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HookEm

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Posts posted by HookEm

  1. My main point is to congratulate Terry for what he is doing and weigh it heavily in his interview for the permanent position. In no way do I want to make him the permanent coach before seeing how the season ends. And likely not even then. 
     

    I also challenge the narrative that this is a “player-led team”. Literally nobody was saying that when Beard was still at the helm, and the players haven’t changed. People say it now because it helps diminish what Terry is doing.

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  2. Bamba is second only to Vince Young in the list of Longhorns who were drafted into horrible positions.  He has been criminally underused and underdeveloped his whole NBA career.

     

  3. 46 minutes ago, UTEE97 said:

    Maybe I need to rethink my own hiring practices. I always thought when people repeat, it's usually because they don't know what else to say.

    I agree if you are talking about an interview. Making a post game speech is a different animal.

  4. 38 minutes ago, UTEE97 said:

    I heard him repeat sentences and points he was making, which are not traits of strong leaders

    Is this a serious post or parody? Repetition in speeches is exactly what strong leaders do.  

    “I have a dream that x, I have a dream that y.”

    He is trying to reinforce that defense is what won the game.  (In stark contrast with the loss in Austin). And recognizing players who contributed on that end.  You can’t establish a culture without a TON of repetition.

  5. I think it is possible that Terry could be a lot more successful at UT than he was at Fresno or UTEP - and I mean relative to his Big-12 / SEC conference peers.

    Some coaches are great at developing, motivating and coaching up inferior players and helping them overachieve.  They find success as underdogs at lower-level schools who don't have the talent and demands of a big-time program.  And sometimes these coaches fail when they get to a big program and try to use the same tactics on elite one-and-done type recruits (see Billie Gillispie and many others). These "hard-ass" types can also struggle with the other duties they have at an elite program:  Dealing with rich boosters, dealing with the media, handling high-level assistant coaches, managing egos where everyone wants to be the star, dealing with NIL, etc.

    I think it is possible that Terry is actually good at all of these CEO-type activities that he never really had to deal with at Fresno State.  And he has an elite coaching staff that can fill in any other deficiencies. He has shown that he can keep the players motivated in an extremely volatile situation.  He has the team playing well together and everyone filling their roles.  He has the NBA-caliber players (Hunter, Morris, Mitchell) buying in on not being a star and sharing minutes. And he is making decisions throughout the game that are leading to big wins.  (Solid substitutions, keeping Rice coming off the bench, pressing to get a 10 second call, etc.).

    If you look at Jerry Tarkanian, he put together some of the best teams ever at UNLV.  He was pretty "meh" at Fresno State and even landed them on probation when he left. 

    Again, I'm not saying I would offer Terry the job today.  I've been pretty clear about what I think he needs to do to secure the job. But I can see how his success this year may not be a "fluke" or guarantee that we will suck once "Beard's" players leave.  

  6. 38 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

    More specifically we're loaded with a core group of players who are supremely aware of what they're good at individually and rarely venture outside of it.

    Our key players (Carr, Hunter, Allen and Rice) were all stars on their previous team. The reason they don’t all try to play hero ball is because this coaching staff has coached it out of them. And it still pops up from time to time.

    More than anything, the coaching staff deserves credit for taking a group that had largely never played together, and getting them to play like a team.

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  7. That was our best win of the year including Gonzaga. K-State is an Elite-8 caliber team and that was an extremely hostile environment… and the game was called in a way that favors them. 

    Really really gutsy win.

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  8. I'm supporting him right now as hard as I can.  I want him to do well enough that we make him an offer. 

    But surely you realize he had a 163-156 D-1 head coaching record before coming to Texas.  The bar is pretty damn high for me to overlook his other 10 years of coaching. 

    Since you disagree with my assessment, please tell us what you think he needs to do to earn the job.

  9. Funny, I was just about to post that I'm revising my list of qualifications for me to support a Terry offer.

    If he wins the Big 12 outright, all he needs to do is make the Sweet 16 for me to give him a chance.  In 27 seasons, we have only won the Big-12 outright a single time, in 1999. If he is able to do that this year, with all of the Chris Beard distraction, with the conference as deep as it has ever been, that is a tremendous accomplishment.  Make it to the 2nd weekend in this scenario and I am on board.

    If we tie for the Big 12 title, or win the Big 12 Tourney, then he is going to need to make the Elite 8 for me.  Any less than that and I am going to want to see a Final Four.

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  10. Quote

    The better the season Terry has the more impetus there will be to make him the permanent guy. Most fans are going to be fine with that and don’t see a big issue.

    I guess it just depends on how good the season is.  Sweet 16 or worse and I think most fans are going to think we can find better.  Elite 8 is probably where half fans want him and half want to get someone better.  Final 4 and most fans will want to keep him, including me.  Based on conversations I have had with actual UT fans who have attended a game in the last 6 months.

  11. Quote

    get a mechanical engineering degree, some good engineering programs in Texas.

    He got accepted into Texas Tech's Mechanical Engineering program and was all set to go there before hearing from UT.  I would bet a lot of Geology majors at UT are there because they missed out on their first choice.  As a UT ChemE myself, I haven't done chemical engineering in 20+ years.  I ended up in Technology, managing software projects in an adjacent space. 

    A Geosystems Engineering degree seems like it would be more versatile if you want to bounce to a different career. But I'm not sure whether it is viewed as an actual engineering degree or not.  It isn't a degree I come across. He also has some interest in law school, and I'm not sure whether any of the geology degrees would be good for that.

    Being a UT grad, it is hard to send him up to Tech if he has an opportunity here. I suppose he can always try to transfer majors within UT if he doesn't like it.

  12. Last night my son found out that he was accepted into UT's Geology department, which came as a surprise to him.  He is excited about getting in to UT, but doesn't really know much about the career options for Geology.  He was originally planning to study Mechanical Engineering.

    Any UT Geology or Geosystems Engineering students or grads in here? Wondering if you can provide some insight into the job outlook and such.  

    I'm a UT ChemE myself, but I don't really deal with this field to a great degree.

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  13. I'm curious if Terry ended up getting the job, how many of our assistants would stay on staff.  They came here to coach under Beard (for a lot of $$$). Would they stay to coach under Terry?  

    One reason why Beard has been so successful is that he is a MASTER salesman.  He has been able to put together great staffs wherever he goes.  Whether or not you think Mark Adams was the right choice to be head coach at Tech, he was still an extremely accomplished Juco coach and a tremendous asset to have on the bench. 

    The current Texas staff is one of the best in college hoops.  They also deserve a lot of credit in addition to Terry for the season we are having. They are certainly a lot better than Terry had at UTEP and Fresno.  

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  14. I guess I don't understand why your appreciation is limited.  The job he has done keeping the ship afloat has been incredible. 

    It could be that his skills are best suited for exactly this scenario.  Calm things down.  Take the talent that has already been developed and win games. And those skills are likely only a fraction of what is expected for a leader who will run the program for the next decade. 

    So I'm capable of appreciating what he is doing, but also separating that from the decision of who our next coach will be.  They are completely different scenarios.  It is like judging a substitute teacher with the same measuring stick as the actual teacher. Completely different jobs.

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