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Texas Basketball 2023-24


MuellerHorn

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Got a cupcake tomorrow at 2 to hopefully get the team and fan base going again.

We knew it was going to be a down year replacing so many players, but the roster now has 4 grad students in our top 6 scorers, and if Mitchell goes pro we only have Hunter left after the year. Rebuild, rebuild, rebuild, seems suboptimal.

Can any of the grad students return?

 

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23 hours ago, shadow_operative said:

last time we were this bad through 8 games we went 11-22.

Kinda depends on how you define "bad".  We started out 5-3 in 2018/19, but finished 21-16.  NIT Champions, baby!

(I agree with your general take on this team.  That game against Marquette was very unsettling.)

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What the cuss did Haith do?  

UCONN loss wasn't that bad, but yes---Marquette was pretty fucking brutal.  We knew between a new-ish staff and all the new faces on the roster, this wasn't gonna be a Final Four, or even Elite 8 team.  But don't start freaking the fuck out yet.  We have not progressed as much as we should have 1 month into the season, but there's still a narrow window of time to get our shit together before Big XII play.  My biggest worry, aside from frontcourt progression, is that the league looks (as usual) pretty fucking good.  And the new additions are playing well for the most part in their competitive OOC slates.  But yeah, we seem a bit rudderless right now.  I don't know if that's just us adjusting to the new normal of premiere portal/NIL hoops plus a new coach, or what.  But we got about 20 minutes to figure it out.  Let's go! 

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2 hours ago, YGIFS said:

We knew between a new-ish staff and all the new faces on the roster, this wasn't gonna be a Final Four, or even Elite 8 team

go back and read the posts in october. lotta people on this board who had declared this year’s team to at least be the equal of last year’s team, if not better. we got more atheltic this year, dillon is going to make a big jump, it’s the best shooting team in more than a decade, etc. that was, if not the consensus, a projection that hardly anyone was pushing back on. 

Edited by shadow_operative
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Current NET rankings of Big 12 schools (as of this morning, UCF lost today they will likely fall)

#2 Houston 

#3 BYU

#6 Baylor 

#10 Iowa State

#13 Oklahoma

#17 Kansas

#26 Cincy (haven’t played anyone, have them on fraud watch)

#48 TCU (likewise, lost to the first real team they played yesterday)

#61 Texas

#65 UCF

#69 Kansas State

#80 Texas Tech

#159 Oklahoma State

#193 West Virginia

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18 minutes ago, CTC2 said:

Why? They were both ineffective assistants responsible for rather lackluster offense. 

Yeah….I still don’t follow. Are you basing this on the 9 games so far this year? His previous stops as an assistant or head coach? His previous stop at Texas? Did Terry announce he fully outsourced the offense to Haith?

Is Haith also an asshole who is hard to work with, can’t recruit and has no prior success at any stop in this career like Watson?

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Yes to everything in your first paragraph.  
Go to a game and just watch. Very little coaching going on.  Yes, he’s responsible for the offense.  Disengaged during timeouts standing outside the huddle, players making the same mistakes in game one as in game nine, and much of what has already been discussed above. 
I hope things turn around. I am curious how they integrate Disu. Maybe I will be proven wrong. 

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8 hours ago, YGIFS said:

What the cuss did Haith do?  

UCONN loss wasn't that bad, but yes---Marquette was pretty fucking brutal.  We knew between a new-ish staff and all the new faces on the roster, this wasn't gonna be a Final Four, or even Elite 8 team.  But don't start freaking the fuck out yet.  We have not progressed as much as we should have 1 month into the season, but there's still a narrow window of time to get our shit together before Big XII play.  My biggest worry, aside from frontcourt progression, is that the league looks (as usual) pretty fucking good.  And the new additions are playing well for the most part in their competitive OOC slates.  But yeah, we seem a bit rudderless right now.  I don't know if that's just us adjusting to the new normal of premiere portal/NIL hoops plus a new coach, or what.  But we got about 20 minutes to figure it out.  Let's go! 

When RT built this team many of us, myself included, thought this roster was a top 10 roster. Certainly it’s a top 20 at the very worst. Experience, shooting, athleticism, true bigs, the roster has a lot to love. 
The team isn’t very good right now and it seems clear it’s coaching. Our defense flat out sucks and with the players we have that is unacceptable 

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26 minutes ago, CTC2 said:

Yes to everything in your first paragraph.  
Go to a game and just watch. Very little coaching going on.  Yes, he’s responsible for the offense.  Disengaged during timeouts standing outside the huddle, players making the same mistakes in game one as in game nine, and much of what has already been discussed above. 
I hope things turn around. I am curious how they integrate Disu. Maybe I will be proven wrong. 

Blaming an assistant coach in basketball for the problems is certainly a take lol

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go back and read the posts in october. lotta people on this board who had declared this year’s team to at least be the equal of last year’s team, if not better. we got more atheltic this year, dillon is going to make a big jump, it’s the best shooting team in more than a decade, etc. that was, if not the consensus, a projection that hardly anyone was pushing back on. 

I was really pimping this team in the offseason. And funny enough all the things you mentioned turned out to be true. Dillon Mitchell has made a leap. Shedrick is generally better than expected. Abmas is as efficient as ever. The team has some great athletes in Mitchell, Weaver and Hunter.

But something is off. The chemistry is poor and the guards aren’t playing well. For this team to be good, Hunter has to be the lead guard and set the tone on offense and defense. He has majorly disappointed. And Horton has played even worse. So Abmas is having to carry the whole load. Or maybe the other guards are playing poorly because Abmas is hard to coexist with. Regardless it is ugly right now.

Disu will help things, but it won’t matter if the guards aren’t better. Is that because of coaching? Maybe. Or maybe it is just poorly constructed. I just know I don’t enjoy what I’m watching much right now.
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yeah, I actually noticed as I was typing that out that the things that had us excited before the season started all have more or less come to fruition, and yet somehow it is not coming together as a team. the back court is just a hit mess on both ends. i mean i figured that this would be a team that wins games with offense, but i did not expect a defense this visually and statistically bad. our three point defense makes me think of the “try hiding” line from super troopers. we ain’t even trying to defend the three point line.

as for the offense, you may remember me frequently making the post “practice reps” during the short lived beard era. it was my favorite thing about his offense, that so many of our shot attempts were practice rep type shots- catch and shoot from the wing or the corner, a pull up J from the elbow or from 17 feet, a back door cut that leads to a lob, etc. this year the team has a few of those possessions sandwiched between way too many possessions where we make poor decisions, take bad shots, and generally seem rudderless. and we will repeat these idiotic possessions over and over as if it’s the game plan. 

the other thing that bothers me is that the effort has been there. the team has been playing hard. this is a veteran team full of guys who love the play college basketball and who are giving it their all. this hasn’t been like, “oh, they just need time to jell”, this has been like, “oh damn, these guys aren’t being put in a position to succeed, and i don’t know what this team and staff are going to be able to about that.”

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It would be nice if we had a data point somewhere in the middle of two national title contenders and 7 mid-majors or nobodies who won’t sniff the tournament. Maybe the LSU or UNC Greensboro game gives us that data point before conference play, although LSU isn’t very good.

My hope is the upside of this team develops as Disu returns and we see way less of Onyema (who is bad on both ends) and Weaver continues to take minutes from Horton (who couldn’t spell defense).

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2 hours ago, Hookem2147 said:

It would be nice if we had a data point somewhere in the middle of two national title contenders and 7 mid-majors or nobodies who won’t sniff the tournament. Maybe the LSU or UNC Greensboro game gives us that data point before conference play, although LSU isn’t very good.

My hope is the upside of this team develops as Disu returns and we see way less of Onyema (who is bad on both ends) and Weaver continues to take minutes from Horton (who couldn’t spell defense).

One. Shaka coaches paper tigers. 

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9 hours ago, The_Great_Hornsby said:

One. Shaka coaches paper tigers. 

They won't win it, but they have the talent and roster to do so. Plus Shaka teams traditionally play their best basketball in November and December every year.

Point being, there is a lot of middle ground between playing two top 10 opponents (and playing one of them quite well without Shedrick) and the 7 other opponents we have played who we have beaten by an average of 21 points.

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Given that Disu and Shedrick were't playing, we actually did pretty well against UCONN.  That was a terrible matchup given our injuries and we were very much in it with a few minutes left to play.  So this team is capable of playing with top-10 teams when they are healthy and clicking.  Marquette was just so so bad.  I was worried when Abmas came out and hit three straight 3s that we would settle for just jacking long shot.  And we did.

I still am hopeful that the team will improve as the competition improves. It is hard to take anything away from playing these terrible teams.  LSU will be a good test.  Hopefully we blow them out.

 

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9 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

The season isn't lost but Horton and Hunter are anchors right now. If those 2 can't figure it out then it's going to be an uphill battle.

Hunter is the big one. His FG % and assists are up from last year but his 3 point % is way down and he’s turning the ball over way too much. He needs to be a 33-35% guy from deep.

We can continue to offload some of Horton’s minutes to Weaver if Horton continues to show he can’t score (2 for his 17 from the field). If he can’t put the ball in the basket he can’t be on the floor because it’s like playing 4 on 5 defensively when he is in there.

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On 12/11/2023 at 10:16 PM, HtownHorn said:

The season isn't lost but Horton and Hunter are anchors right now. If those 2 can't figure it out then it's going to be an uphill battle.

In Beard's first year,  at this point in the season (12/13) we were 7-2 and ranked 17th. We beat a lot of shitty teams, and lost to the two ranked opponents that we faced (#1 Gonzaga, #23 Seton Hall), both games on the road. That team had a lot of new faces and improved over the course of the season.

This year we are 7-2 and ranked 19th, beating a lot of shitty teams and with both losses coming to ranked teams (#5 Uconn, #8 Marquette). We have 8 guys averaging double digit minutes this year, and 5 of them are new to the team. Disu coming back should help, as will more playing time for the team to gel. 

Lots of shit to improve on, but way too early to panic. LSU will be the first team we have faced with a pulse other than our  losses, so I'll be interested to see how we look against "average" comp. 

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1 hour ago, Blotto said:

LSU will be the first team we have faced with a pulse other than our  losses, so I'll be interested to see how we look against "average" comp. 

LSU is pretty damn bad but unfortunately for us it now looks like they will get their top transfer back with today's breaking news. 

Just our luck that we now have to play LSU with Jalen Cook. 

 

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24 minutes ago, Rickylovesweed said:

LSU is pretty damn bad but unfortunately for us it now looks like they will get their top transfer back with today's breaking news. 

Just our luck that we now have to play LSU with Jalen Cook. 

 

At this point, I would say we want the toughest LSU team we can play heading into conference play. We dont gain much from continuing to beat up on teams ranked in the 300's. 

 

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the changes needed have to come from the bench. this team has been playing hard, and they don’t look uncomfortable at all out there. they just aren’t being set up for success. 

first off, it’s clear that nobody in this coaching staff values/can coach defense the way that shaka and barnes did. for the last 25 years this has been a program that has pumped out very good - elite defenses year after year after year. we don’t have that identity or acumen anymore. we straight up do not defend the three point line, we force turnovers on less than 1/5 of defensive possessions (for comparison U of H forces a TO on 27.5% of defensive possessions), and we allow an offensive rebound on 30% of our opponents’ missed shots. good offensive teams salivate when they see us right now.

as for the offense, there’s just no discipline. this is where we resemble those shaka smart teams we all hated so much. just a guard heavy team where everyone has the green light, and where we don’t put a premium on getting and taking good looks. there’s no beard or barnes to drill the shit out of these guys on getting/taking good looks and then riding the pine if you can’t/wont do it. when Max Abmas takes a catch and shoot three it feels like he hits 60% of his shots. when we get shedrick the ball in the low block 1-on-1 that’s a bucket. tyrese hunter can still hit a catch and shot and he has the athleticism and skills to get to the rim/foul line. but we don’t prioritize these things. IT Horton is out here taking pull-up threes, Abmas regularly settles for garbage looks early in the clock, i mean believe it or not our smartest/most efficient offensive player appears to be dillon mitchell. there’s no real discipline from this offense, and no consequences for said lack of discipline.

so yeah, the season isn’t over yet. getting disu back will be very interesting, namely seeing how long it takes him to get back to his postseason form from last year, assuming he gets back to that level at all. that said, dylan disu returning is not going to do very much to fix the problems that this team faces. we’ll be adding one more good player to the court (and it’ll likely take him 4-5 weeks to get his lungs and legs back), but the foundation of this team’s problems will still be there, barring some major changes from RT and staff.

so, is the season over? no, it’s december, and our best player is out injured. that said, is there a very real chance that this team finishes under .500 in conference play, loses 5+ in a row in league play, and ends up a bubble team if not an NIT team? absolutely that is a total possibility. in fact it’s beyond a possibility- it’s where we are headed right now, barring this coaching staff getting its shit together and rolling out a much better product than what we’ve seen. this is not a player issue; it’s not an injury issue; it’s not a new faces issue; this is 100% on RT and his staff. if they don’t change, it’s gonna be a long, frustrating year for Texas.

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i normally wouldn’t worry about a guy like Cook making his return against Texas, but that’s when we have a typically tough Te as defense. the intensity we played with under Barnes and Beard + the emphasis on D that we had with Shaka would make it to where i’m not worried about him even having a positive impact on the game. in fact quite the opposite, i’d expect him to have something like 17-18 points on 5-17 shooting. but the way this defense has been so lax and inefficient, he really could make a difference, even if he only plays maybe 22-24 minutes. oh well. LSU still ain’t shit compared to what we’ll face in league play. no excuses. gotta handle business saturday. 

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16 hours ago, idigTexas said:

NCAA is still tacking on rules for the TRO.  Not sure how this would impact Cook.
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/39114574/ncaa-transfers-compete-tro-lose-eligibility-decision-reversed

 

Whoa...

" student-athletes who participate in games during the 14-day temporary restraining order will lose a season of eligibility if the ruling is reversed."

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32 minutes ago, TommysTinyTowels said:

Whoa...

" student-athletes who participate in games during the 14-day temporary restraining order will lose a season of eligibility if the ruling is reversed."

Yeah, big ass risk playing right now.  Not sure I'd risk it, personally.  Maurice Clarett FAFO vibes.  

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On 12/14/2023 at 5:56 PM, Rickylovesweed said:

Sounds like we may get Disu back at least this weekend. But yeah, LSU was a really bad P5 team without Jalen Cook but now that game may be interesting. LSU's issue has been scoring and Cook can score. 

 

Today in 90 minutes 🤘 

Screenshot_20231216-093632_kindlephoto-7213693.png.2b2820413afcf00057824546accddbea.png

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