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Fire Shaka Smart


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55 minutes ago, Bitterwhiteguy said:

I'll tag onto this to clarify what I meant by invoking history because the intent wasn't to say Texas "can't" be competitive at the top levels, rather that before you decide what you want to be you need to have an honest view of who you are so you understand the barriers to overcome. This is true of any realistic goal-setting, in my experience, if you want to bench 225 you have to know what you bench now. History says that Texas is not at a level of Louisville, much less the Dukes and Kansases of the world. Before the current Jay Wright run, Villanova was closer to a peer, but they're clearly ahead of Texas now. I did a fairly deep dive on this about 5 years ago when the Barnes era was starting to come to an end, mainly so I could try to quantify what should be a reasonable goal for a program like Texas. You can read the article if you like, it gives an idea of what I think is the ceiling for a program like Texas. The short version is that I think the apex for Texas is among the Louisvilles and Michigan States of the world, but not the Dukes & Kansases...at least not any time soon. The gap between the Duke/KU/UK/UNC group and the rest of college basketball over the past 34 years (since the NCAA tourney went to 64 teams) is pretty staggering, and it takes more than a decade of matching/exceeding their success to even start to breathe near them. Some people think Texas is more easily able to make the leap into the next tier of programs than I do, and if those people have the right coach pegged then they're probably onto something. Others who have stated getting the right coach helps a ton are absolutely correct, but striking gold like that in any sport is fairly difficult - ask Indiana, Arkansas, or Georgetown fans how they feel about the past 10-15 years - and if we're doing our due diligence on the pros & cons of a coaching change we have to look at the potential downside as clearly as the potential upside. Everyone lands on a different spot in the spectrum of risk tolerance, many on this board and others are more willing to make a change and risk the downside than I am and that's perfectly fine.

Texas will never be a top 5 program and I don't think anyone honestly believes that. If they do they are sipping too much KoolAid. Texas' ceiling is being a football school that is also pretty damn good at basketball. A la Michigan, Ohio State, Florida. 

As for "downside" what downside? If we're talking ceilings, Texas is barely playing to its floor under Shaka. I guess you can be afraid of potentially venturing into the basement but Texas' has too much money and natural recruiting advantages for that to even be a distinct possibility. 

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2 hours ago, Js1 said:

Dude, Barnes' time at Texas was up.  Good for him for reviving himself at another school - no hard feelings.  Change of scenery is sometimes a blessing in disguise for coaches.  Just like after Mack, we made the wrong hire of the "hot" coach.  Doesn't always work out.  NBD, we move on and try again.  Not the first or last time a school in the NCAA will make the wrong hire. 

Charlie wasn’t exactly a hot coach at the time, in my eyes. The pickings were slim and after the rumored Saban debacle the only real sure thing available was probably Chris Petersen but we were late to that one.

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1 hour ago, Bitterwhiteguy said:

I'll tag onto this to clarify what I meant by invoking history because the intent wasn't to say Texas "can't" be competitive at the top levels, rather that before you decide what you want to be you need to have an honest view of who you are so you understand the barriers to overcome. This is true of any realistic goal-setting, in my experience, if you want to bench 225 you have to know what you bench now. History says that Texas is not at a level of Louisville, much less the Dukes and Kansases of the world. Before the current Jay Wright run, Villanova was closer to a peer, but they're clearly ahead of Texas now. I did a fairly deep dive on this about 5 years ago when the Barnes era was starting to come to an end, mainly so I could try to quantify what should be a reasonable goal for a program like Texas. You can read the article if you like, it gives an idea of what I think is the ceiling for a program like Texas. The short version is that I think the apex for Texas is among the Louisvilles and Michigan States of the world, but not the Dukes & Kansases...at least not any time soon. The gap between the Duke/KU/UK/UNC group and the rest of college basketball over the past 34 years (since the NCAA tourney went to 64 teams) is pretty staggering, and it takes more than a decade of matching/exceeding their success to even start to breathe near them. Some people think Texas is more easily able to make the leap into the next tier of programs than I do, and if those people have the right coach pegged then they're probably onto something. Others who have stated getting the right coach helps a ton are absolutely correct, but striking gold like that in any sport is fairly difficult - ask Indiana, Arkansas, or Georgetown fans how they feel about the past 10-15 years - and if we're doing our due diligence on the pros & cons of a coaching change we have to look at the potential downside as clearly as the potential upside. Everyone lands on a different spot in the spectrum of risk tolerance, many on this board and others are more willing to make a change and risk the downside than I am and that's perfectly fine.

Shaka has never even been .500 or above  in conference, except for the first year with Barnes’ players. We have a very good chance of going below .500 in the Big 12 for the third year in a row.

Shaka has  Won 1 NCAA tournament game, again with barnes’ players, in 3 years.

Next year, we lose 3 of our starters from this year’s team in Roach, Hayes, and DO.

i realize that we could get worse than we’ve been under Shaka but the odds of us getting worse with a new coach are much, much lower than us improving.  

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28 minutes ago, ztejas said:

Texas will never be a top 5 program and I don't think anyone honestly believes that. If they do they are sipping too much KoolAid. Texas' ceiling is being a football school that is also pretty damn good at basketball. A la Michigan, Ohio State, Florida. 

As for "downside" what downside? If we're talking ceilings, Texas is barely playing to its floor under Shaka. I guess you can be afraid of potentially venturing into the basement but Texas' has too much money and natural recruiting advantages for that to even be a distinct possibility. 

Downside, as in Indiana who has missed the tourney 7 times in the 17 years since they fired Knight, or Georgetown since JTIII's father "retired", or Arkansas since they fired Strollin' Nolan, or Illinois since they fired Bruce Weber, or NC State since they shoved Herb Sendek out the door, etc. etc.

As someone who remembers the days before Barnes, I know it can be worse.

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2 hours ago, hobbes2702 said:

Are you fucking dense? Barnes won 1 conference championship at Texas and lost to a team seeded lower than him 9 times. We were elite under him until we weren’t. He couldn’t meet he expectations that he set. 

I mean for fucks sake we got bounced in the first weekend 6 of his last 7 years. The one year missing, we missed the tourney and got bounced in round 1 of the fucking CBI.

He won 3 conference championships. 

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5 minutes ago, Bitterwhiteguy said:

Downside, as in Indiana who has missed the tourney 7 times in the 17 years since they fired Knight, or Georgetown since JTIII's father "retired", or Arkansas since they fired Strollin' Nolan, or Illinois since they fired Bruce Weber, or NC State since they shoved Herb Sendek out the door, etc. etc.

As someone who remembers the days before Barnes, I know it can be worse.

And UK/KU/UNC and Duke are just one coach away from joining that group. 

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I should have counted those two. For some reason I thought we lost to Kansas those years but those were the two home wins against them.

In no way am I denigrating Barnes. He did amazing for basketball at the University and for the state overall. None of that changes the fact that he reached a peak here and then underachieved for 4 years that led to his firing.

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3 hours ago, Goo Punch said:

Onboard, who came over here when/because we hired Shaka Smart away from his school, is in lecturing a bunch of Texas fans about shit he knows nothing about. He knows that he doesn't know what he's talking about, yet he takes on the entire board anyway. yep, you've replaced cameltoe as the board contrarian. 

Shut the fuck up, Goo. Your resume of 7th grade B team bench-warmer hardly makes you a fucking basketball expert.

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4 minutes ago, immortal13 said:

Shut the fuck up, Goo. Your resume of 7th grade B team bench-warmer hardly makes you a fucking basketball expert.

The basketball board: when you're right, you're wrong, when you're wrong, you're right, and where you can always go fuck yourself no matter what. 

It really is beautiful, isn't it?

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5 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

History says you're mistaken. Florida as back to back champs was an outlier.  Being a football first school affects basketball.  It has for decades pretty consistently.

I don't think that's true.  Michigan, Oklahoma, Florida, Ohio State . . . lots of Final Fours in there.  Texas is dragging ass by comparison.  Outside of ND, USC, and 'bama, how many football bluebloods HAVEN'T had stellar basketball runs in the last 30 years or so?  (I'll admit I'm not going back to count, so take the date range with a grain of salt.)

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5 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

And now he's got the number one team in the nation.  You Texas fans are pretty hard on your coaches, and their success rate to your perceived satisfaction. Maybe that's why you couldn't attract a head football coach so easily after mack.

 I'd love to go on with this gay, witty banter, but gotta hit the slopes, and the 8" of fresh powder.

If you're not a Texas fan and you would rather be skiing... why do you spend money on this website?

And you are so badly wrong on who wins and why in college basketball in relation to football success that it would take way too long educate you for it to be worth my time. What with the weather and my huge dick. I'm going to go fuck some clouds.

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2 hours ago, Bitterwhiteguy said:

Downside, as in Indiana who has missed the tourney 7 times in the 17 years since they fired Knight, or Georgetown since JTIII's father "retired", or Arkansas since they fired Strollin' Nolan, or Illinois since they fired Bruce Weber, or NC State since they shoved Herb Sendek out the door, etc. etc.

As someone who remembers the days before Barnes, I know it can be worse.

None of those schools are a good comp to Texas. NC State? C'mon man. Wolfpack hasn't been relevant in either sport this millennia. 

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1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

I don't think that's true.  Michigan, Oklahoma, Florida, Ohio State . . . lots of Final Fours in there.  Texas is dragging ass by comparison.  Outside of ND, USC, and 'bama, how many football bluebloods HAVEN'T had stellar basketball runs in the last 30 years or so?  (I'll admit I'm not going back to count, so take the date range with a grain of salt.)

Even ignoring their 2 pre-tourney "national championships", ND has solid history, making the tourney 16 times from 1970-90, and then again 12 times from 2000-17, with Elite Eights back to back in 2015 and 2016.  Almost always they have been in the top half of the bracket, with their seeds since seeding began being 1,4,2,7,3,5,10,9,10,6,8,5,6,5,6,2,7,7,3,6,5.  The six years from 99-18 when they didn't make the tourney, they made the NIT, so no nightmarish losing seasons either.

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19 minutes ago, SwanderedTalent said:

I don't really think there's much to compare between Texas and Indiana, Georgetown, Arkansas, or NC State, although I agree all five of them have changed basketball coaches in the last 10 years.

exactly. listing formerly good programs that are no longer good has literally nothing to do with Texas. the idea that it would be unwise to sack Shaka Smart because "well it could be worse" is a pretty terrible take. you know what's more relevant than a bunch of formerly good basketball programs from decades ago? CDC's track record at Texas, our athletic budget, our athletic prestige, our roster of NBA alums, the fact that we've been major players in recruiting for almost two decades now, the talent pool right here in Texas high schools, and the fact that we've been the second best program in the Big XII since its inception, and so on and so forth. I'll take that "history" over the fact that some other schools with none of that going for them were good a long time ago and now aren't. 

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1 hour ago, ztejas said:

None of those schools are a good comp to Texas. NC State? C'mon man. Wolfpack hasn't been relevant in either sport this millennia. 

They made the NCAA tourney 5 straight times from '01-'06, decided it wasn't good enough, and pushed Sendek out. They then hired Sidney Lowe and missed the tourney entirely the next five years....so yea, that's kinda the point.

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and i'm gonna point out again that nothing you're saying is in defense of Shaka Smart as a coach. and since you're above talking to me i'll point out again that you're totally full of shit when you say that shaka's 3.5 seasons are "identical" to Rick's last four, both statistically and record wise (and Shaka has recruited lights out!). Shaka is a bad coach, and you make bad straw man arguments, none of which actually support the guy you're imploring us to keep.

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9 minutes ago, ztejas said:

I'll just let Derka talk for me

It's just beating a dead horse at this point.

Barring a DRASTIC turnaround where somehow go on a huge win streak over quality teams like KU, Tech, KSU again, sweep ISU, win the Big 12 tournament and go Sweet 16 or better in the tourney, Shaka is most likely gone.  I just want to make the tournament because March sucks when your team is sitting at home.

We can talk about what would have been if Rick stayed, if we hired someone else instead of Shaka, if we hire X/Y/Z to replace Shaka and will it be any different, but the fact of the matter is, we are probably going to have a new coach next year.   That coach is going to bring new expectations, just like Tom did after Charlie. 

Did Barnes deserve to get canned because he achieved so much and then couldn't maintain it? Yep.  Good luck to him at Tennessee, hope he keeps doing well there.  Same with Mack's last few years and his upcoming tenure at NC.

Does Shaka deserve to get canned because he hasn't done any better than Rick's last 3 years and the future looks dismal?  Yep.  Hey, if we goes somewhere else and does well, good for him.  Maybe it was just a bad fit.  Just like it was with Charlie and hope he continues to do decent at a school with less expectations (USF).

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Unfortunately I don’t think it’s a slam dunk that he will be fired if we miss the tournament.  This is just my gut feeling and is therefore a worthless take.  I do think that if he survives it will be understood by everyone that another mediocre season will be the end.  Basically the program will be hibernating for a year.  I also think next year will be worse than this year because I think there will be attrition including Hayes leaving early.  The attrition of non-one and dones has been one of the more disappointing aspects of Shakas tenure.  Well I guess overall roster management if you want to speak in broad terms.  Right after mystifying change in style of offense when he got here and the lack of mental toughness of all his teams.  

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7 minutes ago, ClubWhatever said:

Unfortunately I don’t think it’s a slam dunk that he will be fired if we miss the tournament.  This is just my gut feeling and is therefore a worthless take.  I do think that if he survives it will be understood by everyone that another mediocre season will be the end.  Basically the program will be hibernating for a year.  I also think next year will be worse than this year because I think there will be attrition including Hayes leaving early.  The attrition of non-one and dones has been one of the more disappointing aspects of Shakas tenure.  Well I guess overall roster management if you want to speak in broad terms.  Right after mystifying change in style of offense when he got here and the lack of mental toughness of all his teams.  

Then why do you think CDC put the explicit expectation out there that all Texas programs should be in the Top 10 neighborhood on an annual basis?  He's made it clear.  He'll provide whatever support necessary, but every coach is expected to get their program into the Top 10.  It's kinda hard to argue that football, baseball, swimming, volleyball, and women's BB aren't at or close to that level.  What makes you think he'll let Shaka slide with teams that are arguably Top 50 at best?

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1 hour ago, ClubWhatever said:

I think CDC wants to give him the benefit of the last shred of doubt that he can succeed here.  That’s just based on obersvations of his public comments and interactions with Shaka.  Then there’s the money issue.   I could be dead wrong.   

There's nothing that suggests that he can succeed here. Looking back at his resume at VCU and he wasn't any better than any of the coaches who coached there before or after him- 

Jeff Capel- Was there three years, finishing 2nd his first year, and winning the conference and conference tourney his second season there.

Anthony Grant- Set a school record with 28 wins in his first ever year as a HC, winning CAA Coach of the Year (16-2 conf record), and upsetting Duke in the NCAA tourney. He also would win the league the next two years as well. He went 76-25 (52-10) and won three league titles as HC in three years at VCU.

Shaka Smart- Had more talent than any of his predecessors and more talent than any of his conference opponents, but never won either the CAA or the A-10 in six years as HC, this despite having had three NBA players on one roster. His Final Four team finished 4th in the A-10, lost 11 regular season games, and was decried as the worst at-large selection in NCAA tournament history.

Will Wade- Despite losing Briante Weber and Treveon Graham to the NBA, first year coach Will Wade won the school's first ever A-10 championship.

Thats who we hired. We hired a guy who should be a mediocre - bad coach in a league like this. He was a mediocre coach in the CAA and the A-10, and arguably the worst of the four coaches listed here. The guy is a total fraud. But hey, we should probably still keep him, because NC State isn't any good anymore.

I mean seriously, if this post isn't ringing off alarm bells in your head then you are a full fledged Shaka apologist. 

edit- not talking to you @ClubWhatever, i'm talking to the few people we still have here who for some reason believe in this guy. 

 

Edited by Goo Punch
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2 minutes ago, ClubWhatever said:

You are making an argument for what should happen.  I was expressing a projection of what will happen.  What do you think will happen?

I think he's gone. I think CDC is actively looking for his replacement. CDC has proven himself to be very savvy, and if *I* know all of this about Shaka then CDC damn sure knows all of this and much more. Shaka has had more than a fair shake at Texas and the longer he stays here the worse off the program will be. We want to open a new arena with an excited fan base ready to fill the place up. CDC has sat in our mausoleum of an arena seen our pathetic displays in front of sparse crowds. He's ready to move on just like we are. He knows Shaka is not the answer.  

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5 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Another thing to consider:  the level of play in Texas HS basketball these days.  I might be wrong, but it feels to me that the state produces more elite players than it did 30 years ago.

That's a direct result of the U.I.L. allowing AAU in the state.  It didn't exist in Texas until the late 80s or early 90s. You can literally graph the increase in the number of Texas high school basketball players playing pro ball with the number of elementary AAU players who started playing in 1990 or so when AAU programs around the state started. The Texas high basketball class of 2002 had about 4 or 5 guys alone play a little in the NBA, prior to that you'd be hard pressed to find 4 or 5 in the decade before that combined.   

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6 hours ago, Js1 said:

Barring a DRASTIC turnaround where somehow go on a huge win streak over quality teams like KU, Tech, KSU again, sweep ISU, win the Big 12 tournament and go Sweet 16 or better in the tourney, Shaka is most likely gone.  I just want to make the tournament because March sucks when your team is sitting at home.

Yeah, you're being way too optimistic here.

I bet just making the tournament is going to be enough to keep his job another year, and even that might be more than what's necessary.

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Yeah I  agree.  I don't know how people believe we're gonna come off $13M just to fire a basketball coach.  And that doesn't even get into the arena of buying out another basketball coach's contract. The athletic department was operating at a deficit just a 1 or 2 year ago according to them.  Now they're supposed to flush $15M to $20M if not more for the opportunity to hire another coach in a sport that hasn't produced the intense fanfare to lately to necessitate all that.  Good luck!

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21 hours ago, ztejas said:

Texas will never be a top 5 program and I don't think anyone honestly believes that. If they do they are sipping too much KoolAid. Texas' ceiling is being a football school that is also pretty damn good at basketball. A la Michigan, Ohio State, Florida. 

As for "downside" what downside? If we're talking ceilings, Texas is barely playing to its floor under Shaka. I guess you can be afraid of potentially venturing into the basement but Texas' has too much money and natural recruiting advantages for that to even be a distinct possibility. 

 

Ehh, I see what you're trying to say, but you and I never know if UT will be a top 5 program.  That's an unknown as we don't know what the program (and college basketball) will be like 50 years from now and so on.  But I really do understand the argument you're trying to make.  Hell, Minnesota and PItt were football powers 60 years ago. 

As many have stated, Texas has the ability to be a good to great basketball program with the right pieces in place.  That was happening under Barnes then it stopped.  For whatever reason.  It's stupid to say that we made a mistake on Barnes because he has the #1 team now.  It's like those people just have no understanding of logic. 

With that said, I said it earlier in these threads and I'm sticking with it--no matter what happens this season, I think we have one more year of Shaka (unfortunately) and if that's the case, then I'll do what I do errey year--hope and pray that we are good and he's successful. 

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14 hours ago, Goo Punch said:

I think he's gone. I think CDC is actively looking for his replacement. CDC has proven himself to be very savvy, and if *I* know all of this about Shaka then CDC damn sure knows all of this and much more. Shaka has had more than a fair shake at Texas and the longer he stays here the worse off the program will be. We want to open a new arena with an excited fan base ready to fill the place up. CDC has sat in our mausoleum of an arena seen our pathetic displays in front of sparse crowds. He's ready to move on just like we are. He knows Shaka is not the answer.  

For once, I agree with Derka.  I don't think CDC gives a fuck how much it costs - he's not going to let the momentum of a new arena be ruined by this really bad basketball.  Another year is pointless. 

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7 minutes ago, Js1 said:

For once, I agree with CDC.  I don't think CDC gives a fuck how much it costs - he's not going to let the momentum of a new arena be ruined by this really bad basketball.  Another year is pointless. 

Shaka is in the biggest lipsync for your life battle, and CDC is on the other side. 

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22 hours ago, Bitterwhiteguy said:

and if we're doing our due diligence on the pros & cons of a coaching change we have to look at the potential downside as clearly as the potential upside. Everyone lands on a different spot in the spectrum of risk tolerance, many on this board and others are more willing to make a change and risk the downside than I am and that's perfectly fine.

Having paid for this shiny new appliance we expected to work as advertised, until we get it home and turns out to be a piece of junk, but we keep using it because of how much we paid.

Well, two points. 1) do we deserve another appliance and we don't really know whether the next appliance will work satisfactory?  2) the appliance is just in second gear, let's see if it gets into the next gear.

Sunk costs v. wishful thinking = different tolerance levels

 

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Shaka should be fired, without question. That said, people need to prepare themselves for the possibility that he survives for another year simply based on the economics associated with his contract. I’m not saying it’s the right thing for the program, but it’s definitely possible that CDC decides to kick the can down the road for another year. I’d imagine there are feelers out there to potential successors. If those feelers come back lukewarm (or worse) from our top 2-3 choices then I would not be shocked to see Shaka survive.

As bad as another year of Shaka would be, compromising and hiring the wrong successor would be even worse.

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On 1/25/2019 at 9:08 AM, Goo Punch said:

Onboard, who came over here when/because we hired Shaka Smart away from his school, is in lecturing a bunch of Texas fans about shit he knows nothing about. He knows that he doesn't know what he's talking about, yet he takes on the entire board anyway. yep, you've replaced cameltoe as the board contrarian. 

I'm not lecturing anything to anybody, and I was @ Shaggy well before Shaka left VCU (thank you Thujone dick pics).  You get a bit mypopic as a fan base, and what your place is in the pantheon of sports (basketball especially). I don't come here and bash UT and wouldn't. My comments are always as an unbiased sports fan.

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