Fire Shaka Smart

[Barry_McCokiner 160]

3 minutes ago, Blotto said:

So you're looking at about 18 million in buyout fees plus giving beard a raise over what he makes at Tech. All of this for a guy with two tourney appearances 4 years as a div 1 head coach. That's a pretty big gamble.

Yep.  Not my money, but I agree.

[texasstrong12 4668]

4 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

He's been an extremely successful coach pretty much everywhere he's been, he's just never been known as a defensive guy. Rick Barnes needed help with his offenses all of the time as he didn't have an offensive system but rather was always building around his personnel. And as I just mentioned John Beilein, one of the better coaches around, realized that he needed to upgrade defensively and went out and got himself a defensive specialist, and his last two Michigan teams are arguably the two best teams he's ever had in his coaching career. Musselman would succeed here, but how much so would depend on his defensive coaching hires. 

The problem with Mussleman is he's probably going to be in play at UCLA and Arizona if they decide to move on from Sean Miller. 

 

[Knoxtnhorn 6262]

Ouch.

charlie and shaka are peas in a pod. shaka gets a lot of cred for the f-four and should. charlie should get the same cred for a solid bcs win over florida. both built sound programs at difficult places to do that.

both are incredible hires. hats off to everybody who helped make that happen

Curlydumps, btw.

Edited March 11, 2019 by Knoxtnhorn

[Katfid54 9005]

[Lerka Lerka 1095]

Just now, Katfid54 said:

I hate gifs that have text that don't follow what is being said in the gif.  That gif is the perfect example. 

[Machinator 32102]

There were two relatively prescient posters in that thread: Clear Lake Horn and Lone Star.

Quote

Don't get me wrong, I like the guy. I like his enthusiasm and I like his support of education. His teams will be fun to watch. And he'll be a sight better than Barnes.

But he never won an Atlantic-10 or Colonial conference title. Why should I think that all of a sudden he'll be beating Kansas and Oklahoma?

Quote

I'd be lying if i didn't say i was thinking the same thing. Love the enthusiasm, absolutely think from a PR standpoint he is a splash hire, and is a young coach, but...

Both Anthony Grant and Jeff Capel were more successful in the Colonial Athletics Association than Smart. Smart inherited a great set up where his team had won the conference in 4 of the previous 7 years (and the tourny champ in 3 of those 4 years). Smart had his best two tournament successes in his first 2 years with Grant's guys. Smart is a good recruiter and the name recognition should help him to land some studs while he is here, but in the A-10 he was pulling vastly supperior talent to his peer institutions and it never really transalated. This year something like half his squad had been on the ESPN 100 list and most were 3-4 star guys...the team that won conference didn't have even 1 4 star player...mainly 2-3 stars. 

I'm cautiously optimistic, but there are red flags.

 

Edited March 11, 2019 by Machinator

[texasstrong12 4668]

Yeah, not sure I would touch a VCU coach at this point. Rhoades is having success there now. That location/recruiting area must have a bunch of under the radar talent. 

Granted, Wade looked to be on the right track at LSU before all the cheating allegations. 

Edited March 11, 2019 by texasstrong12

[Machinator 32102]

VCU and Butler are two mid-majors that seem to have a quality program no matter who is the coach.

[PilotsError 2339]

Another data point that "splash hires" are regarded and for GMs/ADs just trying to justify the move to the press.

[texasstrong12 4668]

9 minutes ago, PilotsError said:

Another data point that "splash hires" are regarded and for GMs/ADs just trying to justify the move to the press.

The problem is they label too many hires as a "splash hire". 

Someone like Beard is a really good coach but as said above has a limited resume. You can bet almost everyone in the media will label that as a "splash hire" if it happens. Maybe some people agree with that. 

Even with Shaka, it was probably a good hire even though it hasn't worked out. But it was never a "splash hire" based on his resume. I think when you have bad teams (like at the end of Barnes tenure and Shaka) you tend to hype the next coach. I'm guilty of that so it's not a shot at anyone else. 

Edited March 11, 2019 by texasstrong12

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

2 minutes ago, Machinator said:

VCU and Butler are two mid-majors that seem to have a quality program no matter who is the coach.

They had one great run from 79-85 where they were ranked in the top 20 a couple years after the tournaments. Then they sucked till Capel came to town followed by Grant, Smart, Wade and now Rhoades (who says this is where he wants to be for a long time, his wife is from Richmond, and she wants him to stay with their 2 young girls ).  

He'll get COY in the A-10 for sure. He's  made defense priority no.1 and wiped other teams off the floor with a renewed form of uber good defensive HAVOC.  

 The fans follow the program now, it has a good/decent arena, and a great practice facility (thanks Shaka).  A guy can build a career at a school like VCU because it's big (27k students) has a good facilities, no football to compete with (and hopefully none in the future) and the school is invested in the program.  The president attends just about every home game.

[Machinator 32102]

Fans were sick of Barnes' teams flaming out in the tournament in the 2010s, so naturally they (myself included) latched onto the ultimate tournament coach.

The problem is that it's hard to consistently make noise in March if you can't win from November to February.

[Red Five 41613]

I know hindsight is 20/20 but perhaps in retrospect abandoning his entire coaching philosophy was a bad idea.

[Wally Pryor 5388]

8 hours ago, 76Jayhawk said:

Scott Drew, another coach everyone loves to shit on, has gotten really good at this coaching thing. He makes much fewer mistakes down in crunch time now and gets the most out of his players. Baylor was picked to finish 9th in the league this year, and they got 4th. This after losing one of their best players. 

Better go a little deeper on Drew. 

7 of the 9 players in Baylor’s rotation didn't play a single minute for them last season. Three are freshmen & four are transfers, including one from a DIII school. Zero Top-50 recruits (247sports).  (Credit Jason King a couple weeks back.)

 

 

[texasstrong12 4668]

 

[Catdaddyhorn 3462]

I know hindsight is 20/20 but perhaps in retrospect abandoning his entire coaching philosophy was a bad idea.

Definitely
I know there were rule changes regarding the halo rule and trapping, but going the other way was a poor decision on his part.

[Goo Punch 4275]

1 hour ago, Red Five said:

I know hindsight is 20/20 but perhaps in retrospect abandoning his entire coaching philosophy was a bad idea.

always reminds me of Norm Macdonald on Conan, talking about how they took Carrot Top's props away from him for his first motion picture. "Kind of a bad time to go away from everything you know", or something like that.

edit: hell, may as well post it-

double edit- turns out Conan said it; still funny. 

 

Edited March 12, 2019 by Goo Punch

[Guest]

2 hours ago, PilotsError said:

Another data point that "splash hires" are regarded and for GMs/ADs just trying to justify the move to the press.

If not a splash hire, then who?

Gotta grow your own, or what?

Not arguing, just trying to understand where there is some underpaid coach who has made runs in the NCAAT more than 4-5 times. Roy Williams is about the only guy I can think of who was truly accomplished and jumped ship. Other guys who were in trouble or facing possible sanctions changed schools.

What are y'all saying is the right approach in hiring?  I think no matter what your AD does, he's fucked with regard to hoops.

Edited March 12, 2019 by slorch

[LTtxfan 49915]

1 hour ago, texasstrong12 said:

 

Currie doesn't officially start at Wake Forest until May 2nd..... May be tricky to swing a deal for Shaka if Currie wants him now??

 

[Goo Punch 4275]

On 3/10/2019 at 9:36 AM, Goo Punch said:

this deserves mention here:. 

 

 

the long and short of it is that James Banks played for Georgia Tech this year and, statistically speaking, he was more or less the equal of Tristan Thompson during his year at Texas. 

So, despite perpetually losing while having a short bench that he refuses to play, Shaka in four years has lost Taylor, Allen, Bamba, and Hayes to early entry, Barnett (13.7 ppg, 5.9 reb, 41% 3P%, 90% FT% at Mizzou), Banks, and Young to transfer, Tevin Mack and Kerwin Roach to suspension and/or transfer, and EDJ to scandal. On top of losing Ridley and AJ1 to injury and cancer. 

WHAT A CLUSTERFUCK. 99% of CBB fans and probably 90% of Texas fans seriously don't understand the levels to this shit. the stunning levels to this man's incompetence in nearly every area of coaching a major D-1 basketball team. Unreal.

James Banks led the ACC in blocks and was named to the ACC All Defense team in his first year as a starter.

 

 

Edited March 12, 2019 by Goo Punch

[Goo Punch 4275]

EDJ

Young

Mack

Barnett

Banks

 

at leas half the coaches in this league could beat Shaka and Texas with that starting five 

[VirginiaLonghorn 4878]

4 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

EDJ

Young

Mack

Barnett

Banks

 

at leas half the coaches in this league could beat Shaka and Texas with that starting five 

Why insult the other half? 

[Huckleberry 34408]

Any chance we can tie Shaka to the admissions scandal? Who's a walk-on at the end of our bench?

[Machinator 32102]

Just now, Huckleberry said:

Any chance we can tie Shaka to the admissions scandal? Who's a walk-on at the end of our bench?

Do any of the walk-ons play tennis?

[Burt Macklin 19221]

11 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

EDJ

Young

Mack

Barnett

Banks

 

at leas half the coaches in this league could beat Shaka and Texas with that starting five 

Everyone agrees Shaka is a good recruiter, which is true, insofar as he’s good at landing the guys he targets. But a huge aspect of overall recruiting is evaluating, and Shaka’s proven to be pretty horrible in that regard. Look at the guys Shaka’s signed that aren’t 5 stars or close to it: Jacob Young, Royce Hamm, Banks, Coleman, Simms, Febres. The jury’s still out on the 2018 class (and I generally like the takes from that one). obviously Hayes was a great eval, but overall, Shaka’s evaluating has been pretty poor, especially when you look at the list of guys from Texas chose to pass up, like Edwards, Zaire Smith, Culver, etc.

Obviously development is a huge factor, which I’d say falls more under coaching, but the 2-4 year guys Shaka recruited in his first couple classes are pretty underwhelming.

Edited March 12, 2019 by Burt Macklin

[VirginiaLonghorn 4878]

5 minutes ago, Machinator said:

Do any of the walk-ons play tennis?

Do any play basketball?

[HtownHorn 15243]

55 minutes ago, Burt Macklin said:

Everyone agrees Shaka is a good recruiter, which is true, insofar as he’s good at landing the guys he targets. But a huge aspect of overall recruiting is evaluating, and Shaka’s proven to be pretty horrible in that regard. Look at the guys Shaka’s signed that aren’t 5 stars or close to it: Jacob Young, Royce Hamm, Banks, Coleman, Simms, Febres. The jury’s still out on the 2018 class (and I generally like the takes from that one). obviously Hayes was a great eval, but overall, Shaka’s evaluating has been pretty poor, especially when you look at the list of guys from Texas chose to pass up, like Edwards, Zaire Smith, Culver, etc.

Obviously development is a huge factor, which I’d say falls more under coaching, but the 2-4 year guys Shaka recruited in his first couple classes are pretty underwhelming.

Edwards, Smith, and Culver would likely look like Young, Febres, and Coleman after being developed by Smart.

[Catdaddyhorn 3462]

Everyone agrees Shaka is a good recruiter, which is true, insofar as he’s good at landing the guys he targets. But a huge aspect of overall recruiting is evaluating, and Shaka’s proven to be pretty horrible in that regard. Look at the guys Shaka’s signed that aren’t 5 stars or close to it: Jacob Young, Royce Hamm, Banks, Coleman, Simms, Febres. The jury’s still out on the 2018 class (and I generally like the takes from that one). obviously Hayes was a great eval, but overall, Shaka’s evaluating has been pretty poor, especially when you look at the list of guys from Texas chose to pass up, like Edwards, Zaire Smith, Culver, etc.
Obviously development is a huge factor, which I’d say falls more under coaching, but the 2-4 year guys Shaka recruited in his first couple classes are pretty underwhelming.

Shaka recruited Smith, Beard just won that battle. Partly due to recruiting Smith for a longer period of time and partly due to Beard having a prior relationship with Zhaire Smith's high school coach. All in all the biggest miss to me is Jacob Young over Carsen Edwards. That miss is egregious in my eyes. Shaka was already recruiting his AAU teammate De'Aaron Fox extremely hard that first summer so missing on him for the likes of Young is a total WTF. Trae Young had an offer and visited as well, but not sure he liked the idea of playing alongside Coleman (Shaka was taking Coleman regardless of how many guards he took that year). His guard evals have been his biggest flaw IMO.
Funny thing is with Barnes we probably get both De'Aaron Fox and Edwards, to go along with Allen that year, but miss out on Andrew Jones.

[Burt Macklin 19221]

6 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

Edwards, Smith, and Culver would likely look like Young, Febres, and Coleman after being developed by Smart.

Development certainly plays a role, but this is nonsense. Edwards and Young aren’t comparable. It’s likely Edwards wouldn’t be this good if under Shaka but it’s not all on development. Shaka picked the wrong recruit on that one.

[Catdaddyhorn 3462]

I'll only say this in Shaka's defense. Edwards committed to Purdue 2 or 3 months after Shaka was hired and I believe the Jacob Young take was about satisfying the Houston AAU community as much as anything else. Still was a "bad decision coach"

 

 

 

 

[Tired Horn 828]

41 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

I'll only say this in Shaka's defense. Edwards committed to Purdue 2 or 3 months after Shaka was hired and I believe the Jacob Young take was about satisfying the Houston AAU community as much as anything else. Still was a "bad decision coach"

 

 

 

 

I'll never say anything in Shaka's defense. It's a matter of principle for his having made me watch such relentlessly shitty basketball.

[VirginiaLonghorn 4878]

6 minutes ago, Tired Horn said:

I'll never say anything in Shaka's defense. It's a matter of principle for his having made me watch such relentlessly shitty basketball.

See ... that’s the problem. Feeling that you have to watch his shitty brand of basketball. 

The reality is no one should feel they have to watch.  Just don’t ... and that’s the message for CDC. 

[Blotto 23975]

18 minutes ago, Tired Horn said:

I'll never say anything in Shaka's defense. It's a matter of principle for his having made me watch such relentlessly shitty basketball.

I used to be the same way, but a couple of weeks ago we were playing Baylor in a basketball match. Up 19 in the second half, it seemed that a trip to the NCAA's was all locked up. 

But I've seen this movie before. As the lead started evaporating, I could see the shit starting to drip down our collective legs. Jumped on my online sportsbook and grabbed in game action for Baylor to win at +700. You could practically hear their sphincter tightening over the roar of the Baylor faithful. 

So in Shaka's defense, I would say that he is so predictably fucking terrible, you can make some money if you're paying attention.

Edited March 12, 2019 by Blotto

[Pancho 46085]

 

[Radical Larry 28815]

If Buzz is on CDC’s wishlist, he better act now.

[DeadArmadillo 907]

7 minutes ago, Pancho Negro said:

 

Texags list will include:

1) Popovich

2) Krzyzewski

3) Izzo

4) Kerr

5) Wright

But at least a few will be willing to settle for Beard

[Catdaddyhorn 3462]

16 minutes ago, Radical Larry said:

If Buzz is on CDC’s wishlist, he better act now.

I really don't get all the Buzz hype. His resume isn't so exceedingly impressive that we should jump the gun on him in lieu of considering other candidates and making an informed decision. In all honesty, his resume is the exact type of resume that if he's not successful will have us looking back on it and wondering what all the hype was for. 

[Machinator 32102]

Thread started on the Virginia Tech 247 board 1 hour ago already has 60 replies. They're scared.

https://247sports.com/college/virginia-tech/Board/59428/Contents/Billy-Kennedy-out-at-Texas-AM-130001067/

Edited March 13, 2019 by Machinator

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

4 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

I really don't get all the Buzz hype. His resume isn't so exceedingly impressive that we should jump the gun on him in lieu of considering other candidates and making an informed decision. In all honesty, his resume is the exact type of resume that if he's not successful will have us looking back on it and wondering what all the hype was for. 

Exactly. He seems like a good coach. There's nothing on his resume to mark him as a great coach. He's not a break-the-bank type, like Mike Kryzyzewski was in 1988, or Pitino was after Kentucky. 

There's always a small part of me that looks at a coach who's willing to work @ A&M and thinks, "bad fit for UT" anyway, so if he considers it, it's sort of guilt by association. 

[CurlyDumps 4618]

On 3/11/2019 at 2:51 PM, Knoxtnhorn said:

Ouch.

charlie and shaka are peas in a pod. shaka gets a lot of cred for the f-four and should. charlie should get the same cred for a solid bcs win over florida. both built sound programs at difficult places to do that.

both are incredible hires. hats off to everybody who helped make that happen

Curlydumps, btw.

If only I had stopped there...

I don't remember posting this at all, but I do specifically remember posting "Shaka will win a national championship at Texas" in the afterglow of a big win in year 1.  Looking over the schedule, it was probably the win over #3 UNC.

I bet that game thread has some fucking gold in it too.

 

[Brian Fantana 6856]

The best troll would be convincing aggy to hire him somehow

[Goo Punch 4275]

35 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

I really don't get all the Buzz hype. His resume isn't so exceedingly impressive that we should jump the gun on him in lieu of considering other candidates and making an informed decision. In all honesty, his resume is the exact type of resume that if he's not successful will have us looking back on it and wondering what all the hype was for. 

his resume is pretty damn impressive and he's a native Texan in his 40's. Of all the viable candidates he's the one I could see staying here for 20 years. He steadily improved year upon year at Marquette and after he got his own recruits into the program for 2-3 years he won the Big East in back to back years when the league was very very good. He recruited the likes of Jae Crowder and Jimmy Butler to the school, and then later he won the league for a second consecutive year with a team that had none of that star power, but a ton of useful, well developed players. That's legitimate success, and the numbers back up that his teams were legit.

Now he's doing the same thing at Va Tech, getting them better and better year upon year. A guy in his 40's who's from this area who knows the state with that type of resume seems like a slam dunk to me. It's not CFB where there's an endless list of high level coaches who could be persuaded to come to Texas rather easily, it's CBB where splash hires just don't happen, and when they do, well, you get Shaka Smart a lot of the time. Buzz checks off more boxes than probably any other realistic candidate we have. I really don't want him going to A&M. I want him here. 

Edited March 13, 2019 by Goo Punch

[Goo Punch 4275]

i think y'all are all wrong about Buzz. The more research i've done the more i've liked him. He's been steadily climbing my list and he's damn near the top now. Having success like he's had in the Big East and ACC is no joke, and again, he's 46 and from Texas. I wouldn't be surprised if his Texas confections led to Jimmy Butler ending up at Marquette. I'd be thrilled to have him. 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

29 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

I really don't get all the Buzz hype. His resume isn't so exceedingly impressive that we should jump the gun on him in lieu of considering other candidates and making an informed decision. In all honesty, his resume is the exact type of resume that if he's not successful will have us looking back on it and wondering what all the hype was for. 

The fact he's been able to get kids to come to VT to play basketball, and gotten them in the top 20 is damned impressive.  He's beaten Duke 3 straight x @ home.  That does not happen to Duke often. He can win and coach it seems.

[Goo Punch 4275]

Also I like that he's a real JUCO guy. He played at a JUCO, started his coaching career there, and he got Crowder and Butler to Marquette via the JUCO ranks, so he has a certain reputation and cache among JUCO recruits. One of VT's important players (Ty Outlaw, 29 mpg, .464 3P%) is another JUCO transfer he's gotten. I've always wished that Texas were better at utilizing the Juco ranks to fill gaps and perhaps even sign legit players like Crowder and Butler. 

[MAUFRAIS 6734]

Like pecan pralines and shit?

[VolenteHawk 495]

Shaka was right to change styles. He wasn’t going to get the talent he needed to compete with the big boys in the Big 12 playing havoc. He’d have been a poor man’s West Virginia. It didn’t work, but that doesn’t make the strategy wrong. But rest easy, because he gone.

Buzz Williams is the best reasonable option for the next guy for many reason. You can make some guys that will say no your first call to hear it (Few, Beard), but Buzz should be the focus.

Edited March 13, 2019 by VolenteHawk

[Catdaddyhorn 3462]

Jay Wright and Mark Few are the shoot for the stars, paradigm changing hires. But that's dreamland so if it came down to it I'd rather have Ben Howland over Buzz. I'm not anti-Buzz, but if we're going to go after someone in that blah, blah no frills coaching category I'd rather get someone who has proven accomplishments like Howland. Ben Howland would be a Lon Krueger type of high floor hire. 

Edited March 13, 2019 by Catdaddyhorn

[Disco Missile 456]

 

On 3/11/2019 at 3:21 PM, texasstrong12 said:

The problem is they label too many hires as a "splash hire". 

Someone like Beard is a really good coach but as said above has a limited resume. You can bet almost everyone in the media will label that as a "splash hire" if it happens. Maybe some people agree with that. 

Even with Shaka, it was probably a good hire even though it hasn't worked out. But it was never a "splash hire" based on his resume. I think when you have bad teams (like at the end of Barnes tenure and Shaka) you tend to hype the next coach. I'm guilty of that so it's not a shot at anyone else. 

 

We saw this same kind of pessimism when Charlie got fired. Charlie Strong had a better resume than Herman and he was a 'splash hire', therefore Herman is a shitty coach too. On paper their resumes had a lot in common, but there are subtle differences that you can look for. Charlie's success had a lot to do with one star player running amok in the Big East. Herman's success wasn't tied to one player. Even though Charlie had a phenomenal work ethic, he lacked Herman's desire for perfection and his specific vision he wanted to implement. And without putting too fine a point on it, Charlie said and did some things that demonstrated that he probably didn't have what it took to run a massive, complex organization like Texas and even though it was only apparent to fans after the fact, the people that interviewed him should have noticed it right off.

I don't know Beard that well and I can't explain why Shaka fizzled out here, but just because they look similar on paper doesn't mean they're the same. Is Beard's success tied to a program or a conference like Shaka's was, or even to a single player? Does he have a vision he wants to implement and a probable likelihood of doing it? Does he have a method to achieve his goals? If so he's a different animal and worthy of a good hard look.

[Goo Punch 4275]

7 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

Jay Wright and Mark Few are the shoot for the stars, paradigm changing hires. But that's dreamland so if it came down to it I'd rather have Ben Howland over Buzz. I'm not anti-Buzz, but if we're going to go after someone in that blah, blah no frills coaching category I'd rather get someone who has proven accomplishments like Howland. Ben Howland would be a Lon Krueger type of high floor hire. 

Buzz's current resume >>>> Barnes' resume when we hired him.