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Fire Shaka Smart


smokebomb

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Yaklich is not who we want as our next HC. He's nowhere near the list in fact. at this point I'm hoping that Beilein decides that he wants the fuck out of Cleveland after next year, and that Austin, Texas would be a pretty great place to land after a whole year in Cleveland. And he wouldn't even have to search for a defensive assistant. 

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4 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

 maybe you didn't mean it the way you wrote it, but the way I interpret it, this mindset exemplifies the cultural problem with all of our athletic programs. we want to be nice and supportive and hope for success for the "good men" (and women) who coach us to mediocre results year after year after year. 

We have already been patient with him; this is his fifth fucking year! 

Every now and then I stop by the UT subreddit, and everyone there is Bill in Sinton. Four and a half years of hopeful, apologetic, pollyanna takes after every single game/loss/season. The consensus over there is that our historically bad non conference schedule was a good thing because of our record, and the confidence it will give our players going into conference play. Hell, every week someone starts a thread which incredulously states, "The 10-1 (or whatever) Longhorns are still yet to be ranked." And as you alluded to, they all like Shaka and hope he does well. It's pretty fucking stupid. 

I dropped by there this morning to find the king of the delusional, bitterwhiteguy, doing his bwg thing as only bwg can (and knowing  well enough to not spout his retarded crap over here where that pollyanna mentality isn't nearly as pervasive.) "Providence has a lot of talent, they were expected to contend for the Big East title coming into the season, but they haven’t put it all together thus far in the season." Fuck off. They suck. KenPom has them going 2-16 the rest of the season. Nothing says "they're great!" like referencing what some people thought they might do back in September before they ever saw them play. 

He continues: "With a weak non-conference schedule, Texas has few opportunities to show it is making progress compared to last year and they flat-out blew this opportunity." The fuck? First off, what opportunity did we blow? Beating Providence would not have meant shit. Oh, and as far as Texas having few opportunities to show that they've improved over last season's amazing 16-16 team, there's this thing called Big XII conference play that starts in about a week and at least 14 of the games are resume games. But dope take hot shot.

More brilliance: "I have a number of questions that aren’t going to be answered by a game against fucking High Point... Of course you do, because god knows that this team/coach and their impending performances are just totally up in the air and could any number of ways based on a litany of ever-changing factors. Yeah, just got sooooo many unanswered questions about our fifth year head coach and his "different year/same team" squad. Gonna be riveting stuff getting all of those questions answered. 

Finally, he drops the mad truth bomb that only a truly brilliant and highly observant basketball expert could understand, stating, "This coaching staff hasn’t put it all together yet, and they have exactly one game left to figure things out before conference play." They "haven't put it all together yet." Yeah, that's the ticket. Implying that this coaching staff may soon "put it all together", and/or that this one game against the worst team ever is a reasonable timeframe to hope that this happens is fucking stupid, like everything that this pompous dickhead types. 

But that's the thing- the total lack of true passion and fervor for college hoops and our program, plus a glaring lack of knowledge about the sport in general and how it works is why so many of our fans who post online believe the shit that fake journalists like BWG put out there. Hardly anybody actually gives a shit about the program, and nobody else ever will until Texas hoops returns to a place where it is consistently good-excellent. Oh, and it's also why Shaka turned down the UCLA job but took this gig. He would have been shit canned two years ago at UCLA. Instead we extended him after one so-so year and now are under no real fan pressure to even do anything about it until the new arena opens. It fucking blows man. It really does. 

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I literally remembered 15 minutes ago that we played yesterday so came here to check the status. I saw the Fire Shaka thread at the top of the board and knew the answer.  

I haven't watched the first minute of Texas Basketball this year.  I used to watch almost every game.  

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56 minutes ago, jinx said:

I literally remembered 15 minutes ago that we played yesterday so came here to check the status. I saw the Fire Shaka thread at the top of the board and knew the answer.  

I haven't watched the first minute of Texas Basketball this year.  I used to watch almost every game.  

This is 100% where I am as a Texas fan. Couldn’t have said it better for me if I tried. Such a sad place to be

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Scipio and Kevin Dunn talked Texas Basketball for a few min. on their podcast. It was depressing.

Scipio shared a conversation he had with an unnamed big time alum who watches practices. Alum, after saying this team is not good, said, “practices are the same. Guys fake injuries and no one listens to Shaka.” 

scipio also talked about watching games with former players, and how it’s even harder for them to watch Shaka coached teams. 

 Fire Shaka Smart.

 

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On 12/22/2019 at 3:43 PM, jinx said:

I literally remembered 15 minutes ago that we played yesterday so came here to check the status. I saw the Fire Shaka thread at the top of the board and knew the answer.  

I haven't watched the first minute of Texas Basketball this year.  I used to watch almost every game.  

Same here. Come to the BB board, see “Fire Shaka Smart” thread at the top, shit we lost the game.

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1 hour ago, CurlyDumps said:

Scipio and Kevin Dunn talked Texas Basketball for a few min. on their podcast. It was depressing.

Scipio shared a conversation he had with an unnamed big time alum who watches practices. Alum, after saying this team is not good, said, “practices are the same. Guys fake injuries and no one listens to Shaka.” 

scipio also talked about watching games with former players, and how it’s even harder for them to watch Shaka coached teams. 

 Fire Shaka Smart.

 

We saved a few million dollars on his buyout by bringing him back for another year. You think we can afford to fire a coach at Texas? We've got a free basketball arena to decorate. 

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38 minutes ago, Red Five said:

We saved a few million dollars on his buyout by bringing him back for another year. You think we can afford to fire a coach at Texas? We've got a free basketball arena to decorate. 

If we're splitting hairs - and boy, do I love to split hairs - it's not a buyout. It's the remaining guaranteed money on his contract.

I'm not really planning on weighing in on whether or not Shaka will make it another year for 3 more months (unless the wheels really fall off or the team gets significantly better) but one factor that interests me in this discussion: Tom Herman. If CDC is contemplating the possibility he might have to replace Herman ~11 months from now, does he think he can raise the money to pay off both Shaka & Herman's deals as well as the costs of hiring their replacements? If not, which one does he think will be easier to fund/justify? Shaka might seem like the easy answer as it's less expensive, but basketball revenue is remarkably stable over the years regardless of performance so keeping Shaka could cost the athletics program less money than the lost revenue from keeping an underperforming football coach. Combine that with the generally greater donor appetite for raising money to hire/fire football coaches and Shaka might skate this year even if they end up in the NIT again. Put another way: Texas might be in a similar situation as Texas A&M was with Billy Kennedy & their football coaching instability. 

I would love to know how CDC is looking at this cost/benefit situation because his fundraising skills may be put to a serious test in 2020. I don't have an answer to this hypothetical, it's just something I've been ruminating on recently...well, since about 3 PM on Saturday.

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39 minutes ago, Bitterwhiteguy said:

If we're splitting hairs - and boy, do I love to split hairs - it's not a buyout. It's the remaining guaranteed money on his contract.

I'm not really planning on weighing in on whether or not Shaka will make it another year for 3 more months (unless the wheels really fall off or the team gets significantly better) but one factor that interests me in this discussion: Tom Herman. If CDC is contemplating the possibility he might have to replace Herman ~11 months from now, does he think he can raise the money to pay off both Shaka & Herman's deals as well as the costs of hiring their replacements? If not, which one does he think will be easier to fund/justify? Shaka might seem like the easy answer as it's less expensive, but basketball revenue is remarkably stable over the years regardless of performance so keeping Shaka could cost the athletics program less money than the lost revenue from keeping an underperforming football coach. Combine that with the generally greater donor appetite for raising money to hire/fire football coaches and Shaka might skate this year even if they end up in the NIT again. Put another way: Texas might be in a similar situation as Texas A&M was with Billy Kennedy & their football coaching instability. 

I would love to know how CDC is looking at this cost/benefit situation because his fundraising skills may be put to a serious test in 2020. I don't have an answer to this hypothetical, it's just something I've been ruminating on recently...well, since about 3 PM on Saturday.

CDC better worry about his job too because if he is presiding over this shi------ . . . wait, nevermind our genius regents gave him a 30 year guaranteed contract as well.  OK, we're fucked for eternity.  Merry Christmas.  

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2 hours ago, Bitterwhiteguy said:

If we're splitting hairs - and boy, do I love to split hairs - it's not a buyout. It's the remaining guaranteed money on his contract.

I'm not really planning on weighing in on whether or not Shaka will make it another year for 3 more months (unless the wheels really fall off or the team gets significantly better) but one factor that interests me in this discussion: Tom Herman. If CDC is contemplating the possibility he might have to replace Herman ~11 months from now, does he think he can raise the money to pay off both Shaka & Herman's deals as well as the costs of hiring their replacements? If not, which one does he think will be easier to fund/justify? Shaka might seem like the easy answer as it's less expensive, but basketball revenue is remarkably stable over the years regardless of performance so keeping Shaka could cost the athletics program less money than the lost revenue from keeping an underperforming football coach. Combine that with the generally greater donor appetite for raising money to hire/fire football coaches and Shaka might skate this year even if they end up in the NIT again. Put another way: Texas might be in a similar situation as Texas A&M was with Billy Kennedy & their football coaching instability. 

I would love to know how CDC is looking at this cost/benefit situation because his fundraising skills may be put to a serious test in 2020. I don't have an answer to this hypothetical, it's just something I've been ruminating on recently...well, since about 3 PM on Saturday.

Doesn't the athletic department have a surplus, a cash reserve? if we have to spend more than we take in for one year, in order to wipe two bad hires off the books, so be it. every move doesn't have to be revenue-neutral

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17 minutes ago, SwanderedTalent said:

Doesn't the athletic department have a surplus, a cash reserve? if we have to spend more than we take in for one year, in order to wipe two bad hires off the books, so be it. every move doesn't have to be revenue-neutral

Payments over a certain dollar amount (I don't recall the exact number, but suffice it to say these two moves & the subsequent hires would easily qualify) have to get approved by the regents, so dipping into the red has to be approved by quite a few people. Historically speaking, buyouts of this scale have been subsidized by donors writing checks so before they even get to the regents CDC is going to have to do some serious fundraising. The donors are less likely to sign a check if they don't have what they think is a home run hire on deck, so there's also that variable to add into this. In short, for CDC to pull off wiping both of them out he's going to have to pre-stage a pair of home run replacements (let's be generous and say he lands Tony Bennett & Matt Campbell) that would get the donors excited enough to write seven-figure checks which will then be presented to the regents as proof this is the right move. Whether you think CDC is capable of pulling this off twice in the span of 7-8 months probably informs how likely you think it is this could happen. It would be quite a feat if he could manage it.

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Heard the money arguments last year too BWG. The richest, most profitable school in the NCAA should be able to fire their shitty basketball coach.

We had a poster here say last week that the money had been raised to get rid of Shaka at the end of last year, and CDC blinked. 

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11 minutes ago, Bitterwhiteguy said:

100% agree, was just giving a name that would get Texas fans excited.

Bennett received ~$1M bonus for the NC. This summer, he signed an extension adding one additional year to his 6-year contract, donated $500K back to UVA, and declined an undisclosed bonus.  Rather than take the bonus money, he asked UVA to  give raises to his assistants.

Hoos win!

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52 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Heard the money arguments last year too BWG. The richest, most profitable school in the NCAA should be able to fire their shitty basketball coach.

We had a poster here say last week that the money had been raised to get rid of Shaka at the end of last year, and CDC blinked. 

This is all a game of telephone with secondhand sources so anything is possible, but what I heard prior to the NIT run is that CDC wasn't able to get that kind of scratch raised to let go of Shaka. They had such a hard time raising money for a new arena that they had to enter into this weird partnership to get the new arena built, because Texas boosters do not give enough of a damn about basketball to fund high-dollar enterprises. This is also why CDC was open to Shaka kicking the tires on other gigs back in March, because it would save Texas a bundle if he went to Wake Forest or wherever. CDC hasn't found a booster base with the appetite to fund $10m in guaranteed money (plus whatever it takes to hire the new coach) and it has given Shaka more runway to try to fix things. Yes, Texas is rich, but they only really want to use that money on football. They probably would keep the Drum around for another decade if the medical school hadn't claimed that land in the first place. Maybe the other poster is correct - lord knows I do not have a direct line to CDC or the biggest donors - but it contradicts what I heard at the time.

The irony here is it's this sort of relative donor apathy that makes the Texas job so attractive to a lot of coaches. They know they can have a down year or two and not get shot out of a cannon, unlike Kansas/Kentucky/etc.

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yeah but CDC set the bar himself. we demand and expect top 10 programs. eventually he has got to back up all of that big talk, and we are beyond the point of pretending that Shaka might be anything but a one-hit has been who is way out of his league in the Big XII. that's even clear to the football fans who only check an occasional box score. Del Conte is going to start losing credibility with anyone who is paying attention if he lets Shaka hang around any longer. 

And by the way: the basketball program is in worse shape than the football program yet it's a much easier, much cheaper fix. fuck all of the excuses, go do your job, vet the best candidates, hire a real coach, and let's get some fucking positivity and momentum going around this place. jesus. our athletics department and it's programs are seriously in need of a win right now, and i can't think of an easier way to do than by simply canning Shaka and hiring a real deal basketball coach. countless programs around the country have been seeing instant turns of fortune over the last several years by hiring good coaches while we just sit on our asses with Shaka fucking Smart. just do your fucking job and make it happen already. 

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and yes football fanbois, i know what you're thinking- "Derka!! How the hell can you say that the football program isn't more fucked up than the basketball program, are you fucking high?!!!?!!"

first off, yes i am, thank you. watching Shameless right now. good show, i only just got into it. second, the basketball program has garnered legitimately shitty results for four years running despite being as highly rated in recruiting as anyone not named Duke or Kentucky during that time. We missed the tourney last year for the second time in four years; we won 11, count em, 11 fucking total games and finished dead last in the conference three years ago;  about to finish 7th or 8th in the league and miss the tourney for the third time in five years (we missed it once in the prior 19 years). we are swirling around the metaphorical toilet bowl and there is no place to go but down as long as Shaka Smart is in charge.

Meanwhile Texas football is less than a year removed from winning the goddamn Sugar Bowl against Georgia, has another great recruiting class coming in, and if it gets any sort of a defense will be back to winning 10 or more games next season. don't let the fact(s) you are fanatical about football and nonplussed by basketball confuse you into thinking that football is in worse shape. it's not even close, and it's 10x more costly to fix. also, Tom Herman >>>> Shaka Smart. 

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#WulawWasRight 

There is not a single data point to refute Wulaw’s OG Fire Shaka Smart Post which originated during year 2 IIRC.

I will still blindly hope Shaka turns it around this year, but who are we kidding? In 3 months the narrative will be, “Jesus, only Shaka Smart could fuck up a cancer comeback story.”

Merry Christmas.

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9 hours ago, Goo Punch said:

and yes football fanbois, i know what you're thinking- "Derka!! How the hell can you say that the football program isn't more fucked up than the basketball program, are you fucking high?!!!?!!"

first off, yes i am, thank you. watching Shameless right now. good show, i only just got into it. second, the basketball program has garnered legitimately shitty results for four years running despite being as highly rated in recruiting as anyone not named Duke or Kentucky during that time. We missed the tourney last year for the second time in four years; we won 11, count em, 11 fucking total games and finished dead last in the conference three years ago;  about to finish 7th or 8th in the league and miss the tourney for the third time in five years (we missed it once in the prior 19 years). we are swirling around the metaphorical toilet bowl and there is no place to go but down as long as Shaka Smart is in charge.

Meanwhile Texas football is less than a year removed from winning the goddamn Sugar Bowl against Georgia, has another great recruiting class coming in, and if it gets any sort of a defense will be back to winning 10 or more games next season. don't let the fact(s) you are fanatical about football and nonplussed by basketball confuse you into thinking that football is in worse shape. it's not even close, and it's 10x more costly to fix. also, Tom Herman >>>> Shaka Smart. 

I agree with the majority of the post other than the drug stuff. Kids, I implore you: Don't do drugs. Oh, and the costly part. I don't get the costly part. Maybe twice as costly, but not 10 times. It is much easier to turn around basketball because the teams are so much smaller in numbers (not height) and roster turnover can happen much faster. So, what's up with the costly part? The fans will come around as soon as the product improves so I don't see advertising costs being your concern. What are you talking about?

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8 hours ago, Bevo said:

I agree with the majority of the post other than the drug stuff. Kids, I implore you: Don't do drugs. Oh, and the costly part. I don't get the costly part. Maybe twice as costly, but not 10 times. It is much easier to turn around basketball because the teams are so much smaller in numbers (not height) and roster turnover can happen much faster. So, what's up with the costly part? The fans will come around as soon as the product improves so I don't see advertising costs being your concern. What are you talking about?

it's a lot more expensive to pay for Herman and his staff to leave + hire a new HC and new football staff than it is to do the same for hoops. 

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27 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

it's a lot more expensive to pay for Herman and his staff to leave + hire a new HC and new football staff than it is to do the same for hoops. 

Thanks. From what you wrote, it sounded like you were saying that fixing basketball was 10X more expensive.

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33 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

it's a lot more expensive to pay for Herman and his staff to leave + hire a new HC and new football staff than it is to do the same for hoops. 

Yes that’s true. But our big money donors are just fine ponying up more money you get rid of Tom and his staff than Shaka. They don’t care enough. 

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you know all jokes aside, i have a hard time equating the NIT to any other competition in sports. at first i thought of the carling cup, or carabao cup or whatever it is now (english soccer competition), but even that is much more important than the NIT. i mean we ran through the field and then coasted in the final, then the final buzzer went off, and our guys and Shaka celebrated, and then nobody ever spoke about it again. No parade, no fanfare, no "NIT Champion Texas Longhorn" references; i mean they hung the banner behind close doors and with essentially zero press coverage. it's like we're ashamed to have won the damn thing, which we probably should be all things considered. from now until the end, my only reaction i'll have whenever i think about the NIT run of 2019 is "Ugh." 

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8 hours ago, Goo Punch said:

you know all jokes aside, i have a hard time equating the NIT to any other competition in sports. at first i thought of the carling cup, or carabao cup or whatever it is now (english soccer competition), but even that is much more important than the NIT. i mean we ran through the field and then coasted in the final, then the final buzzer went off, and our guys and Shaka celebrated, and then nobody ever spoke about it again. No parade, no fanfare, no "NIT Champion Texas Longhorn" references; i mean they hung the banner behind close doors and with essentially zero press coverage. it's like we're ashamed to have won the damn thing, which we probably should be all things considered. from now until the end, my only reaction i'll have whenever i think about the NIT run of 2019 is "Ugh." 

You just don’t understand basketball like I do. It’s about the young men, and the young men enjoyed making that NIT run.  It’s not about your selfish desire to see a competently coached team that actually develops said young men.  

Cant you see how much a young man like Gerald Liddell developed because of that NIT run? That young man wouldn’t have been able to develop nearly as much if he had a good coach who got him to the tourney where he had to play other young men who are good at basketball instead of beating up on a bunch of cupcakes while winning the NIT. 

/greggym

 

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On 12/24/2019 at 9:46 PM, TwiceHorn said:

I don't think anyone would contend that football is in worse shape than basketball in any absolute sense.

It is in worse shape as far as fan, alumni, and even administration tolerance levels go.

Aye, this is more or less what I'm saying. This, combined with the significantly bigger revenue swings that come from football fan disengagement/apathy relative to basketball, are why Tom Herman failing or succeeding has some impact on the math behind Shaka's job security. CDC is running a $100m+ business and football gets the lion's share of his attention because it produces the lion's share of the money; if he thinks he's going to have to replace Herman soon, it's going to cut into the cash available to do a litany of other things up to and including replacing Shaka. Maybe he doesn't think he will and this point is moot, it's just an angle I've been thinking about.

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You small headed narrow minded fools just aren't seeing the big picture.  Texas getting their ass beat by a team like Providence launches the Providence coach to a gig like....Texas, bringing in another decade of Longhorn basketball success. 

 

It is the way.

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I made this post (and the following one) in the Barnes thread, but it ended up being just as applicable here as it is there, so i'm gonna cross post it: 

 

Yes, I'm talking about Rick Barnes. If you can't handle that, tough. That's your own weird problem, and there's no need for five of you to go full derka all over this thread because of it. so don't, please and thank you. The tl;dr version of the posts:

I really really miss the way Barnes constantly/publicly holds his players accountable and demands more of them, from his all american players to the last guy off his bench. Shaka does not practice this at all, and there is zero doubt that it's a huge factor in our basketball program completely regressing since Smart took over for Barnes. No accountability, no improvement, and you get the same shitty product year upon year. The next guy needs to be a helluva lot more like Barnes in this area.

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Damn his teams are boring and shitty even when they win. I mean they just kinda toss the ball around and then jack a three every once in a while. How did this ever get described as "Havoc"? I thought we were getting Tom Penders 2.0 instead we got...um...something really not that. This team is a sleep aid.

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The minimum threshold for BoR approvals is $10million ... for capital projects. Firing a coach and paying out his guaranteed money isn’t a capital project. It does require BoR approval however ... when the original contract is approved. The AD doesn’t have to go to the BoR to pay a coach for a contract that has already been approved. Fuck. 

As to being able to buyout both coaches - they are independent circumstances. Money has been committed on both fronts by different groups when the numbers were higher than they will be after this season. 

Also, there was never a struggle to raise money for the basketball arena in any meaningful way beyond usual major capital raise standards. 

If the bottom falls out of Texas’ basketball season this year and ends in disaster, as the numbers and posters here project, Smart is gone. If he’s not and there are whines thrown about behind the scenes that make it to us about not having the money, I’ll buy bitterwhiteguy and engraved paperweight that says “I actually have a clue” on it and he can use that to hold down his documents at his local Starbucks workstation. 

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8 hours ago, Valmy77 said:

Damn his teams are boring and shitty even when they win. I mean they just kinda toss the ball around and then jack a three every once in a while. How did this ever get described as "Havoc"? I thought we were getting Tom Penders 2.0 instead we got...um...something really not that. This team is a sleep aid.

HAVOC(tm) .  It's what Ambien takes when Ambien is having trouble falling asleep.  

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