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Bitterwhiteguy

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Posts posted by Bitterwhiteguy

  1. 16 minutes ago, dogbreath said:

    First time to watch Texas this season and isn't it ironic that the horns looked mechanical against A&M. 

    The team as always with Smart looks like they've had their instincts coached out of them.  To the point that Baker is trying to find his guy on D next to the rim and at the same time the player with the ball is within touching distance and attacking the goal.  Hell, a simple defensive play that exists in 10 year old driveway basketball or pick up hoops anywhere is ignored because . 

    Kai Jones is the only one who looks unburdened, just like Hayes and Ramey last year.  

    Ramey who showed promise last year looks like something is in his head and Hepa who has an idea of how to play, never gets a chance.  Too slow and no confidence from coaches, I guess.  

    The picks set are horrible and there is no rolling.  The offense looks to be designed as a hope and prayer that Febres bails them out with hot shooting.  But with scarce penetration and no effective off the ball movement this team will get killed in conference after B12 coaches watch tape.   

    Andrew Jones is a miracle.  Thank god for him.

    I would switch coaches with the Ags in a heartbeat.  If Buzz can got that bunch to play hard and organized defense.  If Smart coached Nebo then Nebo would be at the 3 point line setting picks. 

    Texas needs to press and run, because their half court offense sucks. 

     

     

     

    Their press defense is worse than their half-court defense, it currently ranks in the bottom 14% of D-I per Synergy. They're giving up 1 PPP in press vs 0.775 PPP overall, more pressing is unlikely to provide the result you desire.

  2. 1 hour ago, Burt Macklin said:

    The Big 12 seems somewhat down compared to recent years. Definitely seems like there will be a lot of close games between mediocre teams. 
    On the bright side, Im sure the team with the worst shot selection, lowest FTA rate, and highest amount of non-steal TOs will find a way to win a most of their close ones. 

    It's still rated the best conference in KenPom - I think in large part because there are very few objectively bad teams most years who would drag down the conference - but the gap has narrowed over the last few years.

  3. 1 hour ago, HtownHorn said:

    Georgetown doesn't look like a good shooting team, nor do they appear to be a particularly strong rebounding team. If Texas is good, they should run this team off the court.

    Georgetown is a really good rebounding team on both ends of the floor (top-25 in Oreb%, top-50 in Dreb%) in no small part due to Yurtseven who grabs a ton of boards. Sims will have his hands full with that guy. Texas will need to hit shots because they're not going to get a lot of second chances.

  4. 1 hour ago, HtownHorn said:

    I believe he was a package deal for Baker.

    Nope. He got the offer on his own merit, he made quite a splash in AAU summer games and had offers from OU, Gonzaga, and a few others.

    I've maintained from the jump that Brock's one of those players who makes an impact 3 years into his tenure, and I still think that's the case. He's got a very good basketball IQ, he has a nose for rebounds, and his shooting is better than he's displayed thus far. I think he'll be a valuable role player next year or the year after.

    • Like 1
  5. On 11/16/2019 at 9:28 AM, Revolution512 said:

    And then we rolled out Cunningham in game one......thankfully that appears to have been a thanks for all your hard work this summer 

    He wouldn't have started if Liddell was out of concussion protocol.

  6. 4 hours ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

    Yeah, one of my issues with employing analytics driven strategy in college basketball is that many of the conclusions drawn for higher skilled NBA players isn't necessarily true for college players.  And I don't necessarily think there's a sufficient enough dataset for college play to really suss out overriding areas of inefficiencies. Maybe there's some mapping done that I'm not aware of,  but with such a large disparity in talent across the board what can it really tell us about individual teams? NBA arenas are setup with numerous cameras all around the arena mapping out every player and every situation that takes place throughout a game.  Then thre data collected is fed into computers and logged forever. Nothing like that could ever hope to exist for college basketball.  

    Synergy logs and analyzes film for D-I NCAA basketball as well. I can tell you that just over 46% of Chancellor Ellis' shots are considered spot up & nearly 87% of his half-court shots are threes; if I have that kind of data on a Prairie View A&M player, imagine how much data they have on major conference teams.

    • Like 1
  7. 5 hours ago, longhornmatt said:

    I’m glad we’re 3-0 and had a road win against a Big 10 team.   But I seriously doubt Purdue is any good this year, and I know Cal Baptist is not any good.  

    Purdue is talented, and I expect they'll be better in March than they are now as they're still adjusting to a post-Edwards existence. Painter's got things rolling up there.

    (Also, Cal Baptist being on probation has nothing to do with the WAC and everything to do with the four-year process of becoming a full D-I member.)

  8. On 11/11/2019 at 9:47 AM, Fozzz said:

    Do you know how he does his ratings system at the beginning of the season?  Is the bulk of the ratings initially based on each team's performance in prior seasons or is it totally based on their performance this season?

    This is an oversimplification, but it's sort of a rolling average based on the previous 8-9 seasons. As the current season progresses, the current season data takes on progressively more weight in the calculation; if memory serves, by about the halfway point in the season the preseason rankings are out of the equation entirely. This is an older discussion about how he does it, but I think it's largely the same now.

    https://kenpom.com/blog/2016-preseason-ratings/

     

    • Like 1
  9. 5 hours ago, 2300 Nueces said:

    The results haven't been decent.  They have been horrible.  Last time I checked, fans drive revenue.  Eventually, no one will be watching on TV and they will get dumped by the networks.  Smart is an embarrassment.  I abhor talking with conference rivals about basketball.  We are a laughing stock.

    Texas basketball posted a net profit last year, as it has the last few years. It's remarkably stable in that regard, which suggests even with the Drum half-empty they're still doing fine. The only financial aspect that drives this conversation is the remaining guaranteed money on Shaka's deal, and that gets more palatable to pay off each year if Texas so chooses. But again, it's significantly harder for CDC to fund a basketball pay-out than a football one. Giving Herman $10m to go away could happen in a night, but getting donors to pay a basketball coach $10m to go away is next to impossible here. The biggest money guys just don't care that much about basketball.

  10. 12 hours ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

    While I think I know what you're referring to as far as late game turnovers, our overall TO% was pretty low last year at 36th best in the nation. TO% is probably the one area where Shaka's teams have performed relatively well throughout his tenure. On the other side of the spectrum, rebounding is a specific area where his teams have under performed woefully based on our talent. I think our rebounding % and 3pt% will be the telltale sign of whether we're worth a damn or not this year. We all know we're going to chuck up a lot of 3s so hopefully we drain them at healthy percentage to make it worth our while. With Yaklich I look for our defense to potentially enter into the elite category because he has a history of doing exactly that with his time at Michigan with arguably inferior defensive talent. Saying all this, I've learned to temper my hopes because the last 4 years have shown that's the best course of action. 

    Yaklich places a huge emphasis on defensive rebounding as well, so that side of the ball may improve. I don't think offensive rebounding is likely to make much improvement as I think both Shaka and Yaklich value getting back and setup on defense more than going after offensive boards.

    • Like 1
  11. 1 hour ago, MirrOlure said:

    I just stopped by to add:

    OOC Schedule: F- - - - -

    What a steaming pile of dogshit. And how fitting.

    The home slate is maybe the worst I've seen in 20 years (the LSU game is the only saving grace) but the neutral/road games are solid. Purdue, Providence, Georgetown, and potentially Duke are all decent-to-good opponents.

  12. 2 hours ago, txhorns said:

    Our ceiling is pretty damn high, probably an Elite Eight.  Our floor is pretty damn low.  

    I have heard a source who has visited practices around the conference describe Texas as a sweet sixteen level team. It's only one source so the normal caveat applies, but there's a buzz this year that I do not recall hearing the last couple of seasons.

    EDIT: Fuck, I almost went full Rothstein there. I am ashamed of myself, and will log off to contemplate my sins.

  13. On 10/15/2019 at 6:02 PM, longhornmatt said:

    I haven’t been following recruiting at all, but I see with have no 2020 commits as of yet. The first (and main) national signing day is November 13.

    Does Shaka know he’s going to get fired and just blew off recruiting this year?  We also don’t seem to have any commits from other classes.  This is, um, not ideal.

    Are we basically just Greg Brown or bust?  

    They're unlikely to take more than 2 due to scholarship limits unless somebody unexpected goes pro/transfers, and yes Greg Brown is the big fish. Right now Texas leads for him.

  14. 6 minutes ago, txhorns said:

    I think 4th in conference is a pretty generous projection unless everyone is assuming Jones is healthy again.  If he is healthy and can play like he did before cancer then we might be good.  

     

    I don't keep up with the other teams all that much.  Can anyone tell me what the other teams in conference lost or gained during the offseason?  Obviously Kansas and Tech will be really good again this year.  Baylor was young last year and should improve a lot.  What about the other teams?  Are we projected 4th just because the rest of the conference is utter dogshit?

    Cliff's Notes of the conference preview I'm posting in a couple weeks:

    Kansas is Final Four-level loaded this year; Baylor has a good chance at being 2nd; Tech may take a fall due to turnover (they lost to UTEP in a scrimmage a week ago, UTEP went 3-15 in CUSA last year); Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Texas, Kansas State, and West Virginia have high variability in outcomes; Oklahoma seems dependent on De'Vion Harmon to do much this year, and TCU is a mystery bag everybody is pegging to be last. Overall the conference will still probably send 7 teams to the dance.

  15. 30 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

    Tech's defensive system is somewhat unique and a frankenstein's monster of various college and NBA defensive philosophies put together by Beard and Adams. You wouldn't really find an analogue anywhere else, at least last season. I imagine there will be a number of copycats this season.

    Agreed on both counts.

    Virginia's pack-line defense is more about limiting penetration overall than it is about pushing everything to the outer thirds of the floor. It also has some tinges of a zone in that the four players not on the ball are playing gaps more than just their man. Tech's defense has some similarities but is more aggressive about help defense and swarming the ballhandler when they drive.

    EDIT: This is as good a time as any to recommend subscribing to Jordan Sperber's newsletter & Youtube channel (username hoopvision68), he's one of the best guys to follow for breaking down various college & pro teams.

  16. On 8/22/2019 at 3:21 PM, Catdaddyhorn said:

    I believe Yaklich specializes in a version of the pack line defense that Virginia runs and Tech has run over the past few years with Chris Beard.  Like @Goo Punchhas mentioned on here before, our team has graded out reasonably well analytically over the past couple seasons,  but we're missing out on the intangibles of guts and guile.  This is exemplified by our paltry rebounding numbers throughout Shaka's tenure.  I'm certain that outside of an improved defense Yaklich's biggest impact will exhibit itself in that specific area. 

     

    Tech's defense involves denying the paint at all costs & forcing things baseline, then aggressively sending help defenders to swarm the ballhandler. They will often line up with their bodies nearly parallel to the sidelines to deny the middle of the floor. Yaklich's Michigan defense was much more of a straight-up man defense with relatively little switching and help defenders coming as late as humanly possible (if at all). There are significant differences between the two.

    Jordan Sperber did a solid primer on the differences between the two in his preview of their Sweet Sixteen game:

     

    • Like 1
  17. 16 hours ago, dcar00 said:

    no one should have made any prediction considering Jones playing. pretty much a cop out there, IMO.  BTW, your last comment is exactly why we will suck again next year.  Shaka's problem is we are always banking on Freshmen because no one gets better under him.  the guy caught lightning in a bottle and we(meaning dumbass patterson) decided to actually bet on catching lightning in a bottle twice.  The guy is so fucking out of his depth in this league its not even funny.  Bruce Weber and scott Drew are bitch slapping him for god sakes.  we deserve better and I have to believe CDC sees it plain as day.

    NIT is basically a bit better OOC schedule. not impressed at all.  CDC wants us to be top 10 in all sports.  we are in 12 of 20 and got there last year in baseball(not happy with Pierce and he is on the hot seat after finishing last).

    bottom line - Shaka is not even close to a top 10 coach in a MAJOR conference.

    Bottom line - it is obvious Smart is not even close to a top 10 coach.

    For context and to shed a bit of light on why I made the prediction: prior to the season, I heard from some close to the Jones family that they were expecting him to play significant minutes. There was an offhand mention of the coaches broaching the topic of him redshirting, but I only heard it mentioned once so I dismissed it as unlikely. That's where I made my error; if I had taken the redshirting talk more seriously then I would have adjusted my expectations.

    As for banking on freshman, this year will be the first since his first season where Texas won't be reliant on any freshmen for baseline competence. There's a decent chance there are zero freshmen in the starting lineup for portions of this season depending on how Baker/Jones integrate into things; a starting lineup of Coleman - Ramey - Jones/Febres - Hepa - Sims is pretty likely unless Liddell or Baker show out in the offseason.

  18. Just now, Machinator said:

    I'll give you '17-'18, but Texas should have been a comfortable tournament team this season even without Andrew Jones.

    Sure, I was only speaking relative to my preseason pick. Other than the NIT performance, the team as a whole underperformed. This was Shaka's worst season as a Texas coach in terms of the roster reaching its potential.

  19. On 6/7/2019 at 11:15 AM, CurlyDumps said:

    Oops.

    Yep, didn't happen once Shaka decided to stick around. To paraphrase the mighty IT insiders when they whiffed on Saban coming here: it's what I was hearing at the time, didn't pan out though.

     

    On 6/8/2019 at 3:46 PM, Burt Macklin said:

    I like BWG but his predictions for the program have been god awful. He’s massively overrated UT every year he’s publicly put out a prediction. He and Preston have been massive Shaka apologists and they’ve looked bad for it every fucking year.

    him coming in here with his salty “oops” is just sad. No one is more ripe for sarcastic oops posts than BWG. 

    I try to put in caveats where appropriate, like this year when I noted my projection was based upon Jones playing more often than he actually did. If I had known they were going to hold him out to preserve a redshirt option I would have dialed things down a couple notches. Honestly, you can trace a big chunk of the last two years to the variance of Andrew Jones, first the year he missed 20+ games because of cancer and this year because of the redshirt option, both of those swung a handful of games from Ws to Ls. But yea, I've been wrong a lot; the blindspot I usually have is projecting freshmen, I'll try to watch some film but it's at best an educated guess. If I'm wrong about where the team lands, it's usually because I've overrated/underrated how the freshmen will perform.

  20. On 6/5/2019 at 8:52 AM, LTtxfan said:

    https://247sports.com/Player/Donovan-Williams-46049374/

    So who will be the team leaders for Horns Basketball this season??

    By now having Yaklich at Texas, I'm in a more hopeful mood.... Put on your best burnt orange glasses and describe a scenario where the Horns really surprise fans and possibly compete for this season's B12 Championship??

    It'll be Ramey, if it isn't already.

  21. On 5/22/2019 at 11:05 AM, dogbreath said:

    Let's hire Yaklich an assistant since Michigan moved on from him.   If something happens to Shaka, then Yaklich can step right in.

    Neither Texas or CDC's history points to them hiring a head coach with no prior NCAA HC experience.

     

    On 5/24/2019 at 1:46 AM, CurlyDumps said:

    If Yaklich is a rising star, hard to see him joining Shaka’s sinking ship.

    Oops.

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