Fire Shaka Smart

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

11 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

imo, tournament success is a terrible way of judging team quality.  

good thing Shaka has all these Big 12 regular season titles to fall back on

[Fozzz 152]

4 minutes ago, ztejas said:

Were you told that in a bar in Lawrence?

i think it's a good rule of thumb (in sports generally) to utilize the largest sample size available when judging the quality of a team.  

[Huckleberry 34647]

1 hour ago, Fozzz said:

As much as some on this board like to point out certain offensive statistics for this team as being extreme outliers, it appears the biggest statistical outlier is the difference between the team's expected and actual winning percentages (334th in basketball), or in other words, its horrible luck.  

2015-16: #118, +.022
2016-17: #348, -.105
2017-18: #263, -.030
2018-19: #334, -.108

I appreciate that you try to look at advanced statistics, but you need to be able to apply a discerning eye to them a bit more. That right there is a definite trend.

56 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

I would bet there is very little correlation between a team's winning % and their winning % in close games, with close games being more of a coin flip.   Shaka has had plenty of lucky and unlucky seasons as HC, so his teams do not demonstrate any kind of skill with respect to outperforming/underperforming their expected winning %s.  Most likely his team, which is actually pretty good, has just been unlucky this year.

His Texas teams have demonstrated the skill of being unlucky, in your words. I think it's reasonable to expect some sort of regression toward the mean, but expecting Shaka Smart teams to average out at 0 in that metric seems like way overshooting the data we have.

[Fozzz 152]

Why would you only reference his seasons at Texas?  Did he develop a skill for underperforming his expected winning % when he came to coach here? At VCU he had three "lucky" seasons and two "unlucky" seasons, so overall as a head coach he is 4-5 in terms of lucky and unlucky seasons, which isn't meaningful of anything.     

Moreover, obviously even if Kenpom"s "luck" component was 100% noise, we would still expect many coaches to be lucky and others unlucky throughout their careers as a function of natural variance.  

 

 

Edited January 15, 2019 by Fozzz

[Huckleberry 34647]

Because coaching in a power conference with a decent to good team should and does present a far greater number of close games than coaching in a weak conference with a decent to good team. Therefore there is a much higher percentage of close games which would theoretically be affected by luck or by factors which lead to an imbalance of wins and losses in close games.

[Machinator 32103]

Does the KenPom "luck" stat correlate to close game performance?

[Burt Macklin 19230]

I think another way to say this is that it’s hard to differentiate Luck from poor situational coaching. We’ve consistently had terrible organization and composure in late games. Sometimes Kerwin or someone else makes a great individual play, but in general our let game execution is poor and results in performances like we saw against OSU and KU.

[perfectchaos007 6780]

Here’s why Kansas keeps winning the conference. Good situational coaching in close games

 

https://twitter.com/jessenewell/status/1085046446540419073?s=20

[smwhorn 485]

1 hour ago, Fozzz said:

Of course, this team isn't perfect, and there have been some pretty big fuck ups this season.  But, imo, it appears to be a top 30 team and probably Shaka's best team at Texas.

are you related by blood or marriage to Shaka ?

[Valmy77 13626]

2 hours ago, Fozzz said:

But, imo, it appears to be a top 30 team and probably Shaka's best team at Texas.

You predict we are going to finish with 11 or more wins in the conference?  We'll see. A long way to go still.

[jinx 2636]

1 hour ago, Fozzz said:

imo, tournament success is a terrible way of judging team quality.  

I would agree with that, but 10-7 at this point in the season with losses to VCU and Radford would seem to be an indication of something.  Forgive me if I don't hold out hope that our next coach is just lucky.

Bill Self must be one lucky SOB.

2 hours ago, Fozzz said:

Of course, this team isn't perfect, and there have been some pretty big fuck ups this season.  But, imo, it appears to be a top 30 team and probably Shaka's best team at Texas.

I would agree with the highlighted parts, it is sad that this team isn't reaching their apparent potential (must be bad luck).  But Shaka's best team was the first one, because he was only able to inflict one year of coaching damage on them, in my opinion.

I don't like to come on here to argue, but I am baffled by the position you are trying to stake.  Is it performance art?

[Machinator 32103]

With Cameltoe gone and greggym nowhere to be found on this board, we needed someone to be the dissenter.

[dcar00 14963]

gotta give it up for the Fozzz's troll job.  first rate,  ayyyyyyyy!

[Goo Punch 4275]

3 hours ago, Fozzz said:

As much as some on this board like to point out certain offensive statistics for this team as being extreme outliers, it appears the biggest statistical outlier is the difference between the team's expected and actual winning percentages (334th in basketball), or in other words, its horrible luck.  

outliers? being ranked in the 200's and 300's in nearly every measurable offensive statistic for three straight years is the exact opposite of an outlier. jesus.

who are you? you've suddenly appeared from nowhere with a litany of asinine excuses for why literally nothing is shaka smart's fault. at half time of the game last night when our team had finally played some decent ball and shot it well, your exact comment was, "way to go shaka." the fuck? what, did he tell them to make their shots in that half or something?

seriously- who are you, and why won't you stop trolling every single thread? don't you think maybe our luck would improve if the entire team weren't completely inept offensively, year after year after year? bad luck my ass. our bad luck was hiring steve patterson, and more recently it was you popping up to replace cameltoe the moment he was finally booted.

Edited January 15, 2019 by Goo Punch

[Goo Punch 4275]

10 minutes ago, Machinator said:

With Cameltoe gone and greggym nowhere to be found on this board, we needed someone to be the dissenter.

don't forget TexasStrong12 who also magically disappeared from this board after years of berating people who didn't believe in Shaka, or DO, or Sims, or the 2016 team, or that every single recruit who we've signed would become an all american...

interesting to see that these people leaving the board has correlated with a major uptick in civil and substantive discussion around here. 

Edited January 15, 2019 by Goo Punch

[Burt Macklin 19230]

Being “unlucky” is hard to separate from poor situational coaching. In this case, Shaka has shown his teams will consistently exhibit poor coaching in close games. Just look at the end of the OSU and KU games. Utterly absurdly poor execution late in games.

 

in fact, the only outlier is our best year in 2015 when late game execution was as simple as telling Isaiah Taylor to drive and make something good happen. 

[Pancho 46308]

As of today:

58-55 overall (51% winning percentage)

24-34 in the Big 12. (41% winning percentage)

 

 

(did i do the math right there?)

[Goo Punch 4275]

3 minutes ago, Pancho Negro said:

As of today:

58-55 overall (51% winning percentage)

24-34 in the Big 12. (41% winning percentage)

 

 

(did i do the math right there?)

man, that's a lot of bad luck. maybe if we can start recruiting really well some of that will change. 

d'oh.

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

7 minutes ago, Pancho Negro said:

As of today:

58-55 overall (51% winning percentage)

24-34 in the Big 12. (41% winning percentage)

 

 

(did i do the math right there?)

I'm not gonna look it up, how far off could you possibly be?

[Goo Punch 4275]

I thought this was interesting-



•Our one major contributor is spazzy, inconsistent, and lacking in basketball skill and acumen

•Our next biggest contributor is someone who i truly believe should not be playing basketball; i sincerely believe that he plays out of obligation, and that his heart is not in it at all

•Our next two guys either started the season in the bench or they still do come off the bench. Ramey reminds me somewhat of a larger Terry Rozier, someone who should have a bigger role and more PT

•Then we see that our starting PG and our best overall player fall into the "role player" category, well behind the likes of Roach and DO who have bled for the program and who will be gone in a couple of months

•Now we see that our one and only shooter is classified under "limited roles", despite our offense being predicated around three point shooting.

The posters here might not know as much about basketball as Shaka Smart, but I doubt there's anyone here who looks at that usage and thinks, "yep, that sounds about right."



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Goo Punch 4275]

also a subscription to kenpom is $20/year. if you don't have one, get one. 

[ClubWhatever 12306]

Next level personnel management CDC...

Men's Basketball vs. No. 20 Oklahoma
presented by Pest Management
Saturday, Jan. 19 at 7 p.m.

[Goo Punch 4275]

3 minutes ago, ClubWhatever said:

Next level personnel management CDC...

Men's Basketball vs. No. 20 Oklahoma
presented by Pest Management
Saturday, Jan. 19 at 7 p.m.

would have been better vs TCU.

[freyguy 4368]

/rickbarnescurse

 

(sigh)

[Fozzz 152]

3 hours ago, Huckleberry said:

Because coaching in a power conference with a decent to good team should and does present a far greater number of close games than coaching in a weak conference with a decent to good team. Therefore there is a much higher percentage of close games which would theoretically be affected by luck or by factors which lead to an imbalance of wins and losses in close games.

At best, this explanation would imply a greater amount of variance in luck relative to his time at VCU, not that some underlying deficiency in his coaching is driving his bad luck at Texas.

To really make this work you would need to compile a sample of all D1 coaches (or a large random sample of such) over long period of time (say 5-10 consecutive seasons) and run some statistical testing on that sample to determine if there really is a "skill" to over/under performing expected winning% (maybe there is a skill to pulling out close games that can be teased out from the sample), and what sample is needed before anything can learned about a particular coach's skill in that regard.  If you could do that then you could potentially adjust a team's expected winning% in view of the coach's skill in over/under performing said expected winning %.  I have seen nothing of this sort, and thus trying to lay the blame for our team's bad luck at Shaka's feet is just baseless speculation intended to traduce the man.  

 

[Goo Punch 4275]

what's really crazy about all of this- if he goes out and finds a legitimate assistant to choreograph and teach his offense then Shaka probably would have been successful here. His assistant hires have been a joke. Bringing in young and inexperienced cronies has not fixed a damn thing.

[Fozzz 152]

1 hour ago, Goo Punch said:

outliers? being ranked in the 200's and 300's in nearly every measurable offensive statistic for three straight years is the exact opposite of an outlier. jesus.

who are you? you've suddenly appeared from nowhere with a litany of asinine excuses for why literally nothing is shaka smart's fault. at half time of the game last night when our team had finally played some decent ball and shot it well, your exact comment was, "way to go shaka." the fuck? what, did he tell them to make their shots in that half or something?

seriously- who are you, and why won't you stop trolling every single thread? don't you think maybe our luck would improve if the entire team weren't completely inept offensively, year after year after year? bad luck my ass. our bad luck was hiring steve patterson, and more recently it was you popping up to replace cameltoe the moment he was finally booted.

That's what I meant - that we are an outlier in those stats with respect to D1 averages, not that they were outliers to our normal performance or whatever.  

It is a sad commentary on our "fans" that when someone wishes to defend our team and coaching staff he is immediately labeled a "troll" and viciously attacked.

Edited January 15, 2019 by Fozzz

[Katfid54 9005]

Charlie's football teams had really bad "luck," too, but our "luck" has changed with Herman at the helm.

Turns out coaching (preparation, scheme, drilling, etc.) creates--or at least drastically affects--a team's luck, even with all other things being equal.

Go find a team with similar stats to ours and a better than expected "luck" record, and I'll bet dollars to donuts that they have a good coach.

[Goo Punch 4275]

2 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

At best, this explanation would imply a greater amount of variance in luck relative to his time at VCU, not that some underlying deficiency in his coaching is driving his bad luck at Texas.

To really make this work you would need to compile a sample of all D1 coaches (or a large random sample of such) over long period of time (say 5-10 consecutive seasons) and run some statistical testing on that sample to determine if there really is a "skill" to over/under performing expected winning% (maybe there is a skill to pulling out close games that can be teased out from the sample), and what sample is needed before anything can learned about a particular coach's skill in that regard.  If you could do that then you could potentially adjust a team's expected winning% in view of the coach's skill in over/under performing said expected winning %.  I have seen nothing of this sort, and thus trying to lay the blame for our team's bad luck at Shaka's feet is just baseless speculation intended to traduce the man.  

 

wow. 

tra·duce

/trəˈd(y)o͞os/

verb

1. speak badly of or tell lies about (someone) so as to damage their reputation.

   "it was regarded as respectable political tactics to traduce him"

   synonyms:

   defame, slander, speak ill of, speak evil of, gossip about, misrepresent, malign, vilify, calumniate, denigrate, disparage, slur, decry, sully, impugn, smear, besmirch, dishonor, back-bite, revile, run down, blacken the name of, cast aspersions on;More

    

   Blaming Shaka for his own end-game ineptitude is nothing more than lying about him to damage his reputation. I gotta hand it to you, when you go for it you really go for it.

   There's a much more simple measure we could take which isn't at all theoretical, and I would gladly do it if i had the means and ability to do so. Simply go find the tape of every single late-game possession we've had with the game in the balance, and as everyone here knows you will repeatedly see plays which are either poorly drawn up or poorly executed, often times both. That's not bad luck, it's poor coaching. period.

[ztejas 44227]

2 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

That's what I meant - that we are an outlier in those stats with respect to D1 averages, not that they were outliers to our normal performance or whatever.  

It is a sad commentary on our "fans" that when someone wishes to defend our team and coaching staff he is immediately labeled a "troll" and viciously attacked.

I don't think you're a troll, I just don't think you really understand what you're talking about and are applying cherry-picked metrics to arrive at a strange conclusion. 

Basketball is not played on a spreadsheet. Going by SRS there are always some teams in the NBA that win "more" than they should and lose "more" than they should. Some of it is variance, but a lot of it has to do with coaching and whether those teams are closing out games or not. 

[Fozzz 152]

I didn't deny that he fucks up final possessions in close games, many coaches do.  I simply noted that there is no evidentiary basis for drawing a connection between our bad luck and any skill of Shaka's, which is obviously true.  

[Goo Punch 4275]

2 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

That's what I meant - that we are an outlier in those stats with respect to D1 averages, not that they were outliers to our normal performance or whatever.  

It is a sad commentary on our "fans" that when someone wishes to defend our team and coaching staff he is immediately labeled a "troll" and viciously attacked.

first off, nobody has viciously attacked you, and second, for someone who appears to be reasonably intelligent you're displaying a lack of self awareness. you go out of your way to bring shaka into the conversation, you go out of your way to defend him, your arguments say that he is essentially blameless for any shortcomings within his own program, and then you feel persecuted when people address you as if you're this irrational shaka supporter, which no offense you clearly are. perhaps if your stance was anything other than "shaka is blameless and it all comes down to bad luck" that wouldn't be the case, but it is, so it is. 

[Goo Punch 4275]

the scenes when it's revealed that wulaw is actually fozzz

/mnightshamalyan 

[Machinator 32103]

As I said upthread, the situational basketball is not good under Shaka but that could be more easily forgiven if his teams did a better job of playing the full 40 minutes so that we wouldn't stumble upon the close endings most games.

We've been the more talented team in probably all but 3 of our matchups. Take care of business from the tip and you don't have to worry about your inconsistent senior guard going rogue on the last possession of the game, or the refs fucking you in the last two minutes, or critical missed free throws in the last minute coming back to haunt you.

[Js1 87182]

27 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

what's really crazy about all of this- if he goes out and finds a legitimate assistant to choreograph and teach his offense then Shaka probably would have been successful here. His assistant hires have been a joke. Bringing in young and inexperienced cronies has not fixed a damn thing.

I thought Berry was a good hire at the time. Would bring some concepts from ISU which has always had good offenses.

He forgot to bring three point shooters though. 

[Catdaddyhorn 3467]

How did the usage numbers of Andrew Jones and Kerwin Roach compare early last season before Andrew's wrist injury and subsequent diagnosis. Trading out those 2 players goes a long ways towards bad decisions being mitigated during late game situations. For all of Kerwin's obvious gifts he's a daft basketball player and I wonder how he would've performed under more of a disciplinarian as head coach for his 4 year stay here. 

[smwhorn 485]

1 hour ago, Goo Punch said:

first off, nobody has viciously attacked you, and second, for someone who appears to be reasonably intelligent you're displaying a lack of self awareness. you go out of your way to bring shaka into the conversation, you go out of your way to defend him, your arguments say that he is essentially blameless for any shortcomings within his own program, and then you feel persecuted when people address you as if you're this irrational shaka supporter, which no offense you clearly are. perhaps if your stance was anything other than "shaka is blameless and it all comes down to bad luck" that wouldn't be the case, but it is, so it is. 

Which is why I asked if he was related by blood or marriage to Shaka.  No vicious attack.  Just a question that I thought might explain his opinions, which I respectfully disagree with.

[Goo Punch 4275]

57 minutes ago, Js1 said:

I thought Berry was a good hire at the time. Would bring some concepts from ISU which has always had good offenses.

He forgot to bring three point shooters though. 

I felt the same way. I think if he had tried to assemble a staff where the likes of Berry and Horn were the standard (so no Mike Morell, David Cason, or Jai Lucas), and perhaps even his second and third assistants behind an even better assistant, then our teams would certainly have performed much better over the years. The offense has been just as disjointed as the defense has been good, probably more so in fact. 

[Goo Punch 4275]

I've been saying this for a couple years now, and i don't think that it's ever been more evident than it is now. We really really miss having a culture and an identity. Under Penders it was the "Runnin Horns", and under Barnes we had an identity of toughness. Physical toughness- chiseled players who'd been molded into absolute specimens by Todd Wright, known for intense defending, rabid team rebounding, and tough players. Mental toughness- you either become strong enough to handle Rick Barnes' style and become better for it, or you wilt and lose your spot. We put our players in high pressure, high leverage situations every single day in practice, because the way it has to be done.

Shaka will learn this. We hired a coach who not only just isn't very good, he's way too young and inexperienced for this job. He will eventually learn from his own mistakes and adapt, or he won't and he will wilt away. That's just how it goes at the major D-1 level. I miss this, and by now the rest of you probably do too:

 

Edited January 16, 2019 by Goo Punch

[Helobious 9818]

43 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

We really really miss having a culture and an identity. Under Penders it was the "Runnin Horns Grade Releasers", and under Barnes we had an identity of toughness  getting bounced the first weekend of the tournament. 

 

Fixed. 

[gmr548 16701]

At this point, my mind could be changed with a strong finish to this season, but I'm ready to move on. Losing to Kansas obviously isn't a dealbreaker on its own, pretty much everyone does that, but the total clusterfuck of last night is definitely hard to swallow. Our offense is just so goddamn hard to watch and it always has been under him. I don't expect Texas basketball to be a consistently elite program, but we shouldn't need to get lucky to make the tournament.

Losing to Oklahoma State is bad. Losing to Radford - though they're not terrible - is bad, and following it up with another loss to VCU when you should have your team's full attention is really bad. Losing to Providence just as you seem to be getting past those hiccups is bad. I could stomach one or two of those, everyone has off nights. But it seems like a classic case of one step forward, two steps back. We've signed like three straight top ten recruiting classes. I realize that is inflated by the Mo Bambas and Jarrett Allens of the world, but it still points to this roster underachieving pretty badly at 10-7, 2-3. We could legitimately be sitting at 11-11, 2-7 after the road trip to Ames. Now, that's a worst case scenario and they'll probably find a way to win one of those conference games, but still. We're going to be headed into February with tourney hopes on life support. Just don't have any margin for error in an elite conference when you lose multiple games you shouldn't OOC.

When Shaka gets this team playing really well they are awesome, but he just can't seem to do it consistently. If he can do that to finish the year, then I'll be okay with him coming back. And I'm sure he is coming back regardless. But assuming we limp to the finish and miss the tourney, I'd just rather go get a coach that can consistently get us in the postseason without issue, make a sweet sixteen every 2-3 years, and get us deeper when the stars align.

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

6 hours ago, ztejas said:

Basketball is not played on a spreadsheet. 

yeah but it makes me feel WAY smart to discuss it in terms of advanced metrics

[Fozzz 152]

Cool story, luddite. 

[ztejas 44227]

2 hours ago, Fozzz said:

Cool story, luddite. 

TexAgs might be more up your* alley. They seem really good at burying their noses in selective data sets to conclude that their teams are actually better than they really are.

Edited January 16, 2019 by ztejas

[Fozzz 152]

I'm being selective by referencing the difference in expected and actual winning % for Texas this season when noting that Texas is one of the biggest outliers in that metric in D1 basketball?  Really?  

[CurlyDumps 4659]

20 hours ago, Fozzz said:

As much as some on this board like to point out certain offensive statistics for this team as being extreme outliers, it appears the biggest statistical outlier is the difference between the team's expected and actual winning percentages (334th in basketball), or in other words, its horrible luck.  

LOL.  Another Charlie Strong mad lib with basketball words filled in.

[Machinator 32103]

2 hours ago, Fozzz said:

Cool story, luddite. 

How many regular season games do you think this team finishes with?

[Fozzz 152]

16 minutes ago, Machinator said:

How many regular season games do you think this team finishes with?

I think 20 wins is obtainable. 

[Fozzz 152]

22 minutes ago, CurlyDumps said:

LOL.  Another Charlie Strong mad lib with basketball words filled in.

Shaka’s team is better than any team Charlie fielded. 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

29 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

I'm being selective by referencing the difference in expected and actual winning % for Texas this season when noting that Texas is one of the biggest outliers in that metric in D1 basketball?  Really?  

Shaka is not performing well. He's in over his head and doesn't have a very strong X's and O's IQ.  He's a motivator, a CEO type.