brings its 9-1 record and its lofty poll position into West Virginia on Saturday, and they are absolutely more circumstantial and tangible than an attitude.

In general, once the pandemic plunged college basketball into chaos, the smart bet was on experienced teams weathering the uncertainty best. They knew their system. They didn’t need a fully functional preseason as acutely. Frankly, they might be more mature about handling the do’s and don’ts of day-to-day existence in a COVID-19-addled world. Texas had a massive head start there, at least as it pertained to the basketball stuff; one freshman is on the roster and, according to KenPom.com, it ranked fifth in the country in minutes continuity entering 2020-21. Every player who started a game in 2019-20 was on the roster to begin this season. For better or for worse, this group didn’t have to spend much time learning new tricks.

But some new tricks were required for this to happen.

For example: Texas can play offense. And pretty well! The adjusted efficiency number of 112.8 would be the third-best of the Smart tenure, but the leaps from last year are the eye-grabbers. That team number is a full eight points better than the 2019-20 figure, owing to substantially more efficient production from regulars such as Matt Coleman (an offensive rating jump of 17.6 from last season), Courtney Ramey (plus-12.2), Kai Jones (plus-35.2) and Brock Cunningham (plus-22.7). Solid defense isn’t anything new year-to-year, but it’s evolved, with the adjusted efficiency rate of 87.9 on pace to be the best of Smart’s time in Austin, and certainly some of that goes to cohesiveness and assertiveness. A year ago, defense was the only way to survive. This year it’s a way for Texas to impose itself more proactively with its length and athleticism.

Five-star wing Greg Brown has a sizable usage rate (32.8 percent) but simultaneously doesn’t have to be the center of everything for Texas to succeed — he has taken a reasonable 94 shots in 10 games — because veterans abound. That’s probably the most constructive dynamic when adding this type of player to the mix, and it hadn’t worked out that way for Smart with past one-and-done implementations. Add in some rotation paring — Will Baker and Gerald Liddell transferring midstream, Kamaka Hepa willingly accepting a redshirt and a role as an ultimate bench hype man — and No. 4 Texas becoming No. 4 Texas looks like an explainable, basketball-specific phenomenon.

I think that look is deceiving. Or incomplete, at least. Because I start to think of two days in Kansas, a little less than a year apart.

On the night before a game at Allen Fieldhouse last February, the Texas traveling party gathered in a ballroom for a standard post-meal film scout. As usual, then-assistant Luke Yaklich called on individual players to break down the offensive tendencies of Kansas players. Not as usual, each Longhorn began his report with a crude non-sequitur: “F*** (insert Jayhawks player’s last name).” In the room, it struck me as funny, but also contrived and weird. It felt like the team was playing pretend. Like they had to persuade themselves they were hard-asses. Being mean isn’t a gimmick. The next evening, Texas battled, but it ultimately withered and lost by 11.

And then there was Jan. 2, 2021. A group including most of the same people traveled to Allen Fieldhouse again and perpetrated an absolute humiliation of the home team. Texas led by eight at halftime. Then it put its foot on Kansas’ collective throat and pushed down, hard, outscoring the Jayhawks by 17 after the break. From afar, filtered through television cameras, the looks on the Longhorns’ faces seemed joyously merciless. I don’t know how that night-before film session went this time, but I do know the players didn’t have to pretend this time. If they had the chance to embarrass Kansas, they’d seize it. They were better, and better wasn’t enough. Only domination would do.

It’s hard to believe this was mostly the same lot that got savaged by its own strength and conditioning coach for being soft and inconsistent just a year previous. Yet that’s exactly what had happened.

Midway through last season, right around the start of Big 12 play. Smart asked Andrea Hudy to address the group and talk about what it takes to win. She had been at Kansas for 15 years, after all, and seen it enacted annually. What came next was striking. Hudy didn’t yell. She didn’t gesticulate. She just issued cold-blooded, deadpan, unsparing takes about the lack of toughness and reliability in the room. Clearly, the idea was to light a fire under the players’ rears. Apparently, the message eventually took hold. Because in January 2021 this team of basically the same players was at last everything Hudy said it had to be in January 2020. Before that, they’d been acting like something they weren’t.

Which brings us back to Smart, and the specific kind of approach he knows how to manipulate (in a good way) in order to forge success. Ask coaches about playing his VCU teams, and they’ll talk about teams that were all serrated edges. It wasn’t because of Havoc; Havoc was because of that. It was a different kind of desperation, born of being under-recruited or underappreciated or whatever else fed into it. That wasn’t a new or uncommon mentality for mid-majors anywhere, but Smart wielded it brilliantly, all the way to a Final Four and on to everyone’s Next Great Coach lists.

When the Texas coach talks about his inability to relate and connect to “apathy,” there are all sorts of variations to what he means. Entitlement and expectation seem like the most relevant thematic spinoffs. Smart is saying, in essence, he can’t do his very best work with teams and/or players who think there’s a way around instead of understanding the only way is through. This is also not anything novel or unique to team-building, but maybe other coaches are defter with managing it, or maybe the talent overcomes it, or whatever. In any case it’s kryptonite for Smart. He can’t figure that out. The negative effects compound more than they might elsewhere.

Last season the Longhorns came alive when everyone left them for dead, when the injuries and losses mounted and left the group no choice but to be snarly and furious and bloody-lipped. This season it’s arguable that some players simply have improved — Ramey, for one, especially; Kai Jones for another — but I don’t believe that suffices to end the discussion. I believe the struggle-recovery cycle of 2019-20 and the fairly real threat to their coach’s livelihood stripped the returning players of any idea that things would just happen for them, that being a former top-50 or top-100 recruit and going to a Big 12 school would gift them success. That they could act tough and get away with it.

They learned it’s not enough to be desperate or good. They had to be both. As a result, they became precisely the type of group from which Smart can extract the most.

Maybe I’m the carpetbagging national writer drawing conclusions off a few visits over a few months. Maybe there’s a better, more granular appraisal if you’re around every day. And who knows if a regression to the mean or a sideways detour is imminent. But to date, this Texas is not the same Texas I tracked in Austin and Lawrence and Kansas City and elsewhere, because this Texas doesn’t have to try to be anything. This Texas doesn’t have to play make believe. It’s a hardened and implacable group, properly built, immune so far to assuming it has anything coming to it, all while deploying some fairly high-end talent.

This Texas? This Texas is what its coach wanted all along.

 

[Braff Zacklin 13,672]

28 minutes ago, Hornlover said:

Like a poor man's Luka Doncic. He shot the ball well from outside, wiggled his way to the basket for layups, found open guys for assists, threw no-look passes that were completely unnecessary, tried behind the back or through the legs passes that clanked off of Alexis Wangmene's hands over and over again, had nights where he didn't care at all about playing defense. 

Here's some highlights of him in Israel playing. He seems to still be able to ball, even if it's not at an NBA level. 

 

This was a superb synopsis and update. Thanks for sharing.

What happens when you meld mainframe basketball mind and vision with a potato body? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: J'Covan Brown.

[Teryor 4,538]

https://theathletic.com/2300300/?source=twitterhq

[Braff Zacklin 13,672]

23 hours ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

 

Best part of this interview is the very end (9:12):

Reporter: Andrew, you guys owed Iowa State a little something. Do y'all owe West Virginia something, as well?

AJ: We owe everybody something, you know. We got a lot to prove.

[Machinator 32,099]

 

[jeevsie 3,740]

We thinking Febres will play?  That's a heavy rotation for Shaka to manage.

[Hornlover 8,849]

Hepa may have traveled, but I doubt he plays. Hamm is likely going to get 6-8 minutes to spell Brown, Kai, Sims (or if there's foul trouble).

[Hornlover 8,849]

And no, I don't think Febres will play. I doubt he's in game shape yet. 

[SDG 3,319]

52 minutes ago, Hornlover said:

Hepa may have traveled, but I doubt he plays. Hamm is likely going to get 6-8 minutes to spell Brown, Kai, Sims (or if there's foul trouble).

Why wouldn't he play if he traveled?  

[shadow_operative 15,932]

keeping a tight rotation. 

[ztejas 43,741]

6 hours ago, Braff Zacklin said:

Best part of this interview is the very end (9:12):

Reporter: Andrew, you guys owed Iowa State a little something. Do y'all owe West Virginia something, as well?

AJ: We owe everybody something, you know. We got a lot to prove.

"We owe everybody something. Coach Smart said he'd cut all of us in on his next extension if we keep winning. I mean, uh, yeah we're real hungry this year."

[Hornlover 8,849]

8 hours ago, SDG said:

Why wouldn't he play if he traveled?  

He traveled because he's the hype man on the bench. The eligibility rules are beyond my comprehension right now, but I believe he's going to redshirt this season. He's played a total of 3 minutes so far.

The only reason he'd play is if there's really no other option to put five guys on the court.

[SDG 3,319]

8 hours ago, Hornlover said:

He traveled because he's the hype man on the bench. The eligibility rules are beyond my comprehension right now, but I believe he's going to redshirt this season. He's played a total of 3 minutes so far.

The only reason he'd play is if there's really no other option to put five guys on the court.

Shaka mentioned it in one of the pressers that the plan was to red shirt but since it's a free year he's not going to.