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HookEm

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Posts posted by HookEm

  1. I still think FSU is better and draws more eyeballs than the average SEC team, which should mean that it raises the contract incrementally for everyone. 

    I actually think UNC is also pretty valuable all things considered.  They are about on the same level as Ole Miss in football... but they are an absolute cream of the crop blue blood in hoops.  And they are a also a top-25 national university.  North Carolina is a populated state that is still geographically congruous to the existing SEC.  Either the BIG or the SEC would be glad to have them.   

    Virginia is another interesting one.  They would help the SEC further expand to the Northeast with another flagship university in the 12th most populous state. And they are a top-25 university as well.  Their football program isn't great right now, but their basketball team has won a title recently.  I think they will be one of the more valuable programs in this next round of realignment.

    I don't think it is a huge driver, but adding UNC (#22), Virginia (#24), FSU (#53) and even Clemson (#86) to the SEC would be a coup from an academic perspective.  Coupled with the recent Texas add and they will have really helped their academic reputation.

    If the ACC even loses FSU, it is going to really hurt their brand.  If they lose their top 4-5 schools, their next contract will be far lower than the Big 12... which means the remaining decent programs will jump.

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  2. The thing about Chris Beard was that if we ever got up by 10 points, it was game over. If we ever got to 50 points, it was also likely game over. Having an elite defense and a methodical slow paced, but efficient offense meant that a 10 point lead functioned more like a 20 point lead.

    With this team, a 20 point lead feels more like a 5 point lead.

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  3. Shedrick, Onyema and Disu combined for 40 minutes... and 2 rebounds.  FFS.

    Rebounding is a great indicator of coaching IMO. It relies on position (coaching) and effort (coaching) much more than on athleticism.  Kevin freaking Love led the NBA in rebounding. How in the world can those three only get 2 rebounds in a game?  They should be combining for 15.

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  4. This team still has some good pieces.  Abmas and Disu are really good players. But they are also both finesse players. We need some dogs on this team and don't have any.

    Shedrick was getting completely and totally outplayed.  At one point he knocked down UCF #5 and tried to help him up. UCF player slapped his hand away and was like "bitch ass mothafucka".  That dude was a dog and was the player of the game IMO. He wasn't trying to make friends. He was out there trying to beat the shit out of us.

    Maybe Shedrick is hurt. Who knows. But I was promised an enforcer and he isn't that guy.

    I also thought IT played "ok", but it was fools gold. His defense wasn't good. He wasn't chasing down loose balls or getting position. Zero steals.  Zero blocks (for a big guard).  Three rebounds.  He played slow and soft and settled for jacking up 3s at the worst moments. I would have rather gotten 20 minutes of him and 20 minutes of Shedrick - who could possibly change the pace.  Instead we got 37... THIRTY SEVEN!! minutes of Horton.  Dude is somewhat fat and looks out of shape. He doesn't need 37 minutes. Damn. Come on Rodney.

    And if you are going to have Abmas out there for 39 minutes, you need the other guards to be able to play defense and cover his weaknesses. 

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  5. There is no doubt in my mind that if you gave this team to Bill Self (or Chris Beard or any of the top 10 college coaches), they would find a way to make them great. Our issues with Mitchell, Abmas, Hunter, Horton and others would not be as pronounced because the great coaches would develop them and also game plan around them such that they could be successful.

    So credit RT for recruiting, but that was never a concern. He gets an F for developing chemistry. The team looks like they just met at the Y and are now playing pickup. And yes I know there was a lot of turnover and these guys haven’t had a ton of time together. But they aren’t getting any better as the season moves along. There doesn’t seem to be any leadership from the court or from the bench.

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  6. 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. 

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  7. 1 hour ago, redswingline said:

    I'm not seeing this. Yeah, they may lose their best football members at some point (FSU and Clemson), but I think they added Cal, Stanford and SMU to bolster their member numbers in case Clemson and FSU bolt.

    If FSU and Clemson bolt, the ACC still has 15 football programs and can go poach G5's if needed.

    They'll remain the #4 of the 4 main conferences.

    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.

  8. 5 minutes ago, ClubWhatever said:

    Eh, the second year will be used as the old "we need to see some improvement" gage.  Most likely involving a staff change or two.  If there is actual improvement, then we can all look forward to a third year!

    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.

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  9. 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.

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  10. On 1/10/2024 at 10:41 AM, closetojumping said:

    My view is that the Big 12 will be fine as the 4th of 4 larger conferences.

    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

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  11. 56 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

    rick barnes, who turned down the kentucky job while he was at Texas, turned down the UCLA job while he was at Tennessee. i’m not sure i could type out another single sentence that more concisely makes my case than that one.

    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
  12. 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.

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  13. 16 minutes ago, Pancho said:

    I’ve said before and I’ll say it again—a Michigan State coach told me Texas was a top 5 job because of resources, recruiting, and no pressure to win big. 

    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

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  14. 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.

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  15. 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. 

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  16. 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.

  17. 12 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

    RT also lost his entire recruiting class, which pretty much everyone gave him a pass for, but if you’re going to bring in a two man recruiting class, maybe make sure that both guys aren’t a risk to go pro elsewhere, leaving you high and dry.

    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.

  18. Quote

    As I mentioned during that run, even Derka would have coached us to at least a s16. That’s how talented the roster was.

    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.

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