Hindsight is 20/20- The 2019-20 Texas Longhorns thread

[dogbreath 434]

First time to watch Texas this season and isn't it ironic that the horns looked mechanical against A&M. 

The team as always with Smart looks like they've had their instincts coached out of them.  To the point that Baker is trying to find his guy on D next to the rim and at the same time the player with the ball is within touching distance and attacking the goal.  Hell, a simple defensive play that exists in 10 year old driveway basketball or pick up hoops anywhere is ignored because . 

Kai Jones is the only one who looks unburdened, just like Hayes and Ramey last year.  

Ramey who showed promise last year looks like something is in his head and Hepa who has an idea of how to play, never gets a chance.  Too slow and no confidence from coaches, I guess.  

The picks set are horrible and there is no rolling.  The offense looks to be designed as a hope and prayer that Febres bails them out with hot shooting.  But with scarce penetration and no effective off the ball movement this team will get killed in conference after B12 coaches watch tape.   

Andrew Jones is a miracle.  Thank god for him.

I would switch coaches with the Ags in a heartbeat.  If Buzz can got that bunch to play hard and organized defense.  If Smart coached Nebo then Nebo would be at the 3 point line setting picks. 

Texas needs to press and run, because their half court offense sucks. 

 

 

 

[jimmyjazz 45958]

7 minutes ago, dogbreath said:

Texas needs to press and run, because their half court offense sucks. 

This is where I become most infuriated with Shaka.  He routinely says things like "our offense needs to come from our defense".  Well, I might be wrong, and someone will correct me if I am, but doesn't that imply turnovers or rebounds and quick baskets?  I mean, it's all well and good if you play tough defense, but if you just dribble up court after a change in possession, then by definition the offense isn't "coming from the defense".  It's simply a change of possession.

WTF happened to "havoc"?  We've never run anything like it.  I understand we had different personnel when Shaka arrived, but for fuck's sake, you still have a team of fairly elite athletes.  Why are they handcuffed?

[Bitterwhiteguy 153]

16 minutes ago, dogbreath said:

First time to watch Texas this season and isn't it ironic that the horns looked mechanical against A&M. 

The team as always with Smart looks like they've had their instincts coached out of them.  To the point that Baker is trying to find his guy on D next to the rim and at the same time the player with the ball is within touching distance and attacking the goal.  Hell, a simple defensive play that exists in 10 year old driveway basketball or pick up hoops anywhere is ignored because . 

Kai Jones is the only one who looks unburdened, just like Hayes and Ramey last year.  

Ramey who showed promise last year looks like something is in his head and Hepa who has an idea of how to play, never gets a chance.  Too slow and no confidence from coaches, I guess.  

The picks set are horrible and there is no rolling.  The offense looks to be designed as a hope and prayer that Febres bails them out with hot shooting.  But with scarce penetration and no effective off the ball movement this team will get killed in conference after B12 coaches watch tape.   

Andrew Jones is a miracle.  Thank god for him.

I would switch coaches with the Ags in a heartbeat.  If Buzz can got that bunch to play hard and organized defense.  If Smart coached Nebo then Nebo would be at the 3 point line setting picks. 

Texas needs to press and run, because their half court offense sucks. 

 

 

 

Their press defense is worse than their half-court defense, it currently ranks in the bottom 14% of D-I per Synergy. They're giving up 1 PPP in press vs 0.775 PPP overall, more pressing is unlikely to provide the result you desire.

[dogbreath 434]

11 minutes ago, Bitterwhiteguy said:

Their press defense is worse than their half-court defense, it currently ranks in the bottom 14% of D-I per Synergy. They're giving up 1 PPP in press vs 0.775 PPP overall, more pressing is unlikely to provide the result you desire.

The result I desire is to get a new coach.  And the b.s. about "you might get somebody worse" doesn't play in this situation.  

This team will not press with it's new defensive assistant, so yeah it's a moot point, but I'll say the Texas half-court offense is equal to watching Blazing Saddles on the Sundance channel.  What could be a potentially enjoyable watch is just muted shit.   

[VinyVango 694]

It is a huge concern to see a regress back to the stagnant stand-around-the-three point line offense with few drives and no guard ever looking to pass inside to a big (when one is inside).  I felt optimistic with the improved fluidity and movement during the NIT games on offense... Where the fuck did that go?  Why are we back to the 1 level pick and stand there offense with absolutely nothing happening off the ball 95% of the time?  Frustrating.  The lack of trips to the FT line, lack of any attempt to show a post-up option to defend, and weak rebounding (after Sims) will be a major problem against teams ranked below 100.

[Burt Macklin 19026]

58 minutes ago, VinyVango said:

It is a huge concern to see a regress back to the stagnant stand-around-the-three point line offense with few drives and no guard ever looking to pass inside to a big (when one is inside).  I felt optimistic with the improved fluidity and movement during the NIT games on offense... Where the fuck did that go?  Why are we back to the 1 level pick and stand there offense with absolutely nothing happening off the ball 95% of the time?  Frustrating.  The lack of trips to the FT line, lack of any attempt to show a post-up option to defend, and weak rebounding (after Sims) will be a major problem against teams ranked below 100.

The tl;dr answer to all your questions: our coach fucking sucks.

[Pancho 44805]

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched us get a rebound, have a 3 on 2 break and slow down all while I’m yelling at the tv GO!!!!  
 

FUCKING GO!

[LTtxfan 49188]

Link:  https://www.nsca.com/education/podcasts/nsca-coaching-podcast/season-3/episode-67/

Edited December 10, 2019 by LTtxfan

[Lerka Lerka 1087]

Tough crowd in here. Can't wait to see how this thread reads after we actually start losing some games. 

[Braff Zacklin 13575]

It's great to be 8-1, but the noncon schedule has been cupcake.

Defense seems to be good and has statistically improved from last year, but it's tough to tell if the new system/coach or the opposition are responsible.

Offense is the reason for so much cynicism. It's nothing we haven't seen before: four or five players hanging around the perimeter, little movement (and less with purpose), and a fusillade of hastily taken 3-pointers that are too often off the mark.

The guards refuse to drive and rarely work the ball inside. (However, it's worth noting that the bigs seem to lack post-up moves.) As a result, the team collectively gets very few free throws (less than 11 per game).

Digging a little deeper, Texas has attempted 519 field goals and made 229 of them (44 percent). Two hundred and forty-one of those attempts were from downtown, which means the Longhorns settle for 3-point shots about half (46 percent) of the time.

That'd be well and good if they were sharpshooters, but they're only converting 32 percent of those shots from BTA. Conversely, they shoot nearly 55 percent inside it.

Long story short, we're a guard-oriented team with guards who aren't particularly good shooters who also don't drive the ball or get to the foul line.

All of this has me worried that the beatdowns will commence once conference play begins. Absolutely hope to be wrong and will celebrate with a heaping helping of crow if so.

[jimmyjazz 45958]

12 minutes ago, Braff Zacklin said:

All of this has me worried that the beatdowns will commence once conference play begins. 

. . . and the reason this is true is that every conference team is expecting it.  Nonconference opponents can get a high level read by watching a bit of film and talking to B12 coaches but it's still no match for years of experience going up against Shaka and his "system".  My hope is that continued growth on the defensive end throws just enough of a wrench in the works to let us compete a bit better.

[Bitterwhiteguy 153]

On 12/10/2019 at 1:45 PM, Braff Zacklin said:

It's great to be 8-1, but the noncon schedule has been cupcake.

Defense seems to be good and has statistically improved from last year, but it's tough to tell if the new system/coach or the opposition are responsible.

Offense is the reason for so much cynicism. It's nothing we haven't seen before: four or five players hanging around the perimeter, little movement (and less with purpose), and a fusillade of hastily taken 3-pointers that are too often off the mark.

The guards refuse to drive and rarely work the ball inside. (However, it's worth noting that the bigs seem to lack post-up moves.) As a result, the team collectively gets very few free throws (less than 11 per game).

Digging a little deeper, Texas has attempted 519 field goals and made 229 of them (44 percent). Two hundred and forty-one of those attempts were from downtown, which means the Longhorns settle for 3-point shots about half (46 percent) of the time.

That'd be well and good if they were sharpshooters, but they're only converting 32 percent of those shots from BTA. Conversely, they shoot nearly 55 percent inside it.

Long story short, we're a guard-oriented team with guards who aren't particularly good shooters who also don't drive the ball or get to the foul line.

All of this has me worried that the beatdowns will commence once conference play begins. Absolutely hope to be wrong and will celebrate with a heaping helping of crow if so.

There are a few things I've been digging into as it relates to the threes to tease out what the most important aspects are of those shots. The first and most important thing to me is that the threes are spot-up threes rather than off the dribble, because college shooters are almost invariably worse at the off the dribble variety; Texas has been up & down in this regard, but I'm seeing less of the off the dribble threes than early in the season so that's an improvement. The second is that as many of the half-court threes as possible need to be generated off of paint touches. This offense works best when they're moving the ball from side to side quickly to create cracks in the defense for Coleman/Ramey (to a lesser extent Andrew Jones) to drive into the paint and either get to the rim or kick out to the open shooter. Open spot up threes off paint touches > spot up threes >>> off the dribble threes

One of the other things I'm focusing on is the average of Coleman + Ramey + A Jones + Febres because they take 80% of the threes and are going to make or break the offensive output with their decisions. The other three-point shooters aren't irrelevant, but matter much less than these four. As a group they're shooting 35.4%, which is decent but not where it needs to be. As a group they need to be averaging 37%+ for this offense to really hit its ceiling.

Coleman 18-36 (50%)

A Jones 19-52 (36.5%)

Febres 23-68 (33.8%)

Ramey 9-39 (23.1%)

Ramey is dragging things down for the group, though he's hit 40% through the last three games (6-16) so he's hopefully showing signs of getting back to who he was last year. Febres needs to be higher since his role is mostly "make threes". Of his 52 possessions considered 'spot-up' shots in Synergy, 8 are classified as off the dribble but I think it's classifying the ones where he pump fakes and takes one dribble to the side before shooting so I'm not too worried about that. (The dribble threes are a bigger issue with Ramey & Jones.) We're also due for a Coleman regression to the mean as he's not going to keep hitting at a 50% clip all year. The wildcard is Andrew Jones; at 36.5% he's more than serviceable, but he was also hitting 46% of his threes before the cancer so we know he's theoretically capable of hitting at a higher rate. If he does, he could counteract Coleman's inevitable regression. If he doesn't, this could continue to be a group that is marginally below where it needs to be.

None of this is meant as a refutation of your larger point about the offense not being where it needs to be, just been digging into this a bit and thought I'd add some bits to it.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Bitterwhiteguy

[Goo Punch 4275]

Fan interest is as low as it's been in 25 years, and aside from our shitty coach and hard-to-watch style of play, this is another major reason for that:



Texas never had a single stretch of schedule this pathetic under He Who Shall Not Be Named, nor under the guy before him, and in fact, I'd be shocked to find a more pathetic stretch of schedule in Texas basketball history. And yet the team still looks like ass. Ugh. Big XII play is going to be ugly. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited December 13, 2019 by Goo Punch

[Red Five 40859]

I watched some of Texas/Providence 2004 last night. It was the most fun I've had watching Texas basketball in years. Seriously, it was like watching a different sport. 

[Goo Punch 4275]

Providence appears to be godawful. They've dropped 20-something spots in KenPom in the last week. They've gotten crushed by every decent team they've played and have struggled even more than we have with the Pepperdine's and Stony Brook's of the world. Florida beat them by 32 tonight. I've seen an alarming number of folks claiming that our terrible non-con is a good thing because of our W/L record and "what it does for the confidence of our team", but i have legit fears that our cupcake schedule might have us in for a very rude awakening when we hit conference play. look at this stretch here:

 

 

we could legit go 3-10 or 4-9 there, and i have a hard time seeing us making the tourney if that happens.

[Revolution512 1487]

Pretty much the same team that beat us at home last year. We will probably lose

[GotThatFire 166]

On 12/14/2019 at 9:29 AM, Red Five said:

I watched some of Texas/Providence 2004 last night. It was the most fun I've had watching Texas basketball in years. Seriously, it was like watching a different sport. 

 Was that the one with the PJ Tucker business at the end? 

[Goo Punch 4275]

27 minutes ago, GotThatFire said:

 Was that the one with the PJ Tucker business at the end? 

yes it was. also the same game where Todd Wright had to be restrained like five people (including some RI cops) as he tried to go into the stands to kill someone. insane game, crazier finish, trashiest fans in all of CBB. 

[GotThatFire 166]

21 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

 Todd Wright had to be restrained like five people (including some RI cops) as he tried to go into the stands to kill someone. insane game, crazier finish, trashiest fans in all of CBB. 

Man I don't remember that at all. Is there video of this

[Braff Zacklin 13575]

Wright goes bananas at about the 1:12:30 mark of this replay.

 

[jimmyjazz 45958]

Great video.  Yikes, the announcers . . . a beating.  Looked like Barnes was about to throw down himself.

I had to google why Rick Pitino was in the crowd.  His son was a manager for Providence.

[Braff Zacklin 13575]

Pitino also coached there in the 80s prior to Barnes.

[Goo Punch 4275]

3 hours ago, GotThatFire said:

Man I don't remember that at all. Is there video of this

yeah, i got to rewatch this game on the LHN some time back and they played the broadcast all the way to the end which included the fracas at the end of the game. hopefully LHN replays it again some time this week. 

edit: shouts out to braff for already having the video posted. man what a shit show that was. one of the craziest games of my lifetime, behind maybe only TJ getting choked out by that Okie Lite douche in Stillwater. 

Edited December 19, 2019 by Goo Punch

[Goo Punch 4275]

holy shit, Tubby Smith is the HC at High Poijt and they are *terrible*.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Revolution512 1487]

On 12/18/2019 at 12:35 PM, Revolution512 said:

Pretty much the same team that beat us at home last year. We will probably lose

Sometimes I hate me

[HtownHorn 14683]

1 hour ago, Goo Punch said:

holy shit, Tubby Smith is the HC at High Poijt and they are *terrible*.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's equal parts amazing how he won a national title, and how far his career has tumbled since that win. He'd also be a better coach than Shaka at Texas.

[Red Five 40859]

His career arc is like Benjamin Button. He'll probably finish as an assistant at some small high school. 

[dcar00 14210]

On 12/9/2019 at 1:13 PM, jimmyjazz said:

This is where I become most infuriated with Shaka.  He routinely says things like "our offense needs to come from our defense".  Well, I might be wrong, and someone will correct me if I am, but doesn't that imply turnovers or rebounds and quick baskets?  I mean, it's all well and good if you play tough defense, but if you just dribble up court after a change in possession, then by definition the offense isn't "coming from the defense".  It's simply a change of possession.

WTF happened to "havoc"?  We've never run anything like it.  I understand we had different personnel when Shaka arrived, but for fuck's sake, you still have a team of fairly elite athletes.  Why are they handcuffed?

I've come to the conclusion that he's pretty much an idiot.  he does the nice regurgitated soundbite thing but it is very obvious he's not smart.  he does little coaching on the sideline in game.

He got to the final four by letting underrecruited guys, who were never "on track" for the NBA, run around and play street ball.  he got here and knew he couldn't recruit higher level players if he didn't run an "offense".  well he apparently is too dumb to know how to coach an actual offense.

[dcar00 14210]

12 hours ago, Goo Punch said:

holy shit, Tubby Smith is the HC at High Poijt and they are *terrible*.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

wait...Tubby Smith now coaches at High Point and once won an NC, Rick Barnes went to High Point and was the HC at Texas,  Shaka Smart replaced Rick Barnes at Texas..ergo Shaka Smart will win an NC.  Its happening!

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

Barnes went to Lenoir Rhyne. Tubby Smith went to High Point which is probably the reason he's coaching there as he nears retirement.  

[LTtxfan 49188]

Cross-posting.... Good Stuff!!

2nd Half of Video starting at about 2:50 mark is about Andrew Jones...

[dcar00 14210]

18 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

Barnes went to Lenoir Rhyne. Tubby Smith went to High Point which is probably the reason he's coaching there as he nears retirement.  

stand corrected.  maybe I confused Hickory(lenoir ryhne location) with High Point. I guess it's not happening.

[Goo Punch 4275]

damn it. we were *that* close. 

[Goo Punch 4275]

Texas' Kenpom rankings over the years:






















Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Goo Punch 4275]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Goo Punch 4275]

well shit. wrong thread. whatever. 

[Goo Punch 4275]

what's funny is that, according to the hard data above, Rick Barnes is not only *not* a defensive coach, but that he's actually much better at coaching/implementing an offense, and in fact is one of the better offensive coaches around. funny that his rep is the exact opposite of that. man I miss watching those TJ and DJ offenses...

Edited December 27, 2019 by Goo Punch

[immortal13 4059]

Post Rick Barnes shit on the Rick Barnes thread

[Saint Austin 745]

Was thinking of making the trip to Waco on Saturday for the Baylor game, but $25 just to get into that dump of an arena with school out of session? That place will be emptier than Christ's tomb.

[dcar00 14210]

On 12/30/2019 at 10:14 AM, Saint Austin said:

Was thinking of making the trip to Waco on Saturday for the Baylor game, but $25 just to get into that dump of an arena with school out of session? That place will be emptier than Christ's tomb.

username checks out

[dcar00 14210]

so for the next 6 games(conf before LSU) what do we think?

0-6 mid season firing coming/pets heads fall off

1-5 unlikely but still possible

2-4 likely/probable

3-3 we might have something here

4-2 holy shit!

[vin2basketball 10]

34 minutes ago, dcar00 said:

so for the next 6 games(conf before LSU) what do we think?

0-6 mid season firing coming/pets heads fall off

1-5 unlikely but still possible

2-4 likely/probable

3-3 we might have something here

4-2 holy shit!

To go 3-3, we'd have to beat OU and KSU at home, then probably win at Oklahoma State (or somehow beat Kansas at home).

Oklahoma seems pretty similar to Texas - got blown out by an okay Stanford team and then lost closer ones to Creighton and Wichita State.

KSU is probably worse than Texas.

Oklahoma State is better than Texas by the metrics but not so far out of reach.

The path to the tourney (I think) looks something like

Beat Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, Oklahoma, and TCU at home (should be doable even with this team's jekyll and hyde act).

Beat Tech, and one of WVU, Kansas, or Baylor at home.

Win at two out of Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, Oklahoma, and TCU on the road.

Beat LSU at home. 

That gets you to 20-11 (9-9) with I think 6 or 7 Q1 wins.

So long as they beat two out of Tech, WVU, Kansas, and Baylor (e.g. win 2/8 tries) + LSU, 8-10 might get you in, though you're probably a play in 12 at that point. 

[justhookit 4191]

So, Mission Impossible?

i mean I get what you are saying but we’ve played like crap at home already this year against some awful teams. Unless we improve dramatically we are going to take some losses at home against teams that are considered upsets. I’ll be shocked if we win 7 conference games.

[Ghost of Shag 2609]

I hope we win exactly zero conference games.

Ok, two. The two against Oklahoma.

Lets get this charade over with already.

Edited January 3, 2020 by Ghost of Shag

[Goo Punch 4275]

people like to call you a bad fan if you say something like that, but if that did happen then Shaka would be fired, and that would be a very good thing for the UT basketball program, so, yeah; i'm right there with you. 

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

Just so we're clear here, if someone disagrees with the above does that make them a Shaka lover? 

[Goo Punch 4275]

no, i just hate the idea that you're a bad fan for wanting what's best for the program. and i'll put it to you like this- when i watch our games under Shaka, i don't sit there and root against us. if i did i would enjoy the games a lot more, lol. i watch the game, mostly dead inside, and when we do look awful and lose i'm just like, "welp, hopefully this leads to him being fired this year." win or lose though, our performance rarely moves the needle for me either way.

that said, if i somehow gained the power to control our conference W/L, i think that beating OU twice and losing every single other game would sound about perfect. 

[VinyVango 694]

I will zealously root for my team and bitch about perceived stupid plays and poor coaching when they occur.

I’ll also expect to be disappointed (which sucks). I anticipate many “welp” moments and hope they are numbed by Baylor tears in the end.

In a scrape by season, I’ll hope that the heat Shaka feels encourages him to accept a job in a much colder climated conference. Absent a second weekend appearance in the NCAA tourney, I hope our AD gives him the boot the day the last game is played.

I think he’s had fair time to get the machine running ... he needs a ceiling year to survive with arguably his most imbalanced roster since his arrive.

I’d like him gone but I’m not rooting against my team.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

9 hours ago, Goo Punch said:

i don't sit there and root against us.

that would probably be a bridge too far, but I think having a resigned expectation of losing and a really cynical amusement when it happens is more or less inevitable at this point

I fucking hate losing to Baylor. But I expect to, and if we do, I'll shrug and say "what are you going to do?" We are handicapping ourselves as a program by employing a twit as our coach. 

[jimmyjazz 45958]

I hate that Baylor has a better coach than we do.  

I give credit to Tech for identifying the right guy, but Drew has been around a whole lot longer and, much like everyone associated with that school, he is a monumental piece of shit.  He's not even that great of a coach.  He's just better than Shaka.  This cannot be argued.  We could argue Barnes VS Drew, but Shaka?  He's not in the game.  It fucking sucks, because at least he's not a criminal-enabling piece of shit, which I don't want coaching my school's team, but for fuck's sake.