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Fire Shaka Smart


smokebomb

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With a 4 year sample size, it’s very easy to draw long term conclusions. He’s making the same mistakes in perpetuity, which suggests either a lack of self awareness or an inability to fix the underlying problems. In either case, there is sufficient grounds to relieve him of his duties.

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One glaring weakness that Shaka has is the overall development of players.  Rick always had a "project" on the roster and by the time player "x" was a senior, he had made leaps and bounds from when he first stepped on campus.  (Klotz, Pittman, etc)  DO has been on campus 3 years now and to me he is actually worse, Kerwin has not added anything new to his game.  Coleman is a hell of a player, but he looks so uncomfortable on the court.  Zero development and zero game plan.

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Roach has gotten better, he is just way too inconsistent. He was amazing in the UNC game and played one of the best all-around games I have ever seen from a UT player.

Coleman and Sims have both regressed. I had high hopes from Sims, but he hasn't improved AT ALL. I mean he had 0 pts and 1 board against Providence. C'mon man. Damn.

And all of these losses are coming at home. Where is our freaking pride? We are definitely more talented than the teams that are beating us.

If Shaka wants to keep his job, he better resurrect Havok stat.

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Roach has gotten better, he is just way too inconsistent. He was amazing in the UNC game and played one of the best all-around games I have ever seen from a UT player.

Coleman and Sims have both regressed. I had high hopes from Sims, but he hasn't improved AT ALL. I mean he had 0 pts and 1 board against Providence. C'mon man. Damn.

And all of these losses are coming at home. Where is our freaking pride? We are definitely more talented than the teams that are beating us.

If Shaka wants to keep his job, he better resurrect Havok stat.


Roach plays hard/well when it suits him. The coach is supposed to demand some level of consistency, at least with regards to effort. Roach isn’t any sort of proof that Shaka can develop players. He’s actually proof that Shaka isn’t getting the players to buy in.
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One bottom line metric to me in coaching is trying to fairly evaluate the talent level versus results given a number of variables, and one aspect has to be conference record among close competitors.  Since Shaka has coached at Texas, here are the last three years of conference records in the Big 12:

1) Kansas 44-10 

2) West Virginia 36-18

3) Baylor 30-24

4) Texas Tech/Iowa State 26-28

6) Oklahoma 25-29

7) Texas/Kansas State 23-31

9) Oklahoma St 20-34

10) TCU 17-37

Do I think it's 100% fair to say 23-31 is all his fault?  Maybe not, there have been some unfortunate situations with certain players and health as we all know.  However, I in no way believe Shaka has had the 7th or 8th best talent in the Big 12 during the past three years.  Just no way.  So it's fair to really look hard at why because even beyond team record there are other signs of a program that isn't maximizing their talent or even developing players well.  After this fourth year, will he crack 30 total conference wins?  I legitimately wonder if any new coach can recruit as well as Shaka later on, but I don't wonder if we can't field teams that can consistently do better than this conference record every three years.  We can and we should.  Sure, losing to a team like say Michigan State is not a big deal, but some of the other ones are head scratchers to me.  Let's see what happens in conference this year I guess... 

 

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While he's recruited well in the front court I'd be hard pressed to say Shaka has recruited a bunch of quality at the guard and wing positions.
Both Roach and Eric Davis signed in the fall before Shaka was hired under Rick Barnes so they aren't on Shaka's ledger.

Wings and guards rected by Shaka:
2015 Tevin Mack
2016 Andrew Jones and Jacob Young
2017 Matt Coleman, Jase Febres, transfer Elijah Mitrou-Long
2018 Gerald Liddell, Brock Cunningham (arguably more of a forward than a wing), & Courtney Ramey.

Of the 9 players on this list there are only 3 maybe 4 (Tevin Mack arguably could do more than one or 2 things) players who are versatile enough to run his offense with any level of proficiency (Andrew Jones, Courtney Ramey, & Elijah Mitrou-Long). I love Coleman, but in an offense like this you need a pg who is a little more multifaceted than what he brings to the table. He'd be adequate if all the other guards/wings in the program were more well rounded and highly skilled, but alas we don't have enough of them. Having said all that, our roster would be a bit more successful if we pressed more and played at a frenetic pace, but it would still be difficult without more refined offensive players. We're a hodgepodge of ill-fitting parts, IMO.

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It's funny how good coaches always seem to have talent and cohesion and bad coaches always seem to have ill-fitting pieces and weak talent. A great coach will teach the players to be in better position and make better decisions, which will make them look more talented.

We have more talent than 95% of the other programs. We are doing our players and the school an injustice by not giving them proper coaching.

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11 hours ago, Revolution512 said:

Mind games with a senior? Haha that’s not really a thing. 

yes it is. especially when you're a super young coach who has no clue what he's doing, what he stands for, what his style or philosophy is, etc. NBA coaches play mind games with veteran players all of the time. bad coaches playing mind games happens at every level to evey kind of player. and benching Roach  for two straight games while pretending he's sick when he's clearly not sure as hell looks and smells like mind games are being played. 

and again, i cannot stress this enough- if you all knew what i know about specific mind games shaka played with some of Barnes' leftovers you would be righteously pissed. the stuff he did wasn't just mind games, it was fucked up. you'd be livid if it happened to someone you care about. i really wish that sharing what i know was an option, but surely you all can understand why it isn't. i actually did pm the details to wulaw and whoootex several years ago on shaggy, because i trusted them. there's nobody left here who i trust like that, but i'm telling you, the shit that this guy pulled is something i'll never forget, and it's honestly getting me a little fired up right now knowing what i know, only to have people who know nothing about the situation claim that it's impossible. no it's not. shaka smart is not beyond pettiness and straight up mind games designed to hurt people. i'll just wrap it up by saying he has former players who actively dislike him because of the shit he pulled. he is not the guy he portrays himself to be in public. not to everyone anyway. if you aren't one of "his guys" (and not every player he recruits is one of "his guys" either), then all of this fatherly/brotherly love shit he espouses probably doesn't apply to you. 

Edited by Goo Punch
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10 hours ago, mrhorn said:

One glaring weakness that Shaka has is the overall development of players.  Rick always had a "project" on the roster and by the time player "x" was a senior, he had made leaps and bounds from when he first stepped on campus.  (Klotz, Pittman, etc)  DO has been on campus 3 years now and to me he is actually worse, Kerwin has not added anything new to his game.  Coleman is a hell of a player, but he looks so uncomfortable on the court.  Zero development and zero game plan.

look no further than his terrible assistant hires. he needs skilled and talented assistants to prop him up and instead he hires his friends and a bunch of yes men. rob lanier, ken mcdonald, russell springmann, todd wright, even chris ogden- other than darren horn i can't think of a single assistant shaka has hired who has even approached these guys' level of expertise and acumen. your assistants are the guys who coach their specific position groups and who spend all of the one on one time with the players. we have a bunch of babies teaching babies. exactly what the hell does Jai Lucas bring to the table? David Cason? Mike Morrell? Neill Berry was supposed to fix our offense, yet all that's different is that we run a three man weave for 15 seconds before sputtering and taking a terrible shot. HC who's in over his head with a bunch of inferior assistants. it's no mystery that our team looks exactly the same (they're shitty) every single year. 

Edited by Goo Punch
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something that's happened consistently under shaka- we spend our entire summer/offseason stressing something, sort of making it like a team mantra or goal, and then the season starts and we immediately suck and scrap it. does anyone here remember just a couple of months ago when our program was loudly banging the "seven second offense" drum? Lowell and Lance wouldn't STFU about it, Shaka was promoting it, we'd hired the new offensive assistant who was supposed to implement it- "Texas wants to be one of the fastest teams in America!" And now before the calendar has even turned all of that talk has disappeared. what happened to it? it was THE thing that was supposed to be different this year, and yet we are as slow and disjointed as ever! Suddenly our HC never mentions this "seven second offense" anymore. We've swept it under the rug. We've decided that it's better that everyone forgets about it, because then hopefully they won't realize how completely inept we are at doing the thing we're supposed to have spent our entire offseason working on.

Edited by Goo Punch
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3 hours ago, Goo Punch said:

yes it is. especially when you're a super young coach who has no clue what he's doing, what he stands for, what his style or philosophy is, etc. NBA coaches play mind games with veteran players all of the time. bad coaches playing mind games happens at every level to evey kind of player. and benching Roach  for two straight games while pretending he's sick when he's clearly not sure as hell looks and smells like mind games are being played. 

and again, i cannot stress this enough- if you all knew what i know about specific mind games shaka played with some of Barnes' leftovers you would be righteously pissed. the stuff he did wasn't just mind games, it was fucked up. you'd be livid if it happened to someone you care about. i really wish that sharing what i know was an option, but surely you all can understand why it isn't. i actually did pm the details to wulaw and whoootex several years ago on shaggy, because i trusted them. there's nobody left here who i trust like that, but i'm telling you, the shit that this guy pulled is something i'll never forget, and it's honestly getting me a little fired up right now knowing what i know, only to have people who know nothing about the situation claim that it's impossible. no it's not. shaka smart is not beyond pettiness and straight up mind games designed to hurt people. i'll just wrap it up by saying he has former players who actively dislike him because of the shit he pulled. he is not the guy he portrays himself to be in public. not to everyone anyway. if you aren't one of "his guys" (and not every player he recruits is one of "his guys" either), then all of this fatherly/brotherly love shit he espouses probably doesn't apply to you. 

Probably just semantics but I don’t think those are mind games. 

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11 minutes ago, Nolacycling said:

Just asking. Are we sure he's playing mind games w/Roach? Maybe my definition of mind games is different. Do we know why he sat? We know what we were told. 

 

 

 

dudes, anything short of shaka smart announcing to reporters that he's playing mind games with his players, we cannot *know* that it is happening. it appears that it is happening, and i happen to know that it's happened in the past, which simply lends credence to the idea that it's happening now. 

First Roach gets benched against Grand Canyon, then he "comes down with a stomach bug the day of the providence game", a bug so severe that he's ruled out from even playing well before game time, yet there he is in the FEC, a giant sports arena with loud noises, flashing lights, blaring music, and thousands of people, and he's smiling, laughing, jumping up and down and celebrating the whole game. anyone who's ever actually had food poisoning knows that's just not even possible. 

Smart benched Roach, and then lied about him having a stomach bug. He's probably telling Roach that the stomach bug excuse is him doing Roach a favor to help him save face, but the reality of it is that Shaka's shit stinks lately. He's benching people and lying about it, he's switching his lineups around as if he's never met any of his players and he's still trying to see who can do what, he's gone from never playing hamm to starting him and playing him huge minutes- the guy has derailed. he's probably getting pressured by CDC and is cratering. he sees that the end is near and he's got no clue what to do.

my advice- i think he should retire for the sake of his own mental health urban meyer style, and then we can go grab hoiberg and go win the damn conference with shaka's players. 

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10 hours ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

While he's recruited well in the front court I'd be hard pressed to say Shaka has recruited a bunch of quality at the guard and wing positions.
Both Roach and Eric Davis signed in the fall before Shaka was hired under Rick Barnes so they aren't on Shaka's ledger.

Wings and guards rected by Shaka:
2015 Tevin Mack
2016 Andrew Jones and Jacob Young
2017 Matt Coleman, Jase Febres, transfer Elijah Mitrou-Long
2018 Gerald Liddell, Brock Cunningham (arguably more of a forward than a wing), & Courtney Ramey.

Of the 9 players on this list there are only 3 maybe 4 (Tevin Mack arguably could do more than one or 2 things) players who are versatile enough to run his offense with any level of proficiency (Andrew Jones, Courtney Ramey, & Elijah Mitrou-Long). I love Coleman, but in an offense like this you need a pg who is a little more multifaceted than what he brings to the table. He'd be adequate if all the other guards/wings in the program were more well rounded and highly skilled, but alas we don't have enough of them. Having said all that, our roster would be a bit more successful if we pressed more and played at a frenetic pace, but it would still be difficult without more refined offensive players. We're a hodgepodge of ill-fitting parts, IMO.

To me there is no bigger factor for Shaka's ineffectiveness than Coleman.  Coleman was the guard that he coveted and coached in world championship.  He was the guy who was supposed to have an inherent understanding of the game that Shaka wanted.  He has looked like shit all year.  And this leaves testament to the theory stated earlier that Shaka doesn't know what he wants.  And if that's the case he's got to go. 

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Once again, if you can't give any examples of mind games, then I can't believe you that he's playing mind games with players.  Just saying "trust me, he is" isn't enough evidence. 

If you can't reveal the type of mind games that he's playing with players, then you probably should just stop mentioning it. 

 

"this coach plays mind games with the players."

everyone: "okay, what is he doing?"

"well I can't tell you but he's doing it. 

 

I mean, I'm ready to move on from Shaka too, but you see how that is coming off, right? 

 

happy santa's birthday!

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49 minutes ago, Pancho Negro said:

Once again, if you can't give any examples of mind games, then I can't believe you that he's playing mind games with players.  Just saying "trust me, he is" isn't enough evidence. 

If you can't reveal the type of mind games that he's playing with players, then you probably should just stop mentioning it. 

 

"this coach plays mind games with the players."

everyone: "okay, what is he doing?"

"well I can't tell you but he's doing it. 

 

I mean, I'm ready to move on from Shaka too, but you see how that is coming off, right? 

 

happy santa's birthday!

you need to reread the thread, because that exchange you just typed up has never happened. i've stated that i know about mind games that he's played with former players, and nobody here has asked me to expound on that idea. furthermore, i haven't said, "well he is playing mind games", i've said that he lied about Roach being sick, and that it wouldn't surprise me if he were playing mind games with his players again, seeing as i know that he's done it before.

whether you believe me that im telling the truth or not is up to you. i suspect that most here believe that i do know something because i don't have any history of just making wild claims that i can't back up. i can use shaka's overwhelming record of being shitty at coaching basketball to come at him without having to make anything up. i'm trying to make sense of the kerwin roach situation and the things that i know factor into my thinking. 

i also suspect that anyone here who already doesn't like me wont believe me, and frankly it doesn't really matter whether you believe me or not, because we all agree that he's a subpar coach who needs to go, and whether or not he's currently playing mind games with his players doesn't change that one iota. 

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On 12/24/2018 at 10:22 AM, Cameltoe said:

Lol, you chicken-littles are hilarious. "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"

I have no explanation for this last game, other than some kind of final power struggle between the coaches, snoop, whoever elese, to try to settle something before the end of the year and conference play. But this is a solid tournament seed, not a bubble team, and this is not even close to an NIT team.

Ya'll can go into this "worst coach EVAR" routine if we're halfway through conference play and sitting in the bottom half of the league. But right now, there's still way too much season to play and too much talent on the roster to count out Shaka or the 2018 Longhorns.

Merry Christmas y'all glorious haters.

You're a fucking retard. 

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could you give us an example. my interest is piqued. 

I typed this in response a few hours ago but mindfarted  on the send. I believe you, I'm just interested in the depth of his depravity. If 1 is "April Fools" and 10 is "the team doc called and said you have cancer", where does Shaka stand?

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2 hours ago, Nolacycling said:

 

could you give us an example. my interest is piqued. 

I typed this in response a few hours ago but mindfarted  on the send. I believe you, I'm just interested in the depth of his depravity. If 1 is "April Fools" and 10 is "the team doc called and said you have cancer", where does Shaka stand?

Andrew Jones will never forgive him for that one. 

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7 hours ago, Goo Punch said:

 

my advice- i think he should retire for the sake of his own mental health urban meyer style, and then we can go grab hoiberg and go win the damn conference with shaka's players. 

I'll support this 100%.  Hoiberg would kick ass with this roster, fuck we'd be top 10 if the rejuvenated Barnes had this roster.  I"ve also heard from someone very close to the program who works as an unpaid assistant coach that the practices are a joke. "back when barnes was the coach, the competition in practice made us better", compared to those practices, these are supposed to be a joke

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2 hours ago, Nolacycling said:

 

could you give us an example. my interest is piqued. 

I typed this in response a few hours ago but mindfarted  on the send. I believe you, I'm just interested in the depth of his depravity. If 1 is "April Fools" and 10 is "the team doc called and said you have cancer", where does Shaka stand?

i've thought about it for a while now and this is as much as i can say without betraying anyone's trust- releasing private information about a player to people who had no business knowing this player's private info, then fucking with said player on a daily basis in practice. there's plenty more but i just can't say any more that.

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17 minutes ago, alphahorn said:

I'll support this 100%.  Hoiberg would kick ass with this roster, fuck we'd be top 10 if the rejuvenated Barnes had this roster.  I"ve also heard from someone very close to the program who works as an unpaid assistant coach that the practices are a joke. "back when barnes was the coach, the competition in practice made us better", compared to those practices, these are supposed to be a joke

i've said this before, but a player who played for both barnes and shaka said, "i love Rick Barnes; he's the best coach i've ever had because he pushed me further than even i knew i could go. he challenged me as a man every single day. he'd call me out in front of all of my teammates and challenge me to prove him wrong." 

its one of the main reasons i'm such a huge Barnes supporter- i believe that he and his style are exactly what his players need. these kids look and walk and talk and feel like grown men; they've been treated as special their entire lives because of their talent; they think that they are on top of the world and have no clue that they actually don't know shit and aren't anybody important. it's because of these reasons that so many talented college athletes fuck it all up.

high school is not real life, and if nobody is there during those formative college years to challenge them, and to humble them, and to show them that they still have a lot to learn, then I believe that whatever they are left with is a disservice to these young guys. they need to be humbled and to be corralled, to be reeled in a little bit to help them transition from cocky, ignorant boys into reputable young men; not into NBA players, into men. Shaka is not turning anybody into men with his camp counselor routine, and hs complete and utter lack of accountability. 

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2 minutes ago, Goo Punch said:

i've said this before, but a player who played for both barnes and shaka said, "i love Rick Barnes; he's the best coach i've ever gad because he pushed further than even i knew i could go. he challenged me as a man every single day. he'd call me out in front of all of my teammates and challenge me to prove him wrong." 

its one of the main reasons i'm such a huge Barnes supporter- i believe that he and his style are exactly what his players need. these kids look and walk and talk and feel like grown men; they've been treated as special their entire lives because of their talent; they honk they are on top of the world and have no clue that they actually don't know shit and aren't anybody important. it's because of these reasons that so many talented college athletes fuck it all up.

high school is not real life, and if nobody is there during those formative college years to challenge them, and to humble them, and to show them that they still have a lot to learn, then I believe that is a disservice to these young guys. they need to be humbled and to be corralled, to help them transition into men; not into NBA players, into men. Shaka is no turning anybody into men with his camp counselor routine, and hs complete and utter lack of accountability. 

all of this!   Barnes was one of my favorite coaches of all time.  Unfortunately, he seemed to get burnt out here. I'm happy for his success at Tennessee; it doesn't surprise me.  We need to find someone like him, who can recruit and challenge them to get better.  If Barnes had a weakness, I believed it to be in x and o's on set plays when we needed a bucket. 

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10 hours ago, Nolacycling said:

 

could you give us an example. my interest is piqued. 

I typed this in response a few hours ago but mindfarted  on the send. I believe you, I'm just interested in the depth of his depravity. If 1 is "April Fools" and 10 is "the team doc called and said you have cancer", where does Shaka stand?

On a scale of 1 to Chris Brown, how crazy is Shaka?

 

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On 12/25/2018 at 3:46 PM, Goo Punch said:

i've thought about it for a while now and this is as much as i can say without betraying anyone's trust- releasing private information about a player to people who had no business knowing this player's private info, then fucking with said player on a daily basis in practice. there's plenty more but i just can't say any more that.

This sounds like a Penders move.  Oh wait, did Shaka call/text the player at night too?  

I understand your thought process, but a new coach dealing with new players can be construed a number of ways.  If your examples are all from that season, then it is hard for me to believe that there is a pattern here.

But in the end the argument is irrelevant to me, all coaches play mind games and/or use motivation tactics.  The relevance is that whatever Shaka is using is not working.  I'm in the camp that he definitely has to go.  

 

 

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While I am pretty sure Shaka is not right for Texas I believe Coleman has been way overrated.

The only way to be a strong college basketball team, especially at tourney time, is to have a great point guard.

Sorry but I am not seeing that with Coleman.

Too many times in tight games he has just dribbled the ball down the lane and lost it out of bounds to be considered anything more than average.

You can blame Shaka on that as well.

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11 minutes ago, Red Five said:

What did they say?

Roach was playing well for a stretch and had just scored plus the foul. 

Lowell: "Whatever was troubling him that caused him to miss Providence...is evdiently all cleared up."

Lance: "Well (long pause), the word is the tummy was troubling him, but I can tell you simply because I was there, you can see what was talked about with him in practice- drive the ball, drive the ball, drive the ball."

That's a pretty accurate paraphrasing, and their tone and inflection made it pretty clear that they were tiptoeing around the fact that he wasn't sick, and was sitting for reasons involving his play. Took place at 15:37 left in the 2H if you want to see it.

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On 12/26/2018 at 5:24 PM, dogbreath said:

But in the end the argument is irrelevant to me, all coaches play mind games and/or use motivation tactics.  The relevance is that whatever Shaka is using is not working.  I'm in the camp that he definitely has to go.  

Pretty much how I feel. Whatever tactics you choose to employ, they should be effective. Shaka's teams have consistently underwhelmed, so it's time to move on.

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While I am pretty sure Shaka is not right for Texas I believe Coleman has been way overrated.
The only way to be a strong college basketball team, especially at tourney time, is to have a great point guard.
Sorry but I am not seeing that with Coleman.
Too many times in tight games he has just dribbled the ball down the lane and lost it out of bounds to be considered anything more than average.
You can blame Shaka on that as well.

With bad coaching, good players can look bad.


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Women's basketball has been awesome for awhile now, baseball is back in Omaha, the volleyball program is a perennial power, and football just won the Sugar Bowl against Georgia. CDC is not about to sit around and allow the hoops program to continue to lag behind. Bring on Musselman or Buzz Williams or Joey freaking Wright for all I care. It's time for hoops to catch up. 

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