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Fire Shaka Smart


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5 minutes ago, texasstrong12 said:

One of UCF and Temple will probably get a bid just because the bubble sucks. 

Yeah, currently Lunardi has Temple as a last 4 in and UCF as an 11 seed. 

Pac12 really leaving the door open for a lot of mediocrity this season. 

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10 minutes ago, TXSooner518 said:

I'm almost positive Vandy got in at 17-14 one year.  It's also very rare that a team with a record like Texas' has so many good wins and so few bad losses. Also, as has been posted, the bubble is really weak this year. Leagues like the A-10 and even the Pac-12 are very likely to be single bid leagues. 

EDIT: Slightly off. Vandy got in the 2017 tourney with a 19-15 record, which is worse than 18-14 though. They were also a 9 seed, indicating they weren't even that close to the cut line.

Villanova in 1991 and UGA in 2001 got at-large bids at 16-14, K-State 1990 got in at 17-14.

On Vanderbilt: they had the #2 overall SOS and #2 NCSOS that season. The committee has a fetish for teams that challenge themselves, especially in the non-conference. Just win one or two of those "marquee" games and you're usually golden, if you have an elite SOS.

Edited by Machinator
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13 hours ago, longhornmatt said:

If we finish 8-10 in conference, lose the first game of the conference tournament, and make the NCAA tournament with a 16-16 record then the tournament should just contract back to 32.   Has a .500 team ever been given an at large berth before?  Didn’t we basically have that same record in Barnes’s worst year and we had to go to the CBI because the NIT wouldn’t even take that crap?

Edit -  Looked it up and, yes, that Barnes team finished the regular season 16-17, 7-11 in conference, and lost the first round CBI game to finish 16-18.   If Shaka can basically replicate the worst Barnes year that got Barnes fired and somehow make it into the NCAAs rendering it impossible for us to fire Shaka for another year, then the only explanation I have is that there must be some sort of voodoo curse at play here.

I'm not trying to make this a Shaka vs Barnes thread but the problem with these comparisons is conference strength shifts. 

For instance, in '12-13 (the Barnes year referenced here) the Big 12 was the #5 RPI conference. The Big 12 is #1 in RPI this year. Beyond the idea that the bubble sucks the reason Texas is in a position to make the tournament with a shit record is because there are far more opportunities for better wins/metrics. 

 

 

Edited by texasstrong12
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3 minutes ago, texasstrong12 said:

I'm not trying to make this a Shaka vs Barnes thread but the problem with these comparisons is conference strength shifts. 

For instance, in '12-13 (the Barnes year referenced here) the Big 12 was the #5 RPI conference. The Big 12 is #1 in RPI this year. Beyond the idea that the bubble sucks the reason Texas is in a position to make the tournament with a shit record is because there are far more opportunities for better wins/metrics. 

 

 

That year, our only marquee NC win was UNC.  We also lost against every game against a ranked team in Big 12.

This year, at least we have UNC and Purdue.  And we have wins over a then-ranked OU, ranked KU and now ranked KSU. 

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5 minutes ago, Js1 said:

That year, our only marquee NC win was UNC.  We also lost against every game against a ranked team in Big 12.

This year, at least we have UNC and Purdue.  And we have wins over a then-ranked OU, ranked KU and now ranked KSU. 

The win over OU (NET 41) is far less impressive than the KU win or the (road) win over KSU.

Like I said (and anyone who paid attention to college basketball last year and this year could see), that win in Manhattan is the win that keeps on giving.

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2 minutes ago, Js1 said:

That year, our only marquee NC win was UNC.  We also lost against every game against a ranked team in Big 12.

This year, at least we have UNC and Purdue.  And we have wins over a then-ranked OU, ranked KU and now ranked KSU. 

Arkansas - neutral and Baylor are also solid wins.

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7 minutes ago, Machinator said:

The win over OU (NET 41) is far less impressive than the KU win or the (road) win over KSU.

Like I said (and anyone who paid attention to college basketball last year and this year could see), that win in Manhattan is the win that keeps on giving.

Oh I know.  That win over OU looked good at the time because they were ranked.  Hence "then-ranked."  You can only control winning and losing versus the team you faced - they were ranked and we won.  It's the opposite of KSU - they weren't ranked when we played them, now they are. 

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3 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Oh I know.  That win over OU looked good at the time because they were ranked.  Hence "then-ranked."  You can only control winning and losing versus the team you faced - they were ranked and we won.  It's the opposite of KSU - they weren't ranked when we played them, now they are. 

That's actually an interesting point. The committee can't remember extenuating circumstances for every game, but I wonder if they'll downgrade our KSU win because Wade and Stokes were out.

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4 hours ago, VinyVango said:

at some point the bad losses gotta sink the good wins... I don't think we have a chance at the NCAA absent 18 wins.  I'm hoping for better, but fear we end up in the NIT and get spanked by some team like South Carolina, Oregon, Indiana or Florida after a competitive 1st half.  

I am particularly bothered by our recent tendency to aggressively double-team the opposing post and aggressively hedge screens without rotating to cover the 2nd man who is rolling in for the layup.  The line-up with Febres as the second big man is horrific on defense.   He was covering Wade man-to-man on numerous possessions in the 2nd half of our last game and it was not pretty.

The deferral to Roach to "make something happen" in the last 4 minutes of games has killed us all year.  He's been really good when conditioned to drive the paint, and there's no excuse for continually letting him pull the dribble for 20 seconds and jack up the James Harden step back long 3.  

When DO bricks several 1 foot shots, he needs to sit and Hamm (not Febres) needs to be his replacement for defense and rebounding.

Hard to argue with any of that.

I will note, however, that this brief discussion of why we are so amazingly mediocre is more entertaining than actually watching us play. At least most of the time.

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32 minutes ago, Tired Horn said:

Hard to argue with any of that.

I will note, however, that this brief discussion of why we are so amazingly mediocre is more entertaining than actually watching us play. At least most of the time.

I actually enjoy bracketology / bubble watch talk. I just wish we didn't have to be featured in it in mid-February.

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5 hours ago, texasstrong12 said:

That's the other thing. Not many opportunities for bid thieves because a lot of these mid major conferences are down. 

Couldn't you make the argument that this means there are more bid stealers out there?  I think this makes the conference tourneys even more dangerous for teams like Houston and Cincy.  If the entire conference is down that would mean that even the top teams are down relative to a great year.  Thus, maybe anyone can beat anyone and we have a lot of auto-bids go to teams that aren't at the top of their conference.  That's how I see a "weak bubble", I assume based on our banter in various threads you take it as the cream of the conferences won't be challenged at all?

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12 minutes ago, Jhawk said:

Couldn't you make the argument that this means there are more bid stealers out there?  I think this makes the conference tourneys even more dangerous for teams like Houston and Cincy.  If the entire conference is down that would mean that even the top teams are down relative to a great year.  Thus, maybe anyone can beat anyone and we have a lot of auto-bids go to teams that aren't at the top of their conference.  That's how I see a "weak bubble", I assume based on our banter in various threads you take it as the cream of the conferences won't be challenged at all?

That just depends on the resumes of the teams in bid-stealing conferences.

Right now, the one-bid conferences with potential at-larges are the SoCon (Wofford), A-Sun (Lipscomb), A-10 (VCU) and maybe the OVC (Belmont). I guess the WCC as well, but Gonzaga looks really damn good right now.

Then you have conferences like the AAC and Pac-12 where the depth is so shallow that there's a chance a middling/bad team makes a surprise run.

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51 minutes ago, Jhawk said:

Couldn't you make the argument that this means there are more bid stealers out there?  I think this makes the conference tourneys even more dangerous for teams like Houston and Cincy.  If the entire conference is down that would mean that even the top teams are down relative to a great year.  Thus, maybe anyone can beat anyone and we have a lot of auto-bids go to teams that aren't at the top of their conference.  That's how I see a "weak bubble", I assume based on our banter in various threads you take it as the cream of the conferences won't be challenged at all?

1) The "weak bubble" doesn't create drastic changes to the amount of bid stealers. All the power conferences are still top heavy with at-large teams so it's very unlikely there is a bid thief in the power conferences. Outside of the Pac 12 there probably won't be a bid thief in any of the power conferences. 

2) I don't think there will be a bid thief in the AAC either. One of Houston, Cincy, UCF or Temple will win the conference tourney.  The conference is pretty meh after that. USF and Memphis are decent but I would say it's still really unlikely that there is a bid thief in the AAC. 

3) The amount of bid thieves will be like it is most years. 5 or 6 small school teams have at large type resumes so there could be a bid thief in those conferences. The Lipscomb, VCU, Belmont, Nevada, Gonzaga, Wofford and Buffalo types. 

But not all those teams are going to have at-large resumes at the end of the process. A few of those conferences are going to end up being one bid leagues. Lipscomb and Belmont in particular I don't see having at large resumes at the end of the process if they don't win their conference tournament. Reality is all those small school teams could miss the cut if they don't win their conference tournament because they're all on the bubble outside of maybe Buffalo.

Then teams like Gonzaga and Nevada will be significant favorites to win their conference tourney. So all in all there probably won't be a huge change in the amount of "bid stealers". 

Edited by texasstrong12
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I agree with all the great posters in this thread.

just wanted to see if that too, would get me some more neg rep. No ......not nutt hurt or butt hurt, or any other kind of hurt.It’s just kind of lame when someone else says something I said 10pages back it gets no Negs, but I say what needs to be said and it’s neg city. Some of you guys are played the f out.

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19 minutes ago, 2inDaPink1inDaStink said:

I agree with all the great posters in this thread.

just wanted to see if that too, would get me some more neg rep. No ......not nutt hurt or butt hurt, or any other kind of hurt.It’s just kind of lame when someone else says something I said 10pages back it gets no Negs, but I say what needs to be said and it’s neg city. Some of you guys are played the f out.

Negged.

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Can anyone please explain how did Shaka blow them away in the interview to get the job? I just watched the weekly longhorn show with Craig Way talking with Shaka and Roach. Man did we get bamboozled or what? Anyone else who interviewed for the job has got to be kicking themselves. I’m starting to think we went with a bargain basement search firm. Some kind of a knock off firm,Corn Ferrets perhaps? As many here have suggested let’s give him a few more years, maybe he  just lost his secret sauce. If in the next few seasons we can surround him with top notch assistants, 3 to 4 lottery picks and a world class facility then maybe we can battle for NIT title.

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