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HookEm

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Everything posted by HookEm

  1. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I may be wrong. But I think people fail to appreciate that the environment is about to change again. 5th year Covid players greatly inflated the talent level in the portal. You are still going to have a ton of players in the portal, but they won’t be nearly as impactful. And a lot of them will be one year rentals instead of 2-3 so there will be less continuity. Imagine if we only got one year of Carr, Allen and Bishop. Take out all the 5th year players this year and we have a completely different tournament. I doubt UConn wins without Newton and Spencer.
  2. I think it is entirely possible that RT will end up being the 2nd most successful coach we have ever had, in terms of what he accomplishes. But.... That is incredibly misleading because the environment is now set up for winning in a way that hasn't existed in our entire history. NIL, the transfer portal, an awesome new arena, the move to the SEC, favorable Texas high school talent improvements, increasingly rich alumni and media deals, etc. are all set up for us to dominate, not just win at the old rates. If he simply holds serve, then that is a major failing in my view.
  3. By "when the chips fall right", I meant that it will be quite uncommon - certainly not on a consistent basis. Maybe once every 5-6 years. Yes, we had an exceptionally experienced team last year: Carr (6th year), Rice (5th year), Allen (5th year), Bishop (5th year).... plus Brock and Disu in the 4th year. But, the extra Covid year is gone, so the silver lining is that NOBODY is going to have experienced teams like that again. And RT is showing that he can go get high school players, and they are going to play a much bigger role again starting next year. Even this year, with a team that most of us found to be pretty damn frustrating, we were an improbable pair of Tennessee free throws from potentially making the Sweet 16. And Tennessee was about as bad of a matchup as you could imagine for us. So, bottom line for me is that RT will field teams that might end up advancing if the matchups are good, or if the shots fall. But the high end potential and consistency aren't going to be there.
  4. This guy gets it. I expect we will make the tournament just about every year and win a game more often than not. And possibly sprinkle in a Sweet 16 or Elite 8 run when the chips fall right. That will be better than the 10 years before RT. But we will never win it all under him, and it is very unlikely we will make a Final Four.
  5. The last three years have been hugely influenced by the extra Covid year. It was literally the worst time in college basketball history to try to win with elite high school one and done type players (which is Calipari's bread and butter). People want to blame his failings on NIL and the portal, and that is accurate to a degree. But it is mainly an issue because he didn't fill his roster up with 4th and 5th year players. Kentucky "experience" ranks (per KenPom) 2024 - 196 2023 - 118 2022 - 187 2020 - 264 2019 - 284 2024 Elite 8 teams - Experience Ranking (median = 44) UCONN - 68 Purdue - 67 NC State - 14 Alabama - 60 ------------ Illinois - 11 Clemson - 25 Tennessee - 29 Duke - 197 1999 Elite 8 teams - Experience Ranking (median = 147) Virginia - 107 Texas Tech - 90 Michigan St - 119 Auburn - 65 ------------ Gonzaga - 20 Purdue - 176 Kentucky - 284 Duke - 351 This year, every team to make the Elite 8 was in the top-70 in terms of experience except Duke. If you go back to 2019, before the extra pandemic year, the teams making the Final Four were much less experienced. Note that this is in terms of ranking, not absolute experience level. This tourney, UK lost by 4 to Oakland, who started two 5th year seniors and a 6th year senior. Last year, they lost by 6 to K-State, who also started three 5th year seniors. Those type of guys are all gone next year and the younger, more talented players will play a much bigger role. Cal has done better than anyone in securing those young talented players and has not lost his fastball at all in this regard. Kentucky recruiting ranks: 2023 - 1 2022 - 9 2021 - 5 2020 - 1 2019 - 2 I'm not going to be surprised one bit when Arkansas starts reeling in top-5 class after top-5 class, and becomes a major pain in the ass.
  6. If Rick Barnes can get back to his old self with a change in scenery, I’m sure Calipari can. The problem with Kentucky is, how do you turn down blue chip high school players in favor of older, but lower potential transfers? He will be forced to use the portal at Arky.
  7. Gonna be funny when Arky hires Calipari and then Kentucky hires Beard.
  8. Does anyone have a summary of the transfer portal players who are considering us?
  9. No, we are only allowed to look backward on this thread.
  10. Arkansas could definitely be a destination job for Beard. Musselman took them to two elite eights and a sweet 16 all in a row. And Beard is a better coach than him. You could easily argue that Arkansas has a better history than Texas in hoops. Moreover, they are consistently in the top-10 in attendance. Beard and his ridiculous promotion skillz would be a thing to behold there. And the fact that it is a complete rebuild means nothing. Half the teams in the country are essentially in full rebound every year now.
  11. BTW, even the originator of this thread isn't advocating for firing him anymore.
  12. This thread isn't titled "We shouldn't have hired Rodney Terry". That is the conversation that I'm so exhausted from. The thread IS titled "Fire Rodney Terry" and that is the question I'm asking. Is anyone proposing that we actually do what the thread is titled? If not, then this thread should die. If you want to post about whether we should have hired him in the first place, then go ahead and start that thread and I can just avoid it.
  13. Beard would be such a ridiculously better hire for them than Tang.
  14. RT's horns down comments aren't in the same universe as being as bad as Sark's "Don't F****N' touch me again MOTHERF****R" moment: And nobody cares about that anymore at all. Turns out that winning gets you a lot of grace from the fanbase. RT needs to win and win big. Or he needs to go.
  15. I mainly tire of the constant re-whining that we hired him. It is exhausting. We all get it, Terry would have never been considered for the job under different circumstances. Cool. We all agree. WE ALL AGREE. But who cares, what is done is done. He is our coach now and we can't go back in time. So the question is, what do you think CDC should do NOW? Should he really fire RT after the season we just had?
  16. There have been plenty of players who started as terrible shooters and developed into good shooters. Mitchell has shown gradual improvement in his free throw shooting, which I think is a good proxy for overall shooting potential. 40.5% - Last Year 58.7% - This Year – OOC 68.6% - This Year – In Conference For comparison, Kai Jones shot 68.9% from the line during his 2nd year, which is virtually the same as Mitchell in conference. His issue seems to be more about confidence than about mechanics. I also think we are going to REALLY miss his rebounding. He was 2nd in the Big 12 in rebounds per game and 3rd in Defensive Rebound %. Our best returning rebounder is Shedrick and he was not very good.
  17. I appreciate that Mitchell understands his game well enough to not be chunking up shots when he doesn't have those skills. He is also a very willing defender and does the dirty work on the glass. Another year in the weight room and shooting and he should continue to improve. He is also a college power forward and should get most of his minutes there.
  18. What about now? Coming off a second year with a tourney win, a top-25 KenPom final year ranking, and having just signed the #8 HS recruiting class? If RT wanted out at Texas and tested the water, I think he would land a decent job. Maybe not as good as Marquette or Tennessee, but better than Fresno State. I think RT would do better at Stanford than Kyle Smith (for instance).
  19. Following last season, T.J. Otzelberger was 41-27 at ISU and they were an 11 seed and got bounced in the 1st round. And at UNLV before that he was 29-30 and missed the tourney both years. It isn't like he was a sure-thing hire. Tommy Lloyd would have likely parlayed any interest from us into a big raise at Arizona. We probably could have gotten Nate Oats.
  20. Once again, adding black to UT gear makes it horrific. That would be pretty bad regardless.
  21. I agree with this. If he misses the tourney, the bar is going to be pretty high the following season, maybe Sweet 16 to keep his job.
  22. Literally nobody was thrilled with the hire of RT. Literally nobody is currently thrilled with him. Literally everybody knows that we can do better. The only argument is whether there is any chance we fire him anytime soon. I personally don’t think there is. He would have to win only like 10 games next year to be fired - and he isn’t going to. We are going to sign a very good haul in the portal to go with our excellent HS class and win 20+ games again. And honestly my take is the most doom and gloom take you can have. Thinking we are going to suck isn’t doom and gloom. It is actually an optimistic take because there is hope we can hire an elite coach. My “good but not great” take is the worst case scenario because we may not move on for 6-8 years.
  23. I was happily surprised when it was reported that he was staying a few weeks ago. I think he will end up being a very solid player when all is said and done. Oh well, we should be able to get someone who can more immediately contribute. I don't think he was going to suddenly become awesome overnight. He is probably not going to be very good for at least another full year
  24. Well I guess I won’t have him on my roster and minutes projections this year. You can all relax.
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