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HookEm

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Everything posted by HookEm

  1. The roster isn't the issue. I actually give RT an "A" for getting this roster assembled in the timeframe that he did it. Abmas was a GREAT add. I mean he just about single handedly took Oral Roberts to the Sweet 16 and earned All Region honors. Disu is a fringe All-American. Shedrick was a great add. Getting Mitchell to come back was a nice feat. And the portal guys we lost were either knuckleheads (see Arterio Morris) or not major contributors (see Rowan Brumbaugh). And he has done a great job recruiting HS for 2025. Right now we have #5 Tre Johnson, #37 Cam Scott and #46 Nicolas Codie. That is a potentially great class. The problem is that the sum of all this talent is less than the parts. They play hard, but don't play effectively. The individual and team defense is nowhere close to what it could be. The offense has no identity. It is frustrating AF to watch.
  2. I just think it is going to be a feeding frenzy. The SEC and BIG still want to add good pieces. BIG seems to have room for two more. SEC could add four. That would get both to 20. This will be their last chance to add GOOD pieces, so I think they will. Any new contract for the ACC will be dogshit. You really think UNC or Miami will stay to prop up the ACC when they are making pennies on the dollar vs. what they could make in a better conference? No chance. It will be PAC10 part 2. I think when the dust settles you will have the following adds: BIG - FSU and Notre Dame SEC - UNC, Virginia, Clemson, Miami Big12 - Virginia Tech, Pitt, Duke, Louisville (Good enough football and great hoops) The leftovers would then be: NC State, Wake, Georgia Tech, Boston College, Syracuse, Stanford, Cal, SMU. Plus you have Boise State, Fresno St, Oregon State, Washington State, UConn, Memphis and maybe a few others that they could add into a big national conference. My guess is that they won't though because nothing they do will be enough to give them an auto-bid. Their best move would be to form a few 10-12 team regional conferences and hope to get in via the "best other conference champ" route.
  3. Exactly. We get to be in a situation where we can't decide whether it is better to root for or against our own team.
  4. Hiring RT was about optics, but there was also a degree of loyalty involved. You had a good, long-term assistant take over under extremely tough circumstances and lead us to the Elite 8. He helped deflect all the attention off the Beard situation and shifted the focus to whether or not we would hire RT. Not giving him a shot would have been poor form IMO. But I think everyone involved knew that it was a long shot. So... we gave him just about the minimum contract that wouldn't handcuff him on the recruiting trail. And now that it looks like he isn't up to the task, I think we will move on fairly quickly. It isn't like he is Shaka, with a National Coach of the Year award, who took his own team to the Final Four.
  5. I agree with most of your post except this point. I think the Big 12 is already pretty clearly the #3 conference. Once Florida State bolts, some of the upper middle ACC schools are going to fight it out to join the Big 12 (schools like Virginia Tech, Pitt, Virginia and Louisville). They will take note of what happened to WSU and Oregon State and won't want to be stuck without a chair when the music stops. The ACC is as good as dead, IMO. Then there will be 2 power conferences, plus the Big 12 (with the rest of the respectable programs)... then everybody else. The SEC and BIG will get in 4 per year. Big 12 will get 2-3. And one spot will be left for everyone else. \Crystal Ball
  6. It is funny to search google for "top college basketball coaches" and see three of our former coaches in the top-25. Meanwhile... we have Rodney Terry.
  7. I agree. This is all true. On the flip side, I don't think Mick Cronin would have left UCLA for Texas if we had come calling at the end of last year (with him coming off a Final 4 and then back to back Sweet 16s). In fact, we would have a near impossible convincing any these guys to leave their current job to come to Texas: Bill Self, Kansas Dan Hurley, UConn Scott Drew, Baylor Tom Izzo, Michigan State Mike Cronin, UCLA Mark Few, Gonzaga Rick Barnes, Tennessee (lol) Shaka Smart, Marquette (lol) Chris Beard, Ole Miss (lol) We might be able to get one of these guys: Tony Bennett, Virginia John Calipari, Kentucky Tommy Lloyd, Arizona
  8. In fairness, I think the top 5 jobs are pretty fluid right now. We don't really know which schools are going to be most committed to NIL (and have coaches who know how to exploit it). Florida seems like it should be a top football job, but... Florida State seems more desperate to win big and may significantly out spend them. It seemed like Aggy was about to be a major player in football when they were writing blank checks, but it hasn't panned out yet.
  9. Perfect example. Michigan State is a near blue-blood. Two titles. EIGHT Final Fours in the last 25 years. One of the best players ever in Magic... Etc. If Texas and Michigan State are fighting over a basketball coach, Texas is going to get them 90% of the time. IMO
  10. Again, it depends on what we are talking about. Texas is NOT a top-5 program. By any measure. But you could argue that we are a top-5 JOB. When Barnes was at his peak, there were rumors he was a candidate at Kentucky. He stayed put. We hired Shaka when he was the hottest coach in the country. We hired Beard from an in-state "rival" when he was a year removed from a title appearance. And all of that was without the Moody Center, NIL or the transfer portal really rolling. There was no way around hiring RT. People shouldn't read into that hire that we won't be a huge player when it comes time to replace him.
  11. Nobody is saying we are a blue blood. But, if all jobs in the country suddenly came open and everyone was competing for the pool of coaches, I have no doubt that UT would be somewhere in the 4-10 range. We have the money, facilities, talent pool and quality of life that are going to be hard to beat. And you don't have to worry about following Coach K or Bill Self or whoever. After Kentucky, Kansas and North Carolina, you could argue that we are in the next group. If Texas, Indiana, UCLA and Duke are all fighting for a coach, I'm not certain that Texas doesn't get them.
  12. My point wasn't really that RT is better than Shaka or not. My point is that both of them are on a different planet than anyone in this thread. And a whole lot of coaches could have F'ed up last year, when Terry and the other coaches on staff got us to the Elite 8. Just one example: Managing the egos such that possibly our best player in Rice was coming off the bench isn't an easy task. Anyway, there is no excuse for this team. The sum isn't even close to being equal to the parts, much less greater. As much as I thought Haith was a good hire, he also has to share a lot of the blame. The team just isn't playing like a team. The guards in particular are just not playing well on either end. And we have zero guard depth, despite having seemingly talented pieces on the bench. Horton sucks. Weaver has promise, but is extremely raw. Johnson never gets in the game, so I can only assume he is even worse than the others.
  13. Losing Holland was bad, but he basically replaced AJ Johnson with Chris Johnson and the two are similarly rated prospects. Unfortunately we've gotten nothing out of Chris Johnson.
  14. I keep hearing this and it is just ridiculous. Immediately following the Beard news, Rice... RICE took us to overtime. The team looked like crap for weeks. Everyone was complaining that our defense was falling off a cliff. We lost at home to K-State, we barely beat OU, Tech and TCU). The coaching staff eventually righted the ship, but it could have EASILY turned into a lost year. Moreover, the team wasn't THAT talented. Not a single player from the team made an NBA roster. Rice is G-League, Carr is playing in Israel, Timmy Allen is playing for the Memphis Hustle. Disu was hurt half the year. Hunter was hurt and mentally shaken up over the Beard fiasco. Bishop was a one-dimensional player. Mitchell (if memory serves), had the lowest number of shots ever for a National top-5 recruit. If you compare this lineup to the one that Shaka coached to a defeat at the hands of ACU, it isn't close. That team had loads more talent that was criminally misused by Shaka. So this ridiculous statement that anyone could have coached our team last year implies that everyone of us arm-chair coaches is better than a former National Coach of the Year. Just an eye-roll terrible take. For me (and the UT administration) RT earned the job offer. Right now though he isn't doing enough to keep it. There is no way we fire him this year though. Zero chance. He will get two years.
  15. Also, in Big 12 typical fashion, the bottom feeders are actually all pretty decent.
  16. That cuts both ways. We have also been unlucky enough to have our best player out or on a minutes restriction for the first 40% of the year. With Disu healthy we likely wouldn't have needed Abmas' heroics vs. Louisville. And we likely beat UConn as well. And maybe we beat Tech too if he gets 34 minutes.
  17. My minutes distribution would be: Starters: Abmas: 30+ Hunter: 26 Mitchell: 30 (20 min at SM, 10 min at PF) Disu: 30+ (Mostly at PF) Shedrick: 25 Bench Cunningham: 18 Weaver: 20 (15 min subbing for Abmas/Hunter and another 5 min with 3 guards) Onyema: 12 (mainly subbing for Shedrick) Everybody else: The remaining ~10 min
  18. Fine. No problem with that. Those minutes need to come from Cunningham then. Which means much more of Mitchell at the 3 then his minutes at the 4 go to Onyema. And more Weaver at the 1/2 and not at the 3.
  19. In the post game, the first thing Disu asked was how many minutes he got. He said that he has been on a minutes restriction. I'm sure that had something to do with his low minutes vs. Tech. I really think our best lineup is: Abmas, Hunter, Mitchell, Disu, Shedrick. Brock can be the first off the bench and move Disu and Mitchell to the 4/5 respectively. But I really want him back to the 18-22 minute range. Then bring in Weaver for Hunter if he is having one of his off nights. Everybody else should get spot minutes as necessary. Disu is capable of playing at a National PoY level. That isn't hyperbole. If healthy, he could average 20 and 10 with a couple of blocks and a couple of 3s on great efficiency. And Abmas is CAPABLE of playing at an All-Region level (which is an award he has already won in a NCAA tournament). The other pieces just need to step up and play to their potential. We have plenty of talent on this team.
  20. That was a huge win. By far our best of the year. Cincinnati is a decent team that will probably make the tourney. This shows what a monumental difference a healthy Disu makes (especially when he isn't on a minutes restriction). That was an incredible performance. I still think if Disu was healthy and got 30+ minutes against UConn we would have beaten them. (Not to mention if we had Shedrick healthy as well). Our guards are such a question mark that I can't really project us doing much. I agree with others that Weaver needs to be getting more minutes. Cunningham is best when he is capped at ~18-20 min. In our 3 losses, he averaged about 31 minutes. In our wins, he is averaging 25 minutes and probably shouldn't have gotten that many. I say that as Cunningham's biggest fan. I also think that Onyema is pretty limited. He was getting worked for like 3 straight possessions and almost cost us the game. Shedrick is a much better defender.
  21. It would take a collapse of epic proportions to fire him this year. But if he misses the tourney both this year and next year, that would do it. Tonight is really a must win in a fairly tough road environment.
  22. I'm not sure I have ever seen a bigger douche than Jim Harbaugh.
  23. I don’t think you can look at what Texas has done and conclude we don’t care about winning. We just built one of the best arenas in the sport. We put the students right down close to the action. We are shelling out NIL money to get some of the best players in the portal. We hired Shaka and stole away Beard, both considered top 5 coaching prospects at the time. We had to fire Beard. We had to hire Terry. Period. UNC would have done the same thing. But I have no doubt we will quickly move on from Terry if he doesn't have sustained success here. We won't whack him this year, but he will be gone after next of he doesn't have us consistently in the top 10.
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