Texas @ Baylor - 11:00am ESPN2

[txindep 142]

3 hours ago, Wally Pryor said:

Thanks, know of Cryer but thought they had one other guy coming back.

Langston Love (true frosh) was hurt in pre-season. Back next year. 

[Js1 85,448]

Watching ISU-KSU, it’s really maddening that our guards can’t drive and go high off glass at all.  Baylor did it a lot, as do other teams. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, dcar00 said:

It was a horrible effort.  Baylor does have players who can make shots, we don't.  

I agree on your other point, you felt the MOV was closer than the game was because AJ made a couple of 3's when the game was already over.

Yep on the last paragraph. On the first, I agree, said as much, and received SL novels in response. I was trying to moderate a bit, because I don’t think the terrible effort defines the team / Beard. It’s disappointing never being in the game and a bunch here being totally fine with it. 

[shadow_operative 15,932]

7 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

It’s disappointing never being in the game and a bunch here being totally fine with it. 

yeah well, for those of us who aren't freaking out over this performance, it's pretty disappointing (and frankly quite annoying) how many people who are never seen on this board 95% of the time come flying out of the woodwork to bitch and complain every time we lose. i don't know how many decades it will take for this handful of us to empirically prove to y'all that we know what we're talking about when it comes to this Texas Hoops stuff, but any time you feel like noticing that and listening more than you talk would be great.

99% of the teams in the country have days like today, and this year specifically, a good 98-99% of those teams have these shitty days more often/against weaker competition than Texas does. your disappointment comes from a fundamental lack of understanding that this shit happens to every single team (save maybe Gonzaga and their kiddie conference schedule) in CBB every year, often multiple times a year, and again, it's usually against teams that aren't the defending national champions who could conceivably go back to back. 

on principle alone, days like today are not worth losing your shit over when you've otherwise had a pretty good season. but then within the context of this actual team- a team that was built from scratch less than a year ago, a team full of new faces with new roles playing in a new conference, a team that lacks chemistry, a team that lacks athleticism, a team that lacks shooting, a team that lacks a point guard, a team that lacks pro prospects, a team whose core leftover players received subpar coaching the last 4-5 years- when THAT team lays an egg on the road in an 11am game vs the defending champs, coming off a high after the KU win, i mean wtf do you want? feigned outrage? kicking and screaming for the sake of it? should we start the "Fire Chris Beard" thread? what do you want? what is the point of your demands for anger?

the truth is that anyone who's been around the block enough to know better knows that days like today happen, and beyond that, knows how limited this team is, and is frankly focused a helluva lot more on winning in the tourney/the next decade+ of UT Hoops than we are about a road conference loss to a far superior team. unfortunately, those of us who do know better are greatly outnumbered by the wailing masses, who suddenly appear every time we play poorly to whine and complain and get upset over nothing. 

this regular season does not matter. i've repeated as much plenty here over the course of this campaign. this team is a complete one-off, and the only thing that will matter to any of us at the end of the day is how we perform in the tourney. if we were good enough to win the league and today happened, then yeah, that would be upsetting; if we were a bubble team, and every regular season game mattered, then sure, losses like that can be upsetting; but neither of those is the case. we are somewhere between the 3rd and 5th best team in this league, somewhere among the 15-25 best teams in CBB, we are squarely in the tournament, and all that matters is how we're playing in March, not in February. so you can waste your time and energy today bitching and being upset over something that doesn't even matter, but it won't change anything, except maybe how much you enjoy the rest of your day. 

[jimmyjazz 45,999]

To piggyback on Goo's novel:  there isn't a reasonable Longhorns fan who didn't have today's game penciled in as a loss, even months ago.  Anyone with even a basic understanding of Big 12 basketball expected us to lose at Lawrence, at Lubbock, at Waco.  Minimum.  Most expected us to lose to 1-2 of those teams in Austin, even WITH the idiotic top 5 ranking preseason, along with a few other conference road games, because that's just the way the conference typically plays out, save the elite of the elite (and we ain't elite).

In short, settle down.  This is nothing like losing to KSU at home (and at least we beat them on the road).

[harpercollins 394]

  there isn't a reasonable Longhorns fan who didn't have today's game penciled in as a loss, even months ago. 

Yep.

[jimmyjazz 45,999]

Oh, please tell me that's a real sign.  Collidge education at it's (ahem) finest.

[SL Xpress 7,516]

13 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

....this regular season does not matter. i've repeated as much plenty here over the course of this campaign. this team is a complete one-off, and the only thing that will matter to any of us at the end of the day is how we perform in the tourney. if we were good enough to win the league and today happened, then yeah, that would be upsetting; if we were a bubble team, and every regular season game mattered, then sure, losses like that can be upsetting; but neither of those is the case. we are somewhere between the 3rd and 5th best team in this league, somewhere among the 15-25 best teams in CBB, we are squarely in the tournament, and all that matters is how we're playing in March, not in February.... 

 

"Sorry, you can not add any more reactions today."

It's funny. I really like our community on this forum. A ton of posters who I enjoy reading their thoughts. Some others who I don't necessarily think all that much of their thoughts, but I find them entertaining. Then another subset on the game threads and/or losses.

Now, to be fair, I see some of the same dynamics on game threads of other teams, so it's not unique to us. I guess there's something about game threads that bring out the melodramatic in us as human beings. 

There is certainly something about losses that brings out the melodramatic in all of us. The KU reaction to that Texas loss has paid a lot of dividends for me, to be honest.

Thankfully, it's not all of us, so I don't feel like I'm a party of one. The above quote from @shadow_operative encapsulates my thoughts exactly.

Chris Beard is not the be all end all coach of basketball of all time. He hasn't won umpteen national championships in a row. But the guys who I actually like, people like Jay Wright, Mark Few, Tom Izzo, Bill Self --- all have warts, too. And some of the ones I absolutely loathe, like John Calipari and Scott Drew, are absolutely more accomplished but I would literally have to stop following Texas basketball if they became our head coach. Instead we now have a head coach who actually has an appearance in a national championship game, is an alumnus of the school, has won at every stop he's been, coached under legendary Bob Knight, understands people, how to build teams, how to get the most out of the people around him, and how to energize a base of support. And I'm supposed to feel embarrassed about a hiccup to the returning national champions in their home arena. It's not going to happen.

It's not about being content. It's about how little it matters. Things are going to be fine. As fans, follow a little bit of Beard's recipe. Don't get too high when we have an amazing come back win in the last minute against one of the true blue bloods in college basketball. Don't get too low when we lose to a bottom half Kansas State in the last seconds by literally throwing the game away. The game against Baylor was a bummer for sure. Let's see how they respond in a home match against Texas Tech that in the grand scheme of things is waaaaay more important, frankly. I'll be a lot more bummed out by Tech sweeping us than I am by Baylor beating us by 40 in the Ferrell Center. And I'll figure out a way to be okay with a Tech sweep, too, for all the reasons shadow_operative already stated. 

[Rockethorn1978 6,100]

If we lose like this at home then I get it but road games are tough in conference play. Get to March and let’s see how we do on a neutral floor. My biggest worry is any game away from the fec we have sucked major balls outside a couple, so I would love to see one big road win.

[LTtxfan 49,309]

SLX                                                                     Derka

[UTEE97 3,522]

We probably are not going to fix our offense this year. It's something that's hard to coach if you don't have the right players. We have to win games with tough defense, like many of Barnes' teams used to do, until we get some offensive firepower. Also, we need a true PG badly. I can't watch Carr dribbling into double and tripple teams and then forcing a shot or bad pass any more. 

[HtownHorn 14,753]

The only thing I can't understand is how a team with this much experience plays so poorly on the road.

[HtownHorn 14,753]

55 minutes ago, UTEE97 said:

We probably are not going to fix our offense this year. It's something that's hard to coach if you don't have the right players. We have to win games with tough defense, like many of Barnes' teams used to do, until we get some offensive firepower. Also, we need a true PG badly. I can't watch Carr dribbling into double and tripple teams and then forcing a shot or bad pass any more. 

The offense fixes itself when the guard play gets better. Tech's final 4 team had 2 NBA guards on it, Texas has 0 on their roster right now.

[VaLonghorn99 341]

Road loss. Oh well. Still had fun watching the Horns and some of the mini runs they had. Let's beat OU on the road. 

[UTDD 362]

Given the entirety of everything in the program right now, no real concerns about any specific regular season loss.  We could have played better, but Baylor at their peak is definitely a better team than ours right now.  I think we maybe can max out at the Sweet 16  and anything beyond that would be a bonus, but I can see us losing in the first round too.  I realistically expect one win in the tourney, maybe two as I think we're about a Top 20ish team.  But matchups and the one and done format makes some variance possible as always for the tourney...  

But it's just a completely different feeling knowing that a specific team in a given year (like right now) has some limitations versus believing the leader of said program is the big limitation.  You just have hope for the future, and it's only the first year.

[VaLonghorn99 341]

9 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

The only thing I can't understand is how a team with this much experience plays so poorly on the road.

BU, KU and TTU are the top teams in the conference above us, so road games are going to be tough. The same BU team got clobbered at KU. Expecting a much closer game and hopefully a W against ou on the road.

[HtownHorn 14,753]

9 minutes ago, VaLonghorn99 said:

BU, KU and TTU are the top teams in the conference above us, so road games are going to be tough. The same BU team got clobbered at KU. Expecting a much closer game and hopefully a W against ou on the road.

This BU team had more rotation players back than against KU, but also lost their starting center to a horrible injury. The problem isn't the loss, the problem is Texas never had a shot at winning this game.

[VaLonghorn99 341]

5 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

This BU team had more rotation players back than against KU, but also lost their starting center to a horrible injury. The problem isn't the loss, the problem is Texas never had a shot at winning this game.

Agree, I would have liked a closer game too. BU just scored very well and our defense couldn't stop them. Hard to win where your strength is not performing its best. This Texas team is a veteran team but hasn't grown up together and it shows. All things considered, it's what it is and we're still in the mix for a possible great finish

 

[Brian Fantana 6,689]

5 hours ago, The Ace of Aces said:

Going back weeks ago, he’s made a lot of mystifying lineup decisions or sub decisions. Todays was the guard lineup, at Tech playing whatshisface while we were getting beat down just to spry to show up Tech. The KSU debacle had several really weird playcall and sub decisions. 

This roster should be better offensively than it is imo. It is like they’re playing with an arm tied behind their back sometimes. 

Baylor shutting down Allen was predictable and we had no real plan it seemed to work around it. 

The whole putting Avery Benson in the game thing has never made sense to me, especially in crucial moments. He never did this until 2020 and then he started doing it repeatedly in both the 2020/2021 seasons. Every time he did it, the game only got worse (the lone exception being when he was forced to play him for real for a bit against Louisville when we had like 3 guards injured). I understand the basic reasoning behind it, but Benson is such a complete liability in just about every aspect of the game that it never seems to help.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

To piggyback on Goo's novel:  there isn't a reasonable Longhorns fan who didn't have today's game penciled in as a loss, even months ago.  Anyone with even a basic understanding of Big 12 basketball expected us to lose at Lawrence, at Lubbock, at Waco.  Minimum.  Most expected us to lose to 1-2 of those teams in Austin, even WITH the idiotic top 5 ranking preseason, along with a few other conference road games, because that's just the way the conference typically plays out, save the elite of the elite (and we ain't elite).

In short, settle down.  This is nothing like losing to KSU at home (and at least we beat them on the road).

I’m not gonna read his novel. I’m settled. Nothing is fucked. Bad performance. Let’s move on. 

[ztejas 43,519]

5 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Oh, please tell me that's a real sign.  Collidge education at it's (ahem) finest.

Those in charge of making the sign have been raped. 

[VinyVango 694]

The only thing I can't understand is how a team with this much experience plays so poorly on the road.

Lack of size inside and very inconsistent, offensively-hesitant senior guard play.


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[harpercollins 394]

[LTtxfan 49,309]

On 2/12/2022 at 1:00 PM, LTtxfan said:

Beard is pissed by how soft this team is at times...

Love that Beard is honest with his players about how they played terribly against baylor -- just a horrible performance.

 

Beard also puts it on himself and the Coaches too...

 

[SL Xpress 7,516]

Beard also had the entire starting five answer questions from the media. It obviously wasn’t intended as a reward for a job well done. 

I still think if Baylor is playing as well as they were playing on Saturday they’re going to get a double digit win against Texas regardless. 

I’m not as down on Carr as others have been, but he is what he is. If Carr and Akinjo switched rosters it would make all the difference in the world. And the rest of their 6 players are still better than UT’s next 6 players (in the aggregate, not individually). But having a PG who can take his man off the dribble, hit the perimeter shot with consistency, find the open player, and play tough man to man D is basically the ideal. 

It makes me wonder what Arizona would have looked like if he hadn’t transferred.