Point and laugh at Shaka Smart

[MotownHorn 1759]

9 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

at least you have an opinion of the dude. I saw his WE MUZZ PROTECK DIS HOUZ post and was like "who the fuck is this guy?"

thank God the basketball board has someone looking out for it

I think you both have me confused for someone else but who cares?

[Bottlecap 1523]

This is some bad karma and also a bitch ass thread. 

[Red Five 40822]

I wouldn't really care either way, but his comments about why he "chose" to leave Texas for Marquette and the little shot he took at our attendance has me wanting to point and laugh at his inevitable failure there. 

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

1 hour ago, MotownHorn said:

I think you both have me confused for someone else but who cares?

I don't know who you are, so I'm sure I'm not confusing you with someone else. this thread is literally the only reason I'm aware you exist

[shadow_operative 15932]

Mack Brown gave us the best decade of UT football in (most of) our lifetimes; Rick Barnes did the same with basketball. Nobody gives a shit when people bash them as coaches, trash them as humans, and root for them to fail. Shaka gave us the worst six years since Bob Weltlich and all of a sudden everyone is all upset that there's a thread about him where Texas basketball fans aren't exactly rooting for him. okie silly dilly dokie o.

[ButtFumble 5164]

boy there is a lot to digest in this thread and a lot of back and forth emotions for me for sure

Mack Brown...I like him as a person, he did great things here, hell of a casista salesman, but fuck he just let it all fall apart and after he did he acted like Texas fans should just accept that and give him some time to hang out in one of those casistas and relax and tan while he tried to see if he could find some young hungry guys that wanted to tear a hodge podge of recruits that fit no system at all new assholes and get them in shape......then when he was told that is not how it fucking works at Texas he got kind of pissy.......but yea I still like him and there is enough time between his time here and going to UNC that I really do not have concerns how he does there.....the truth is he needed to go and without casista time he was not going to have what it took to get it back (or to find the young guys to get it back)......fuck anyone that does not understand that and their thinking

I have said all along I really like Rick Barnes and have a lot of respect for him.....but fucking shit he was just not getting over the hump and yet again as if anyone really needed proof.......well here is the 2021 season to prove it.....I actually feel bad for him in a way he has a hell of a lot of success, but just no real hardware to show for it....at this point either Texas needs to start getting into elite 8s and final 4s consistently while Rick gets in some sweet 16s and I could feel good for him.....or maybe he needs to pull a Joey Freshwater/Shaka (with hair) and dip out on Tennessee and then go have success somewhere like UNLV or Nevada or Fresno.....then people could go with the "it is Tennessee" and will have mostly forgotten about Texas

Charlie.....fuck I actually was thinking he should get another year.....until that Kansas game and those field goals......then it hit me he really is regarded.......he entered Texas with probably the shittiest setup of any coach in recent history taking over form Mack.......the shit head for an AD......he was like the 6th choice after the worlds shittiest coaching search since the last Tennessee football coaching search......alumni saying dumb shit......but after that Kansas game......and then he goes to a USF program and acts like he is taking over a world beater and the media is all sucking his cock and he runs them right into the fucking ground that will probably take them a decade or more to climb out of if not longer.......he is a career coordinator that got lucky as hell that Texas was desperate and in the shit and I really do not wish him ill will and hope he just treads along as a coordinator somewhere that we never have to hear about ever again, but if he ever gets another head coaching job I will bet against him every time and tune in for the laughs at how to fucking lose games and do stupid shit while standing there looking like a dumb fuck

Tom....I said when he was hired I was worried about how big of a chode he made out of himself in that interview while he was at UH and he might not be ready for UT and the media at UT.....then I saw that grocery cart of food when he moved to Austin and worried Texas was fucked....then the lack of personal accountability......the stupid backpack shit against a fucking worthless Missouri team......then the "we are back" shit........GTFO Tom you are OUT OF HERE!......if you had even a bit of  accountability, introspective, or humbleness.....or a thought on what to do besides business cards....and oh yea the sledge hammer shit you might have turned it around.....instead you slugged Dasani by the tanker truck load and looked like a dumb fuck as to why the media was asking you simple shit about the simple shit you were fucking up and not straightening out.....don't let the door hit you in your Mensa on the way out Tom and take your business cards and sledge hammer with you dumb ass

finally Shaka....as someone else pointed out above.....came here and made others players play his system.....then totally abandoned that system....WTF is that shit.....after that it was like a mix of late year Mack and press conference Tom and on the field Charlie......just seemed to have no fire or desire to actually get shit straightened out FUCKING NOW like late year Mack....seemed clueless why people were lighting a fire under his ass like press conference Tom......and just total WTF coaching like on the field Charlie....I do like that he walked the fuck out and took a new job and saved Texas 7 million, but he took enough money already to say fuck you and something tells me as mentioned above that there will be some "baked cake" type shit if anyone ever interviews him and touched on why he left Texas and it will be like USF Charlie.....it will somehow be all about the issues at Texas that a coach is not responsible for and it was the fault of someone else.....so thanks for saving the $7 million, but fuck you and lose a lot to the point everyone forgets about sucking your cock like they did USF Charlie

[closetojumping 62507]

6 hours ago, ButtFumble said:

boy there is a lot to digest in this thread and a lot of back and forth emotions for me for sure

Mack Brown...I like him as a person, he did great things here, hell of a casista salesman, but fuck he just let it all fall apart and after he did he acted like Texas fans should just accept that and give him some time to hang out in one of those casistas and relax and tan while he tried to see if he could find some young hungry guys that wanted to tear a hodge podge of recruits that fit no system at all new assholes and get them in shape......then when he was told that is not how it fucking works at Texas he got kind of pissy.......but yea I still like him and there is enough time between his time here and going to UNC that I really do not have concerns how he does there.....the truth is he needed to go and without casista time he was not going to have what it took to get it back (or to find the young guys to get it back)......fuck anyone that does not understand that and their thinking

I have said all along I really like Rick Barnes and have a lot of respect for him.....but fucking shit he was just not getting over the hump and yet again as if anyone really needed proof.......well here is the 2021 season to prove it.....I actually feel bad for him in a way he has a hell of a lot of success, but just no real hardware to show for it....at this point either Texas needs to start getting into elite 8s and final 4s consistently while Rick gets in some sweet 16s and I could feel good for him.....or maybe he needs to pull a Joey Freshwater/Shaka (with hair) and dip out on Tennessee and then go have success somewhere like UNLV or Nevada or Fresno.....then people could go with the "it is Tennessee" and will have mostly forgotten about Texas

Charlie.....fuck I actually was thinking he should get another year.....until that Kansas game and those field goals......then it hit me he really is regarded.......he entered Texas with probably the shittiest setup of any coach in recent history taking over form Mack.......the shit head for an AD......he was like the 6th choice after the worlds shittiest coaching search since the last Tennessee football coaching search......alumni saying dumb shit......but after that Kansas game......and then he goes to a USF program and acts like he is taking over a world beater and the media is all sucking his cock and he runs them right into the fucking ground that will probably take them a decade or more to climb out of if not longer.......he is a career coordinator that got lucky as hell that Texas was desperate and in the shit and I really do not wish him ill will and hope he just treads along as a coordinator somewhere that we never have to hear about ever again, but if he ever gets another head coaching job I will bet against him every time and tune in for the laughs at how to fucking lose games and do stupid shit while standing there looking like a dumb fuck

Tom....I said when he was hired I was worried about how big of a chode he made out of himself in that interview while he was at UH and he might not be ready for UT and the media at UT.....then I saw that grocery cart of food when he moved to Austin and worried Texas was fucked....then the lack of personal accountability......the stupid backpack shit against a fucking worthless Missouri team......then the "we are back" shit........GTFO Tom you are OUT OF HERE!......if you had even a bit of  accountability, introspective, or humbleness.....or a thought on what to do besides business cards....and oh yea the sledge hammer shit you might have turned it around.....instead you slugged Dasani by the tanker truck load and looked like a dumb fuck as to why the media was asking you simple shit about the simple shit you were fucking up and not straightening out.....don't let the door hit you in your Mensa on the way out Tom and take your business cards and sledge hammer with you dumb ass

finally Shaka....as someone else pointed out above.....came here and made others players play his system.....then totally abandoned that system....WTF is that shit.....after that it was like a mix of late year Mack and press conference Tom and on the field Charlie......just seemed to have no fire or desire to actually get shit straightened out FUCKING NOW like late year Mack....seemed clueless why people were lighting a fire under his ass like press conference Tom......and just total WTF coaching like on the field Charlie....I do like that he walked the fuck out and took a new job and saved Texas 7 million, but he took enough money already to say fuck you and something tells me as mentioned above that there will be some "baked cake" type shit if anyone ever interviews him and touched on why he left Texas and it will be like USF Charlie.....it will somehow be all about the issues at Texas that a coach is not responsible for and it was the fault of someone else.....so thanks for saving the $7 million, but fuck you and lose a lot to the point everyone forgets about sucking your cock like they did USF Charlie

This post was unnecessary and no one is going to read it. Like the advice most of us have taken in the age of the Internet in which, before sending something in anger, we should sleep on it or eat something and then come back and reread it, there is some sage advice I’ve seen given to someone with your posting style in the past - Stop posting. Forums may not be for you. Instead, grab a fountain pen and some old papier and write your thoughts out in long form, then wrap the screed in an envelope and mail it to yourself. When you get the document in a few days, you’ll be pleased to be reminded. Then you can spend hours poring through your labor of love and revisiting all of those thoughts again. Once finished, ponder your next essay and begin process anew. 

I think we all win in that scenario. Except the fountain pen, the forestry industry and the US Postal Service, but fuck those entities. 

[South Austin 52431]

On 4/21/2021 at 7:48 PM, shadow_operative said:

[Wulaw Horn 19063]

1 hour ago, closetojumping said:

This post was unnecessary and no one is going to read it. Like the advice most of us have taken in the age of the Internet in which, before sending something in anger, we should sleep on it or eat something and then come back and reread it, there is some sage advice I’ve seen given to someone with your posting style in the past - Stop posting. Forums may not be for you. Instead, grab a fountain pen and some old papier and write your thoughts out in long form, then wrap the screed in an envelope and mail it to yourself. When you get the document in a few days, you’ll be pleased to be reminded. Then you can spend hours poring through your labor of love and revisiting all of those thoughts again. Once finished, ponder your next essay and begin process anew. 

I think we all win in that scenario. Except the fountain pen, the forestry industry and the US Postal Service, but fuck those entities. 

Such a dick. But so funny 

I must admit I read both his “screed” and yours. I value my time almost zero on a lazy Saturday morning waiting for the spring game to happen. Really, just waiting for my wife to get home with beer so I can start pregaming for the spring game. 

Edited April 24, 2021 by Wulaw Horn

[Revolution512 1487]

His “new” staff at Marquette.....hot garbage as expected. 

[Wulaw Horn 19063]

7 minutes ago, Revolution512 said:

His “new” staff at Marquette.....hot garbage as expected. 

You’d have to be a room temperature IQ moron to sign on to play or coach with that walking disaster. 

[Rockethorn1978 6072]

On 4/21/2021 at 7:04 PM, ClubWhatever said:

Lame.  I hope he does well.  

[South Austin 52431]

2 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Really, just waiting for my wife to get home with beer so I can start pregaming for the spring game. 

She’ll be on her way in about 20 minutes.

[shadow_operative 15932]

4 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

Let me guess:  the same assistants he had here, except Deepak Chopra is replacing Hudy because Shaka realized strength comes from your soul, not from your body.

very close to being spot on. 

[Braff Zacklin 13552]

5 hours ago, South Austin said:

  

On 4/21/2021 at 6:48 PM, shadow_operative said:

 

Double-plus appropriate because our boy Farley went to Marquette.

[Burt Macklin 19019]

4 hours ago, South Austin said:

She’ll be on her way in about 20 minutes.

18 minute commute, huh? 

[South Austin 52431]

6 minutes ago, Burt Macklin said:

18 minute commute, huh? 

19. She’s gotta get dressed, right?

[Godzillatron 292]

boy there is a lot to digest in this thread and a lot of back and forth emotions for me for sure
Mack Brown...I like him as a person, he did great things here, hell of a casista salesman, but fuck he just let it all fall apart and after he did he acted like Texas fans should just accept that and give him some time to hang out in one of those casistas and relax and tan while he tried to see if he could find some young hungry guys that wanted to tear a hodge podge of recruits that fit no system at all new assholes and get them in shape......then when he was told that is not how it fucking works at Texas he got kind of pissy.......but yea I still like him and there is enough time between his time here and going to UNC that I really do not have concerns how he does there.....the truth is he needed to go and without casista time he was not going to have what it took to get it back (or to find the young guys to get it back)......fuck anyone that does not understand that and their thinking
I have said all along I really like Rick Barnes and have a lot of respect for him.....but fucking shit he was just not getting over the hump and yet again as if anyone really needed proof.......well here is the 2021 season to prove it.....I actually feel bad for him in a way he has a hell of a lot of success, but just no real hardware to show for it....at this point either Texas needs to start getting into elite 8s and final 4s consistently while Rick gets in some sweet 16s and I could feel good for him.....or maybe he needs to pull a Joey Freshwater/Shaka (with hair) and dip out on Tennessee and then go have success somewhere like UNLV or Nevada or Fresno.....then people could go with the "it is Tennessee" and will have mostly forgotten about Texas
Charlie.....fuck I actually was thinking he should get another year.....until that Kansas game and those field goals......then it hit me he really is regarded.......he entered Texas with probably the shittiest setup of any coach in recent history taking over form Mack.......the shit head for an AD......he was like the 6th choice after the worlds shittiest coaching search since the last Tennessee football coaching search......alumni saying dumb shit......but after that Kansas game......and then he goes to a USF program and acts like he is taking over a world beater and the media is all sucking his cock and he runs them right into the fucking ground that will probably take them a decade or more to climb out of if not longer.......he is a career coordinator that got lucky as hell that Texas was desperate and in the shit and I really do not wish him ill will and hope he just treads along as a coordinator somewhere that we never have to hear about ever again, but if he ever gets another head coaching job I will bet against him every time and tune in for the laughs at how to fucking lose games and do stupid shit while standing there looking like a dumb fuck
Tom....I said when he was hired I was worried about how big of a chode he made out of himself in that interview while he was at UH and he might not be ready for UT and the media at UT.....then I saw that grocery cart of food when he moved to Austin and worried Texas was fucked....then the lack of personal accountability......the stupid backpack shit against a fucking worthless Missouri team......then the "we are back" shit........GTFO Tom you are OUT OF HERE!......if you had even a bit of  accountability, introspective, or humbleness.....or a thought on what to do besides business cards....and oh yea the sledge hammer shit you might have turned it around.....instead you slugged Dasani by the tanker truck load and looked like a dumb fuck as to why the media was asking you simple shit about the simple shit you were fucking up and not straightening out.....don't let the door hit you in your Mensa on the way out Tom and take your business cards and sledge hammer with you dumb ass
finally Shaka....as someone else pointed out above.....came here and made others players play his system.....then totally abandoned that system....WTF is that shit.....after that it was like a mix of late year Mack and press conference Tom and on the field Charlie......just seemed to have no fire or desire to actually get shit straightened out FUCKING NOW like late year Mack....seemed clueless why people were lighting a fire under his ass like press conference Tom......and just total WTF coaching like on the field Charlie....I do like that he walked the fuck out and took a new job and saved Texas 7 million, but he took enough money already to say fuck you and something tells me as mentioned above that there will be some "baked cake" type shit if anyone ever interviews him and touched on why he left Texas and it will be like USF Charlie.....it will somehow be all about the issues at Texas that a coach is not responsible for and it was the fault of someone else.....so thanks for saving the $7 million, but fuck you and lose a lot to the point everyone forgets about sucking your cock like they did USF Charlie

Your description if Shaka is a thing of beauty.

[Machinator 32099]

 

[Braff Zacklin 13552]

Shaka has yet to coach a minute of Golden Eagles basketball and has already led one player to the pros.

What a coach!

[shadow_operative 15932]

3 minutes ago, Braff Zacklin said:

Shaka has yet to coach a minute of Golden Eagles basketball and has already led one player to the pros.

What a coach!

Shaka's world renowned player development strikes again.

Edited April 28, 2021 by shadow_operative

[shadow_operative 15932]

forgot all about this thread and started a new one before Mach reminded that this thread was already here. turns out the Shaka Show is up and running at Marquette with his trademark empty/retarded platitudes in place of actual coaching.

 

[Wulaw Horn 19063]

Just now, shadow_operative said:

forgot all about this thread and started a new one before Mach reminded that this thread was already here. turns out the Shaka Show is up and running at Marquette with his trademark empty/retarded platitudes in place of actual coaching.

 

When you said enjoy 17 win season after 17 win season that seems ambitious for him at Marquette. 

[VirginiaLonghorn 4767]

28 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

forgot all about this thread and started a new one before Mach reminded that this thread was already here. turns out the Shaka Show is up and running at Marquette with his trademark empty/retarded platitudes in place of actual coaching.

 

… and in the words of the late, great and usually intoxicated Harry Caray, “Ubuntu spelled backwards is utnubU” (for whatever that’s worth).

[LTtxfan 49141]

 

Edited August 17, 2021 by LTtxfan

[BurntOrange&White 39930]

Fuck everybody who aint Texas!

[shadow_operative 15932]

if guys like Banks, Roach, AJ1, and Coleman end up playing in the NBA, it will be hilariously sad how many NBA players Shaka had, only to regularly miss the tourney, finish dead last in the league, have an 11-win season, never win a tourney game, etc. literally nobody has wasted more talent over the last six years. nobody.

[Guest Lobo]

Did any of his transfers ever make into the NBA?  I count 7 guys that went from UT straight to the League, but not sure about all those transfers over the years.  Anybody sign a UDFA or something like that?  

Between Coleman, Roach, and AJ1...2 will eventually play, for some period of time, in the NBA.  

That's quite a roster of talent over the years that had zero to show for it except an NIT title.  

Thanks for bringing this up.  AHHHHHHHH!

[shadow_operative 15932]

if Marquette fans have been paying attention this summer then they cannot be feeling too good heading into this season.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CTDeBCanHDb/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

[ztejas 43411]

On 8/19/2021 at 2:14 PM, Lobo said:

Between Coleman, Roach, and AJ1...2 will eventually play, for some period of time, in the NBA.  

I doubt any of those guys get more than a cup of coffee. Maybe Roach warms the bench somewhere for a bit.

[ztejas 43411]

2 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

I think Coleman would be the most likely to get some time as an end of bench guy, but I agree none are likely to have long (or any) NBA careers.  However, pre-cancer Andrew Jones was a guy who probably would have been drafted. Shaka had him for 1.5 years, paired with lottery pick big men, and we were under 0.500 in the win column.

Maybe. Coleman is undersized and not really an NBA athlete. Roach is at least a few inches above 6 foot and an elite athlete. If he could develop an outside shot he might get some run somewhere. That was my thinking at least. Roach is also only a year older than Matt and AJ.

Point on Shaka remains either way. Kai Jones and Jericho don't look like they're going to have any issues sticking on a roster and GB3 will at least play a few years in the league as a project.

[shadow_operative 15932]

Coleman's lack of size isn't as big of a deal as it would have been even 5-10 years ago. the floor is spread so much now, that guys like him who are agile enough (and he's pretty great with the start-stop-start agility) who can dish and shoot can usually find a role even if they aren't tall. even DJ Augustin is still in the league despite his age and size. I think Matt has a chance.

[shadow_operative 15932]

24 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

I think Coleman would be the most likely to get some time as an end of bench guy, but I agree none are likely to have long (or any) NBA careers.  However, pre-cancer Andrew Jones was a guy who probably would have been drafted. Shaka had him for 1.5 years, paired with lottery pick big men, and we were under 0.500 in the win column.

Andrew Jones pre cancer was potentially on the path to being a future first rounder, and was essentially a lock to have at least one guaranteed contract in the league. 

just imagine if his body had never been ravaged by cancer. i'll be rooting harder for AJ to make it than i have for anyone since TJ. 

Edited August 26, 2021 by shadow_operative

[ztejas 43411]

4 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

Coleman's lack of size isn't as big of a deal as it would have been even 5-10 years ago.

True. Usually those smaller guys have some elite aspects of their game though. 

DJ is just straight up a better basketball player. That's why he's still in the league. 

[shadow_operative 15932]

4 minutes ago, ztejas said:

True. Usually those smaller guys have some elite aspects of their game though. 

DJ is just straight up a better basketball player. That's why he's still in the league. 

no doubt. with Matt it will be about if he can shoot 40% from BTA. he's quick enough and actual has a really nice pull-up game, like a much smaller Devin Booker. if he can make people respect his ability to shoot the three then i think he's a good enough slasher/shooter/creator to find a spot. he's also super competitive and treats basketball like a profession, which some pros don't even do. that's why i agree with Matt that he might be the one with the best chance to have a role for somebody. 

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

I think the response Matt gave in one of his final press conferences is what he's shooting for. He mentioned that a career like what Monte Morris has is something he's aspiring towards. And he had a pretty good showing during the summer league. Much better than I expected. He shot 51% from the field and 36% from 3 over 6 games. 

[shadow_operative 15932]

Shaka gonna Shaka. Man they are going to get tired of his shtick once they realize how much he sucks as a coach:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUOJgBugN4V/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

 

[Knoxtnhorn 5971]

 

2 hours ago, shadow_operative said:

Shaka gonna Shaka. Man they are going to get tired of his shtick once they realize how much he sucks as a coach:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUOJgBugN4V/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

 

It's ok.  The Navy Seals were there in case any of them began to drown.

[The Ace of Aces 5175]

On 9/24/2021 at 9:19 PM, shadow_operative said:

Shaka gonna Shaka. Man they are going to get tired of his shtick once they realize how much he sucks as a coach:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUOJgBugN4V/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

 

They should do this in February. 

[CurlyDumps 4466]

Did he say, “we are?”

That some motivational platitude?

[Herpa Derpa 6122]

1 hour ago, CurlyDumps said:

Did he say, “we are?”

That some motivational platitude?

Worked out ok for the last folks that used it.

[shadow_operative 15932]

good to see Shaka still has his teams practicing slapping the floor.

 

it worked so well at Texas:

 

 

[SarkAfterDark 1688]

This obsession is probably unhealthy.

[shadow_operative 15932]

4 minutes ago, SarkAfterDark said:

This obsession is probably unhealthy.

watching that dickhead's team was bad for my health. watching him do it to someone else while we've got Beard and a top five team is catharsis.

[shadow_operative 15932]

 

[shadow_operative 15932]

From The Athletic:

(I've put some of the highlights of the piece in bold)

MILWAUKEE — Ten minutes before the appointed practice time, Marquette men’s basketball players cross the Fiserv Forum floor on a diagonal, bound for the far northwest tunnel and the locker room beyond it. The new head coach follows along. He’s about to get to work in this arena for the first time in this capacity, checking his notes and wearing a blue T-shirt with LOST IN THE FIGHT emblazoned on the front of it. Those four syllables alone settle the question that’s tagged along for a few months now, for anyone who knows a little about everything that happened before today: No, this is not the reinvention of Shaka Smart.

Relocation, obviously. A recalibration, in some ways. But that mantra on that piece of team gear is nothing new, conjured a couple years earlier in a spot roughly 1,200 miles south of here, and carried along to the shores of Lake Michigan a few months back. That slogan is a four-word declaration from Smart about the way he’ll do the job of college basketball coach, proof of life for his approach. Taking the Marquette gig is a life change, inevitably. Snagging a pocket-listed house. Redecorating an office and practice gym. Building a staff and a roster, and so on. A job change doesn’t necessarily change the person in the job or what they do best to achieve success.

It can, however, remind them.

Over the next half-hour, before the fans trickle in for the public portion of the practice, a very Shaka Smart workout unfolds. When one group dallies on the floor after a rep against the scout team, a head coach rejoinder follows: Don’t walk off. Sprint off. When Smart wants ball pressure, he screams for Heat! over and over. To kickstart another drill, Smart holds the ball and barks Marquette! and his players respond in unison with Defense! and slap the floor before he tosses the rock into play and the Golden Eagles close out on their marks. It’s all canon. It’s all been done and said before.

As more and more fans take their seats in the lower bowl, about a half-hour into the proceedings, there’s a brief pause for a coaching point. A player didn’t hit his spot on defense. Too tentative. Caught in between. And one of the very first things the crowd hears from its new head coach is that in-between is no place to be at all. “You don’t want to go halfway,” Smart tells his players. “If you do it, do it.”

A fitting message for anyone in the gym, the head coach included, as he starts to build something where he belongs.

Well, maybe belongs is a little harsh. Or sounds it, anyway. Suggestive of previous inadequacy or a slight on the current predicament, when neither would be deserved. Smart won 56 percent of his games at Texas and took his team to three NCAA Tournaments (it might’ve been four, possibly, but for a pandemic) with one Big 12 tournament and one NIT championship included. He signed a fleet of top 100 high school prospects during his time there. He’d admit to regrets and lessons learned along the way, and there’s no spit-shining the lack of NCAA Tournament success, for sure. But an inadequate coach doesn’t accomplish what Smart did in Austin. And Marquette devotes abundant resources to the sport that’s the biggest deal on campus — north of $14 million in men’s basketball expenses in the most recent reporting year, according to the U.S. Department of Education — with still more improvements on the middle-term horizon. All in all, belonging here isn’t a bad deal.

Smart and Marquette have symbiotic basketball identities. It’s deeper than cliché administrative alignment and different than agreeing on the proper way to run a program or molding-men-for-life or whatever. When it’s been good at Marquette, Marquette generally has played similarly to the way Smart prefers to play. When Smart has drawn the most out of players, it’s been with the types of players who thrive at places like Marquette. Things haven’t gone as smoothly, for either side, with even the slightest course deviations. Some of this you can’t learn until, say, you spend six or seven years exhausting every possible way to make something work, only to double-back to a realization of who you are.

“Where I’m at in my life, the last several years, is trying not to depend on the circumstance to make me comfortable, trying not to depend on the place to make me be in a good place, because you can look all over the country for that,” Smart says. “That has very little to do with basketball. To me … it’s being at a place of acceptance of what is.

“We have a young team. I can beat my head against the wall about that, or be upset about that, or say, ‘Oh, we have to get older,’ or I can get to a place of acceptance for what is right now. And then use all of whatever I have in here to go after making these young guys the best they can be. That’s just an example. You could apply that to anything. Hopefully, I’m in a better place with that than I was, I don’t know, five years ago or whenever.”

Some internal acknowledgement occurred before he even had the job, which partly explains why he pursued it. During the interview process, one inquiry from Smart intrigued athletic director Bill Scholl above all, such that Scholl still recalls it six months down the line: The prospective coach described the sort of player he wanted to recruit to Marquette, and he wanted to make sure his potential future bosses were comfortable with that profile. “And he said, it’s maybe not always a five-star guy, and he wanted to make sure we were supportive of that,” Scholl says now. “The goal of winning at the highest level is still there, but I think he’s a believer that that doesn’t mean you need five five-star guys in your lineup.”

Smart even broaching the topic was a dead giveaway. At Texas, everything has to be the best. Everything. Anything less might be stomached, but never accepted. If a five-star prospect realistically can be gotten, then he must be gotten. There is no alternative. It’s a taxing way to exist, but everyone knows the rules going in, including the coach who took the men’s basketball job way back in 2015. The whole point of being there is to try to get the best, and then get the best out of the best. Sometimes, it turns out, that might not be for everyone.

If the overall ambitions aren’t precipitously lower at Marquette, the dynamic is a bit more … refined?

Essentially, Smart has permission to be discerning, instead of battling against the pressure to impress in talent acquisition. That’s what he was after when he sought clarity from Scholl on the path forward. That was self-awareness taking over. Smart is quite simply best equipped to coach players with some natural serration, who have the requisite ability but who also might not be gem-mint out of the packaging. Those are the kinds of players who don’t believe they have it all figured out, who will execute a system predicated on pressure and energy most effectively because they’re more than willing to do so. And those are the kinds of players who will stick around long enough to benefit from Smart’s brand of relationship-building — which, in a perfect world, translates to performance on the floor.

Set the filters to these general characteristics, and your search would produce a lot of Marquette’s best players from its best teams over the past two decades. “I mean, that fits me to a T,” Smart says. “Everyone talks about recruiting. Retention is so much more important. If I can coach someone for four years — and I’m sure a lot of coaches feel this way, so I don’t know that I’m unique — but I feel really, really confident I can help that guy grow a ton, as a player and as a person. The stuff that I’m hitting these guys with is not quick-fix stuff. It’s not something that they’re just going to, in a month, adopt or figure out. It’s pretty involved, takes some time. It requires some maturation. There’s certainly a sacrifice of the short-term a little bit.”

Before taking the Marquette job, Smart made sure he could recruit his type of players.

Proper deployment of those players is not unimportant. And any good coaching staff bends a little, here and there, to the talent on board. But there must be a well-defined spine to it all. While there is not a moment of actual basketball to reference in mid-October, assumptions can be made that Marquette will do the sorts of things its head coach knows how to coach best. It appears Shaka Smart will lean into what made Shaka Smart someone any of us know about in the first place, which is fairly compatible with the ethos that has made any of Marquette’s better squads worth talking about in any given year.

And it’s not even subtle, because it can’t be: It’s etched on the circular board laid out for all the fans to see during the open practice at Fiserv Forum, the fourth of four core team tenets.

PLAY VIOLENT.

“That’s a non-negotiable,” says senior guard Darryl Morsell, the former Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year who transferred to Marquette for his final college go-round. “Like, if you’re out there basically being soft, it’s no good. If you don’t have that violence, you’re coming out. You can’t play for him, for sure.”

This, too, is not a novel concept as much as a remix of a familiar tune. The “Havoc” days are self-explanatory. Smart used the same language down in Austin, where the results defensively were good; the lowest end-of-season KenPom.com adjusted efficiency ranking in his six years there was 40th nationally.

But Play Violent is a sentiment that feels more at home at a place like Marquette, one that will get more buy-in, inside the program and outside it, at least to a greater degree. “Watch some of the best players that have ever played here,” Smart says. “Dwyane Wade driving to the basket — it’s a violent drive. Jae Crowder going after the ball. Wesley Matthews, the way that he defends — that’s violent. That’s way better than me giving you some dictionary definition.” While nobody should believe fans will be happy playing games in the 50s, neither does Marquette historically thrive without at least passable defensive effort. When the Golden Eagles reached eight straight NCAA Tournaments starting in 2005, their average efficiency ranking at the end of the year was 45th nationally; in the eight years since, the average finish was 96th.

This imperative suits Smart. Oh, sure, he’s in his new office, talking through the “Havoc” concept versus the way the game is called now, a subject as worn through as decade-old dishtowels and quite possibly best relegated to the past. “I mean, I love pressing,” Smart says. “If it wasn’t for fouling, I would absolutely go back to playing that way. I don’t care if you’re the best team in the country or the worst team in the country, the last thing you want to do is trot the other team to the foul line with 10 minutes left in the first half. Where that leaves us is, let’s see how much we can do it and how good we can be at it without fouling too much.”

Indeed, the spirit of the thing can be recaptured, in some way. Smart can coach to the code with slightly different tactics. At his new place of employment, he arguably can get closer to his coaching ideals.

When asked to describe the driving principle of Marquette’s defense, senior guard Greg Elliott uses one word: “Disruption.” As Smart announces to the Fiserv Forum crowd, once he’s mic’d up for the open part of practice, the team goal is 32 deflections a game. Get a hand on a ball in practice and it’s celebrated, enthusiastically. Morsell, a Baltimore native, watched some of Smart’s old crews at VCU. He noted the guard-heavy rosters with stalwart rim protectors. He sees at least passing similarities to the cobbled-together roster he joined this summer — hell, the 6-foot-5, 200-pound veteran guard is the very embodiment of Smart pursuing a Briante Weber-like presence at the point of attack, even if he’s not quite the steal machine Weber was. “He never wants the offense to be comfortable,” Morsell says of his new coach. “That’s about full-court pressure, half-court pressure, anything.”

That’s what Smart is about, when he’s at his best. That’s what Marquette is about, at least in a general philosophical sense, when it is at its best. “What I always thought of Marquette was just toughness, man,” says Neill Berry, one of the assistant coaches who matriculated north with Smart. “Just this blue-collar street fight. You just know you’re going to be in a war when you go to play Marquette. I think that’s coach at the end of the day. That’s who he is.”

Now, results may vary. And the pressure points for Smart and his staff are skill development and an offensive plan that will bring about more consistent results. You can’t bet on three- and four-star prospects who are borderline top 100 talents — all of the Class of 2021 signees and the current pair of Class of 2022 commitments fit that mold — and fail to build out their talents and physical frames behind the scenes. You likewise have to create some semblance of a system based on spacing and movement instead of setting up a screen-and-roll and putting everyone else in spots to watch, because that’s the most effective way to do things and also what incoming prospects are increasingly most accustomed to.

On the development side, that means Smart has to be right about his staff composition. On the schematics side, it more or less means Smart has to be right about Nevada Smith, the former NBA G League head coach who joined the Texas staff in Smart’s final season and made the trip up to Milwaukee as well. “He just comes with some off-the-wall stuff, but it’s really good, so last year was a lot of fun,” Smart says. “I’m excited because we’ve brought a lot of the same concepts we used last year here, tweaked some of them, and now we’re kind of building a foundation of it.”

With every coach hired at every school in college basketball, there are variables. The point, you’d assume, is to minimize the number of them, for both sides of the partnership. The basketball-specific qualities that have made a coach successful should match the basketball-specific qualities that have made the school successful. Ideally, it’s not about what a coach or program wants to be; it’s an honest appraisal of realities. Anything less, and time and money get wasted.

It is, as Smart might say, all about what is.

Here, the basketball best of Shaka Smart appears to align with the basketball best of Marquette. Not that anyone could blame him for shooting the moon a few years back, but the situation appears to represent a critical acknowledgement from the coach’s side, in particular, about how he works best. It is a sound way to start, with a long way to go before anyone knows anything for sure. “Just every way you look at where he’s had success,” Scholl says, “we believe that he could replicate that here.”

The three outsize catchphrases splashed on the walls of the practice gym at the Al McGuire Center are Smart classics. WIN ANYWAY. LOSE YOURSELF IN THE FIGHT. RESPOND. There are other, smaller slogans in yellow painted on the padding along the baseline walls, and significantly, only one word is repeated on both ends of the floor: VIOLENCE. These are literal signs that Marquette’s coach is not in the midst of an identity crisis. He’s not rethinking everything. He’s not burning it down to rebuild from the studs up. He’s somewhere else, but he’s not someone else.

In a couple hours, the team will hop on a plane to scrimmage Boston College and see how well this match holds up on its first playdate. A little more urgency fills the space than might’ve been on display for the general public the night before. It’s still completely a Shaka Smart version of urgency, however. A properly disruptive defensive sequence receives a verbal stamp of approval from the head coach. “Deflections will save us!” Smart reminds the group. When Elliott misses a couple corner 3-pointers in a row, and drops his head after the second errant attempt, Smart takes notice and follows through on his promise to take action against negative body language; he calmly sends Elliott off to the corner, where director of sports performance Todd Smith runs Elliott through a set of floor kicks.

When freshman David Joplin demonstrates a little bit of physical discomfort during a huddle, Smart furrows his brow and sets in on the promising 6-7 kid from suburban Brookfield. “If you’re not OK, step off,” Smart says. “If you’re going to play, battle up. Ain’t no in-between.”

No, there’s not. This may be a lesson well-learned by the 44-year-old man delivering it, too, based on the dozen seasons preceding this one.

For all that time, chattering about where Shaka Smart can make it big has been a popular college basketball parlor game. At the core of the conversation is defining Smart’s identity, and the kind of place that can accommodate it. So now he’s at a basketball-first school that sets high standards and, at its core, values grit above glamour. He’ll have both the time to build relationships and the resources he needs to build winners in his own image.

He wasn’t looking for anything, he insists. An opportunity came along that made a lot of sense, for a lot of reasons. And he seized upon it. “You have to take a leap of faith,” Smart says now, “and they have to take a leap of faith with you.”

Maybe this ends the conversation, that years-long parlor game. Maybe Marquette is the answer. If all you’re asked to do is be yourself, and that works out to be enough, then it’s hard to imagine belonging anywhere else

Edited November 2, 2021 by shadow_operative

[shadow_operative 15932]

TL;DR: everything that went wrong for Shaka was because of Texas. Shaka is a blue collar coach who needs a blue collar school. Texas made Shaka Smart recruit a bunch of five stars. Texas demands perfection and will accept nothing less. Texas is too posh and full of itself to appreciate and effectively utilize someone like Shaka Smart. Shaka will finally get to be himself now, and Marquette just found it's next HOF coach. 

[Hermanator 7031]

That thing reads like they think Shaka was coaching the Texas football team. 

Texas basketball and glamour i wouldnt put together

[Wulaw Horn 19063]

On 11/2/2021 at 3:26 AM, shadow_operative said:

TL;DR: everything that went wrong for Shaka was because of Texas. Shaka is a blue collar coach who needs a blue collar school. Texas made Shaka Smart recruit a bunch of five stars. Texas demands perfection and will accept nothing less. Texas is too posh and full of itself to appreciate and effectively utilize someone like Shaka Smart. Shaka will finally get to be himself now, and Marquette just found it's next HOF coach. 

This article needs to be saved for the first part of a that was then, this is now meme, with the second panel a mob of pitchfork and torch carrying Marquette fans demanding he be fired for incompetence.  

[HookEm 2463]

Meh, I'm rooting for him.  Everyone is in a better situation.  I hope he wins big there.