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Fire Shaka Smart


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i love all of the CBB writers/analysts who don't even watch our games coming out of the woodwork talking about "what a great job Shaka Smart has done to turn this team around". that's pulitzer level stuff folks. if Matt doesn't hit that miracle shot last night then we lose, we're on the wrong side of the bubble, and the writers/analysts continue to ignore us/know essentially nothing about us. but the shot did go in, and it was all over ESPN, and now all of the hot takes about "Shaka Smart righting the ship" are out in full force. I'd love to see these guys have to type more than 120 characters, and expound on their claims that Shaka has done a great job. Fucking lazy-ass, twitter-era journalism.

Edited by Goo Punch
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Just now, Goo Punch said:

i love all of the CBB writers/analysts who don't even watch our games coming out of the woodwork talking about "what a great job Shaka Smart has done to turn this team around". that's pulitzer level stuff folks. if Matt doesn't hit that miracle shot then we lose, we're on the wrong side of the bubble, and the writers/analysts continue to ignore us/know essentially nothing about us. but the shot did go in, and now all of the hot takes about "Shaka Smart righting the ship" are out in full force. I'd love to hear some of these guys have to type more than 120 characters in expounding i'm exactly what they think Shaka has done to fix this team.

(injuries wreck season) Man, you gotta feel for Shaka Smart, who could overcome such adversity? 

(injuries force rotation changes and the season turns around) Man, what a coaching job Shaka Smart has done!

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1 minute ago, Goo Punch said:

 I'd love to hear some of these guys have to type more than 120 characters in expounding i'm exactly what they think Shaka has done to fix this team.

oh I can sum that up for you--- "he knows his team better than you, you didn't play so you don't understand, sometimes coaches have to throw the dice"

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1 hour ago, Js1 said:

I hate this line - CDC is not "weak" if he keeps Shaka.  He's probably getting next to no pressure from BMDs if we make the tournament and the added result of reducing the buyout for another year.  He's only weak in the eyes of Texas message boards, I doubt he gives a rip. 

If he only makes changes when he gets pressure from BMDs, like you’re saying, then that’s pretty much the definition of a weak AD. Shaka’s not a good basketball coach, fluky 5 game (probably 6 after Ok St) win streak notwithstanding, and CDC shouldn’t change his mind based on a lucky streak.  

1 hour ago, orangecat92 said:

Is he weak if he gives a 3 or 4 year extension?

Stop it with this nonsense. He’s not getting an extension and he’s not walking away from his guaranteed contract here to go elsewhere. He’s either staying under his current contract or getting fired. 
 

2 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

i love all of the CBB writers/analysts who don't even watch our games coming out of the woodwork talking about "what a great job Shaka Smart has done to turn this team around". that's pulitzer level stuff folks. if Matt doesn't hit that miracle shot then we lose, we're on the wrong side of the bubble, and the writers/analysts continue to ignore us/know essentially nothing about us. but the shot did go in, and now all of the hot takes about "Shaka Smart righting the ship" are out in full force. I'd love to hear some of these guys have to type more than 120 characters in expounding i'm exactly what they think Shaka has done to fix this team.

Yep. The defense has been good (thanks Yaklich!), but our offense is still the same bad sets it’s always been with slightly more effort from guys like Brock and Hamm, but the thing that’s been carrying offense the last 6 games is unsustainable shooting performances from individual players. My main takeaway from most of our wins lately is that there’s no clearly discernible repeatable process to be replicated in future years. 

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IF all the favorites win the rest of the Big 12 games, Texas would be the #3 seed and face #6 WV.

WV is currently #19 in NET, so it would be a really good win for seeding.

OU fell from 41 to 46
Texas rose from 59 to 55

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14 minutes ago, Burt Macklin said:

If he only makes changes when he gets pressure from BMDs, like you’re saying, then that’s pretty much the definition of a weak AD. Shaka’s not a good basketball coach, fluky 5 game (probably 6 after Ok St) win streak notwithstanding, and CDC shouldn’t change his mind based on a lucky streak.  

Stop it with this nonsense. He’s not getting an extension and he’s not walking away from his guaranteed contract here to go elsewhere. He’s either staying under his current contract or getting fired. 
 

Yep. The defense has been good (thanks Yaklich!), but our offense is still the same bad sets it’s always been with slightly more effort from guys like Brock and Hamm, but the thing that’s been carrying offense the last 6 games is unsustainable shooting performances from individual players. My main takeaway from most of our wins lately is that there’s no clearly discernible repeatable process to be replicated in future years. 

Our shooting was pretty bad last night.  

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1 minute ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

Our shooting was pretty bad last night.  

I didn’t say our team shooting has been great. I said individual players have had great nights during the win streak and since Shaka’s offense doesn’t create good looks, it requires guys to just go off irrespective of the team offense, which has been happening lately, but isn’t something that’s a repeatable process. 

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we've always been a poor shooting team that shoots a ton of threes, and we've always been a team that is awful at rebounding. An injury crisis forces Shaka's unused bench players into big roles, and what happens? Hamm and Cunningham come in and our rebounding improves markedly, and it coincides with a five game stretch where we shoot 44% from deep as a team (which just can't happen if Febres is playing 30 minutes and going 2-8 from deep 3/4 nights. our defense also improves markedly without Febres/with Hamm and Brock). Shaka gets forced into completely changing his personnel decisions, and the team is now irrefutably better for it. ain't that some shit?

this is the basketball version of what happened with our football team, when plain old bad luck and repeated injuries ended up forcing a coach to get out his own way, resulting in a better team. Specifically, Jordan Shipley missing two seasons due to injury, and ending up staying at Texas for six years. If that doesn't happen, then Colt McCoy doesn't have Jordan Shipley for his junior and senior year, which would have drastically changed things. On top of that, If Blaine Irby doesn't Mike Wacker his knee in El Paso at the Hand Job Bowl, then Greg Davis doesn't stumble into using Jordan Shipley as a flex TE, a crucial element in Texas upsetting OU, and going on to become the best team in the nation.

WAY TO GO SHAKA AND GREG! YOU GUYS DID IT! YOU GUYS ARE GREAT COACHES!!!

Edited by Goo Punch
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Seriously, are y'all taking massive amounts of drugs on this "Shaka will leave for another school" thing? 

We ain't shipping him to another school (wtf?)
He ain't leaving this contract voluntarily. 

 

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47 minutes ago, Burt Macklin said:

I didn’t say our team shooting has been great. I said individual players have had great nights during the win streak and since Shaka’s offense doesn’t create good looks, it requires guys to just go off irrespective of the team offense, which has been happening lately, but isn’t something that’s a repeatable process. 

I'm gonna be a bit of a contrarian here. I think much like us fans, Shaka has been too focused on the offense. Specifically, he's allowed offensive "potential" to guide his substitution patterns and allocation of minutes during games (I'm looking at you Febres).  Offense (particularly great shooting) is overrated in college basketball. Shit, last year we finished the season just outside of the top 8% (29 out 353 teams in D1) in all of college basketball in offensive efficiency and it didn't fucking matter. Nor was it obvious to anyone's naked eye that we were that good offensively last year.  

Teams routinely go on droughts not only during a particular game,  but over the course of a series of games. As we know shooting is highly volatile from game to game in the sport and if you watch enough college basketball you realize that most teams suck offensively for extended periods of times during the course of any given game. 

The good college bball teams demonstrate consistency in other areas of the game.  Such as not turning thr ball over, rebounding their ass off, and on the defensive end. Additionally, consistency on the offensive boards can bolster offensive efficiency numbers and make a team appear much better offensively than they'd be otherwise. In my view this had a lot to do with why Rick Barnes' teams had surprisingly good offensive efficiency numbers (other than the DJ Augustin years.  Those guys were just highly skilled offensively).

Numerous times over the past 3 years many of us have criticized the lack of do or die spirit of Shaka's teams. The "give up" substitution of Eric Davis against Duke exemplifies this view. I think that the lack of this guile and play-hard mentality his teams have been known for has a lot to do with him erring towards the offensive end for his minutes allocation over the effort end.  Maybe an increased minute allotment for "try hard" guys like Holland, Yancy, James Banks,  and now Cunningham and Hamm over the past 5 seasons could've made a big difference over his tenure and done wonders for the key ingredients that all of Shaka's teams have desperately needed, resolve and tenacity.  The sort of all out effort and desperation those guys demonstrate is contagious and is a prime example of an important intangible Shaka's team's have desperately needed. 

After all, our view that Shaka is a poor coach isnt because he's getting blown out left and right.  It's due to the ridiculous number of close game losses and end of games situations we've lost over the course of his tenure. During this 5 game streak we've won pretty much all of those crunch time situations and all of it has to do with timely rebounds, steals, and putbacks that we never got before. Do or die resolve matters more than we give it credit for.  

Edited by Catdaddyhorn
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Shaka made a post game remark about Brock's play of late and how sometimes it takes guys a while to become the player you know they can be. Struck me as odd that he thinks the timing of Brock's emergence has anything to do with his development as a player and nothing to do with the fact that, due to injury, Shaka has been forced to play him.The kid's most valuable asset is quite literally the only skill you can't develop - balls to fuckin' wall hustle, he didn't learn that last week. Bizarre how much light has been shed onto Shaka's complete lack of roster management skills over the most successful 5 game stretch of his time here.

 

 

Edited by CheesePie
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1 minute ago, CheesePie said:

Shaka made a post game remark about Brock's play of late and how sometimes it takes guys a while to become the player you know they can be. Struck me as odd that he thinks the timing of Brock's emergence has anything to do with his development as a player and nothing to do with the fact that, due to injury, Shaka has been forced to play him.The kid's most valuable asset is quite literally the only skill you can't develop - balls to fuckin' wall hustle. Bizarre how much insight we've gotten about Shaka's complete lack of roster management skills over the most successful 5 game stretch of his time here.

 

 

Yep. He’s basically lucked into this rotation due to injuries and nothing he’s said or done shows me he’s learned anything moving forward. If he returns, I fully expect him to fuck up our lineups and rotations next year and return to our normal level for most of this season. 

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I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen Texas basketball play that hard. That shit was beautiful and inspiring and I feel sorry for anybody that is so sick of the coach that they can’t let themselves enjoy it. Although I definitely understand it’s been five years of misery.
 

I think they hit rock bottom when Shaka didn’t even know how much time was left in the game and had to be corrected by Matt Coleman. I think the guy was resigned to his fate and knew his days were numbered. The wink Coleman gave as he corrected his coach to me seemed like a sign that the players have given up on him too but apparently that is not the case. I don’t know if they’re fighting for themselves or for Shaka or for both but damn they are fighting and it’s good to finally see that after so long.

Pack the fucking drum. Shaka may not have earned it but these players damn sure have.

Edited by GotThatFire
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1 minute ago, Burt Macklin said:

Yep. He’s basically lucked into this rotation due to injuries and nothing he’s said or done shows me he’s learned anything moving forward. If he returns, I fully expect him to fuck up our lineups and rotations next year and return to our normal level for most of this season. 

Yeah, If he'd just answer the Brock questions with "man, we could've used that energy all year. I should've given him more time. That's on me." I would be infinitely more optimistic. But I'm with you, no way he's able to own up to this and make the necessary adjustments. 

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Our lack of offensive rebounding is by design - Yacklich did the same thing at UM - so the defense gets back and set quickly.  Offensively, sure, all teams go through shooting slumps, the issue is that our offensive "scheme" doesn't provide for a lot of Plan Bs or Cs, and the aimless perimeter dribbling and movement spawns a lot of bad habits, such as indecision, lack of creativity,  and not recognizing openings when they occur.   The pivot is usually open when it's "designed" to be, but our players are so perimeter brainwashed that they will stare down the low post until the defense reacts.  Same with backdoors.  

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8 minutes ago, cafe society said:

Our lack of offensive rebounding is by design - Yacklich did the same thing at UM - so the defense gets back and set quickly.  Offensively, sure, all teams go through shooting slumps, the issue is that our offensive "scheme" doesn't provide for a lot of Plan Bs or Cs, and the aimless perimeter dribbling and movement spawns a lot of bad habits, such as indecision, lack of creativity,  and not recognizing openings when they occur.   The pivot is usually open when it's "designed" to be, but our players are so perimeter brainwashed that they will stare down the low post until the defense reacts.  Same with backdoors.  

while the point about our defensive philosophy impacting our rebounding. umbers is true, it's also true that Shaka has been forced to go away from those four guard lineups that he loves so much, like we're just like, "fuck it, we don't need any rebounds." now you add two guys who really know the art of rebounding into the mix for 25-30 minutes a game and suddenly we are getting offensive boards and put backs. philosophy or not, the lineup changes have tangibly impacted our rebounding. 

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so easy for me to say, but if i'm the AD, and John Beilein just got miraculously dropped into my lap, i don't give a shit what Shaka does short of a run to the Final Four- he's gone. I've got more than enough info that says that Shaka is out of his element in a top flight league, and a serendipitous two-week run at the end of his fifth season here changes nothing. 

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36 minutes ago, cafe society said:

Our lack of offensive rebounding is by design - Yacklich did the same thing at UM - so the defense gets back and set quickly.  Offensively, sure, all teams go through shooting slumps, the issue is that our offensive "scheme" doesn't provide for a lot of Plan Bs or Cs, and the aimless perimeter dribbling and movement spawns a lot of bad habits, such as indecision, lack of creativity,  and not recognizing openings when they occur.   The pivot is usually open when it's "designed" to be, but our players are so perimeter brainwashed that they will stare down the low post until the defense reacts.  Same with backdoors.  

Our lack of offensive rebounding was a strategic choice made well before Yaklich ever arrived.  Shaka, to a fault, is a basketball analytics adherent. And the prevailing sentiment in the basketball analytical world was to surrender all efforts towards offensive boards in favor of defensive balance for transition defense. I think this view may be fine for the pro game, but it's inapplicable to the college game.  Shit, early in his tenure here Shaka was so over the top with this belief that he wouldn't even place more than 1 rebounder on the lane when we were shooting free throws. 

Much of the analytics that gets spouted and applied to the college game fails to consider how volatile, unrepeatable, and unskilled college players are.  Basketball analytics may tell us that favoring the 3 over the midrange is the way to go,  but it fails to consider how much easier a midrange shot is over a 3pter for the overwhelming majority of college players.  And it fails to consider how much of an emotional lift an offensive rebound can be and in turn how emotionally draining giving up yet another offensive board can be for 18 to 21 year olds.  All of this unquantifiable, intangible shit really matters for college players. 

Edited by Catdaddyhorn
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13 hours ago, OU Sucks said:

We're so cursed that when most of our fans want us to lose so we can kick Shaka to the curb, we can't lose a game.

I've always thought of Kliff Kingsbury as Shaka's football coach analogue (young, overhyped, got an unwarranted extension with a huge buyout) but now he's kinda moving into Dennis Franchione territory. 

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14 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

while the point about our defensive philosophy impacting our rebounding. umbers is true, it's also true that Shaka has been forced to go away from those four guard lineups that he loves so much, like we're just like, "fuck it, we don't need any rebounds." now you add two guys who really know the art of rebounding into the mix for 25-30 minutes a game and suddenly we are getting offensive boards and put backs. philosophy or not, the lineup changes have tangibly impacted our rebounding. 

I agree with your main sentiment,  but our 4 guard lineup has been overemphasized on this board.  We didn't play it nearly as much as people pretend we did.  It never ranked among our top 4 lineups on kenpom at any point during the season.  Unless yall are counting Liddell as a guard (which is arguably about the same as counting Brock as a guard),  but I'm mostly referring to those situational occasions when someone like Febres or Williams were at the 4. For the most those 4 guard lineups came in situational times at the end of a half/ game or when we were behind.  Now this is not to say that those lineups weren't frustrating or didn't burn us a few times (Georgetown and Providence losses come to mind),  but they weren't a big part of our lineups. 

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25 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

so easy for me to say, but if i'm the AD, and John Beilein just got miraculously dropped into my lap, i don't give a shit what Shaka does short of a run to the Final Four- he's gone. I've got more than enough info that says that Shaka is out of his element in a top flight league, and a serendipitous two-week run at the end of his fifth season here changes nothing. 

Your lips to god’s ears

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2 hours ago, Js1 said:

IF all the favorites win the rest of the Big 12 games, Texas would be the #3 seed and face #6 WV.

WV is currently #19 in NET, so it would be a really good win for seeding.

OU fell from 41 to 46
Texas rose from 59 to 55

If Texas wins on Saturday, then loses their first game in B12 Tourney, 2 questions:

  1. Are they still likely to earn a spot in NCAA Tourney??
  2. What's the range of their possible seed in NCAA??
Edited by LTtxfan
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I've always understood the conference tournament to be an opportunity to play your way in/improve seeding in the NCAA's with a win, rather than a chance play your way out with an opening round loss. Looking at our two guaranteed remaining games individually, a loss to okie lite to close out the season would be far more detrimental to our chances than a loss to whoever we play in the first round of the conference tourney. With two losses, I think we miss the tournament altogether, Shaka mania comes to a quick halt and we're back on the conversation of who is coaching next season. On the flip side, if we beat oklite and make a miraculous run to the conference finals, I could see getting up to an 8 or 9 seed. To answer your questions, our range of seeding possibilities are 8-12 with still a very real possibility of not making it should the wheels come off.

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49 minutes ago, LTtxfan said:

If Texas wins on Saturday, then loses their first game in B12 Tourney, 2 questions:

  1. Are they still likely to earn a spot in NCAA Tourney??
  2. What's the range of their possible seed in NCAA??

Yes

Currently, 11-12 for the brackets we are in at Bracket Matrix.  I guess we could improve to up to a 10 with a couple wins in the Big 12 tournament. 

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1 hour ago, LTtxfan said:

If Texas wins on Saturday, then loses their first game in B12 Tourney, 2 questions:

  1. Are they still likely to earn a spot in NCAA Tourney??
  2. What's the range of their possible seed in NCAA??

Losing their 1st conference tourney is still a dicey proposition. When you're on the bubble you're always at risk for at large spots being eliminated by conference tourney winners.  I still think 2 wins in the conference tourney is the only way to not have sweat Sunday's unveiling.  

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18-20 wins was a reasonable ceiling expectation for this team after what it lost to graduation and early departure last year.  If that had been accomplished with some non-stagnant offensive sets, common-sense rotations, situational substitutions, more use and development of Hamm/Cunningham/Hepa as the 2nd big on court, less 4 guard ball, and some tougher love when guys like Ramey, AJ, and Febres were trying to emulate James Hardin, it would feel a lot better making the NCAA tournament.

As others have indicated, Shaka's team got better when his line-up and strategy options were drastically reduced by injuries.  He will get a pass for the year by the brass.  I REALLY hope the final 1/4 of this year was a learning experience for him and that he permanently dumps his love/tolerance for high volume, low % shooting beyond the NBA three point line and his preference for riding certain favorite players regardless of how hard they the are playing or how well they are performing (Febres, AJ and Ramey at times).

I felt the same last year... hot finish to a disappointing season... signs of changes worthy of optimism... etc... only to see the same guys who made their run in the NIT looking like a junior high team at times.  

Is Jai Lucas that good of a recruiting presence?... would be nice if we could get some old geyser in that knows how to teach fundamentals in his place, cause Shaka will be back (unless he gets hired away).

odd times....

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31 minutes ago, XYZ said:

Will Shaka remain the coach if Texas makes the NCAA tourney and gets spanked in the first game?

I really think CDC is going to claim to take a broader view than that. This is going to be a 20-win NCAA Tournament season on the heels of a (sigh) NIT Championship season. We are going to be told there's progress, that the program is heading in the right direction even if it's not where we want it today

So yeah, he'll be back next year even if we take a 20-point drubbing in the 12-12 playin. 

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11 hours ago, CheesePie said:

I really do hope we see a bigger and more engaged crowd at the drum Saturday for okie lite. Despite all of Shaka’s schadenfreude, the players have been playing their asses off and have finally produced the results we all expect. They deserve a nice showing form the fans.

 

9 hours ago, LTtxfan said:

FCB...FCB...FCB 🤘 

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Burt Macklin said:

Yep. He’s basically lucked into this rotation due to injuries and nothing he’s said or done shows me he’s learned anything moving forward. If he returns, I fully expect him to fuck up our lineups and rotations next year and return to our normal level for most of this season. 

 

5 hours ago, juan pantages said:

take cuningham out and watch how fast it goes back to hero ball

QUESTION

Just because Hepa is healthy enough to play him, is Shake contractually obligated to play him?

Hepa was 1 of 7 from the field yesterday and we hadn’t had any playing with shit games like that in the 4 previous games which were all double-digit victories. Then Hepa comes back, can’t hit the broad side of the barn, but keeps shooting and we win by 1 point on a desperation banked 3 point shot just before the buzzer. 

I’m team “Hepa to the IR”!

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2 minutes ago, Napoleon said:

 

 

 

QUESTION

Just because Hepa is healthy enough to play him, is Shake contractually obligated to play him?

Hepa was 1 of 7 from the field yesterday and we hadn’t had any playing with shit games like that in the 4 previous games which were all double-digit victories. Then Hepa comes back, can’t hit the broad side of the barn, but keeps shooting and we win by 1 point on a desperation banked 3 point shot just before the buzzer. 

I’m team “Hepa to the IR”!

Typically Hepa helps the offense in areas outside of just shooting the ball.  The ball doesn't stick with him and he consistently reverses the ball which forces the defense to work without over dribbling. He's been out for a bit recently so he's clearly rusty, but we're running low on bodies and are definitely gonna need him in the near future when there isn't much time to rest between games.  

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As much as I want Shaka gone I think this run keeps him here another year. Of course I will change my stance if we lose to okie lite then lose our first game in conference tourney but I think we win Saturday and our first game and lose in the semi's and make the dance barely and CDC will keep him.

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7 hours ago, CheesePie said:

Yeah, If he'd just answer the Brock questions with "man, we could've used that energy all year. I should've given him more time. That's on me." I would be infinitely more optimistic. But I'm with you, no way he's able to own up to this and make the necessary adjustments. 

He did give him time, Cunningham was a starter to begin the season. He was abysmal and was rightfully benched. Until the Tech game he had more fouls than points scored (15-7) since he was forced into the rotation again.

I can't deny he hustles his way into some good situations, but the Big 12 is really an average league outside of Baylor and Kansas. Which explains the 6+ game lead those 2 teams have over the rest of the conference.

I still don't understand how Ramey got 31 minutes to Williams 0.

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36 minutes ago, Rockethorn1978 said:

As much as I want Shaka gone I think this run keeps him here another year. Of course I will change my stance if we lose to okie lite then lose our first game in conference tourney but I think we win Saturday and our first game and lose in the semi's and make the dance barely and CDC will keep him.

If Texas goes 2-1 they are safely in the tournament. Really the only way they are out is 0-2, even 1-1 keeps them in the play in game.

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