Hoops: Texas at No. 5 Florida Game Thread

[pinkman_90]

29 minutes ago, bierce said:

This is the sort of thing that drives me crazy.  People see something a few times in one game and then they claim it is the norm. 

Texas does not have a high turnover percentage.  It is 8th lowest in the SEC in conference games after today and 14th lowest in the country in all games.  We were doing quite well in the turnover department before today, averaging under 11 a game in conference.  Turnovers aren't our problem.  Getting our brains beat in on the boards and getting torched inside are our usual problems. 

We had a lot of turnovers today because Larry totally checked out.  That's a problem.  Shedrick and Kent being complete no-shows is another problem, and it's a huge problem.  Onyema had the game of his life, and we were completely outplayed in the paint.  We were outplayed in other areas, but we cannot reasonably expect to compete every day in the SEC with Kent averaging 2 points and 1.8 rebounds per game and Shedrick averaging 3.6 points and under 4 defensive rebounds per game. 

I'm going to remind everyone that I said in the first half of the Auburn game that I thought we will see the end of the Terry tenure this year if he doesn't get this team playing better on offense.  We saw better offense over the next 5 halves.  Then we witnessed the total disaster of a second half today.  I think once again that we will see the end of the Terry tenure this year if he doesn't get everyone to focus and put today behind them.

We just went 1-4 in a stretch of games we were projected by many to go 0-5.  Two of the losses were close.  Two were second half blowouts.   And we didn't have one of our top 8 players, who just happens to be our second leading rebounder, in four of those games.  This team is about on track in the w-l column to still manage to make the tournament, so I'm not giving up on it yet, but maybe right now, more than any other moment in his coaching career, Terry has his moment to prove he is a motivator and can get a team to function after adversity. 

We saw some of that in our last game in Norman.  We lost close games against highly ranked teams and responded with a road win in a game we were the underdog.  Now we have a chance to regroup and play at home after a brutal loss on the road against a top 10 team in a game in which the team stopped playing over the last 8 minutes.  If we can rally to win one of the two upcoming road games against ranked (or likely ranked) teams, then we still have a good chance to make the tournament.  We aren't completely out of the picture if we don't win one of them, but I think we'd be looking at needing to come back from the dead at that point. 

Is making the tournament and going one and out the standard?  If course not, but I'd rather make the tournament than not.  Will it save Terry's job?  Don't know.  Don't particularly care. 

What I do care about is whether we can get better and how.

1) Larry has to get his head out of his a**.  His play today was worse than atrocious.  The few times he beat his man on the perimeter and could cause some disruption, he chose to throw stupid show-off passes.  He lost his dribble to a floorboard at one point.  He bricked shots.  And he totally quit at the end.

2) Shedrick and Kent have to rebound and take it to the rim and draw contact if nothing else.  We're getting some rebounding from Shedrick, just not enough, and none today.  We're getting 0 offense from the two of them.  They shouldn't be the focal point, and they aren't, but they need to start making some contributions with their touches.

3) Onyema needs to want to repeat today in every remaining game.  He won't, but he needs to try.  Stay away from the stupid fouls, take the ball to the basket when fed it, and keep passing out to the open man.  I mean, leading us in rebounds, assists, and steals?  Go Ze'Rik!

4) Weaver has to come back.  If there is anybody on this team that would not quit in a game, he's him.  We miss his rebounding.  We miss his ability to take over in moments of chaos when pure athleticism takes over.  We miss his ability to attack at full speed and damn the torpedoes. 

I'm not giving up on this team.  I'm disgusted that so many of our fans that predicted an 0-5 start have done so after a 1-4 start.

A few more losses like this, and I'll chime in on threads about who we should hire to replace Terry, but for now you should expect me to continue to root for wins and describe action on the court without unnecessary perjoratives about the coach.

“Projected by many to go 0-5”

Texas’ odds to lose all 5 games would have been about +375.  

[HudGar1922]

3 minutes ago, bierce said:

I think I'm saying our team has shortcomings and the team and the coach need to fix them.  I've never denied that.  I even pointed them out before the season started. 

You guys are incredible.  I write 8-10 paragraphs about what our team did wrong today and the few things that it did right and the things it has done well and hasn't all year, and you guys have no desire to discuss the effect of not having Weaver on the floor, the lack of rebounding, the lack of a top flight pg, or any of the possible ways to try to circumvent those problems.  No, you just distill it to "the coach sucks."

Fine.  You think the coach sucks.  You want to talk about basketball now?

 

weaver scores 6-8 points a game, lack of top flight pg is again on the coaches recruiting, rebounding is coaching so fail there.   

[bierce]

Just now, pinkman_90 said:

“Projected by many to go 0-5”

Texas’ odds to lose all 5 games would have been about +375.  

I always said that I thought we would not go 0-5.  I was referring to the doomsayers on this board saying not going 0-5 would be a miracle.  There was a thread about it before conference play started.

Sometimes teams win as underdogs.  Sometimes they lose as favorites.  I know that.  You know that.  Statisticians know that. 

The point is that most of the same people having snits today were the same one saying we'd be 0-5 at this point.

Are we better now than I thought we'd be?  No.  We are where I thought we'd be in the w-l columns.  I don't think we should pat ourselves on the back for getting there while we were shorthanded, particularly after the abortion of a second half we just witnessed, but we are where I thought we would be.  

Now, if we could get a win in our next two games, we could be all right in trying to reach the tournament.  If we don't, then I think we're probably toast.

[TexasFanatic]

Bierce is a passionate fan and very knowledgeable. 
 

He also thinks Jans would be the best coach Texas could get. (generalization)

Texas is a top job when we are united. CDC has gotten a top 5 coach in every sport. I expect nothing else from CDC

Edited Sunday at 03:34 AM by TexasFanatic

[TexasMDcoach]

5 hours ago, Jordan91 said:

He had position on his man. Unfortunately that allowed him to be sealed on the drive. Your comment wasn’t correct and I pointed out why, nothing more then that. 

You missed my humor 

[bierce]

6 minutes ago, HudGar1922 said:

weaver scores 6-8 points a game, lack of top flight pg is again on the coaches recruiting, rebounding is coaching so fail there.   

Weaver's primary role on this team is not as a scorer, and you know that.  He's a defensive hawk, a vicious rebounder, and a guy who gets things done when things get chaotic.  That is a guy we sorely missed having, especially against Tennessee.

Larry might have been a recruiting miss.  I don't disagree with that. 

[bierce]

6 minutes ago, TexasFanatic said:

Bierce is a passionate fan and very knowledgeable. 
 

He also thinks Jans would be the best coach Texas could get. (generalization)

Texas is a top job when we are united. CDC has gotten a top 5 coach in every sport. I expect nothing else from CDC

I think I said we would never hire Jans, who I think is a very good coach, because of the incident that happened while he was coaching Bowling Green.

[Jordan91]

25 minutes ago, TexasMDcoach said:

You missed my humor 

My apologies. Remember you from 247

[Jordan91]

1 hour ago, bierce said:

We really need to be able to edit more than once.  In the above exegesis, I mentioned we need to win one of the two upcoming road games against ranked teams.  I meant home games. 

And for the record, I want us to win both.

I haven’t understood that since I joined the site. 

[Jordan91]

42 minutes ago, bierce said:

I always said that I thought we would not go 0-5.  I was referring to the doomsayers on this board saying not going 0-5 would be a miracle.  There was a thread about it before conference play started.

Sometimes teams win as underdogs.  Sometimes they lose as favorites.  I know that.  You know that.  Statisticians know that. 

The point is that most of the same people having snits today were the same one saying we'd be 0-5 at this point.

Are we better now than I thought we'd be?  No.  We are where I thought we'd be in the w-l columns.  I don't think we should pat ourselves on the back for getting there while we were shorthanded, particularly after the abortion of a second half we just witnessed, but we are where I thought we would be.  

Now, if we could get a win in our next two games, we could be all right in trying to reach the tournament.  If we don't, then I think we're probably toast.

I saw two wins when conference started. I thought A&M because no fans were there and they never really made any noise until A&M started to pull away in the second half. I also thought Tennessee was the other win. Barnes has a tendency to let Texas stick around. He did exactly that, Texas just couldn’t finish. 

[Jordan91]

48 minutes ago, HudGar1922 said:

weaver scores 6-8 points a game, lack of top flight pg is again on the coaches recruiting, rebounding is coaching so fail there.   

Pay Toppin and there is no front court problem. Completely agree on point guards. 

[Jordan91]

53 minutes ago, pinkman_90 said:

“Projected by many to go 0-5”

Texas’ odds to lose all 5 games would have been about +375.  

I answered your questions so I have a couple for you. 
 

What are your thoughts on the program?
 

And how do you fix whatever problems exist? 

What I think a lot of us miss is that looking to the past really doesn’t help. The big reason is that NIL did not exist back then. Finding a coach that can do more with less was doable pre NIL and pre portal. Can that work now?
 

Keep in mind there is going to be a roster turnover every year. Further Texas is on a budget( See Toppin). And it’s hard to create a culture when you have a revolving door on players.
 

To make it even harder you can go pro after one year or skip college all together and play overseas. So we can’t use football as a model. 

[TexasFanatic]

48 minutes ago, bierce said:

I think I said we would never hire Jans, who I think is a very good coach, because of the incident that happened while he was coaching Bowling Green.

Lol you care too much about past incidents. Sark was a drunk and an awful person before changing. Jans was drunk and acted like a person on Sixth Street. 

If you want to go into every person past, you would be stuck with no one. 

 

Edited Sunday at 04:30 AM by TexasFanatic

[TexasFanatic]

F it, Texas will have to hire the Pope in order to reach the moral standards 

[Burnt Orange Horn]

3 hours ago, Steven Conant said:

Weaver hasn't played in a while, is he injured?

Yes.

[Jordan91]

30 minutes ago, TexasFanatic said:

Lol you care too much about past incidents. Sark was a drunk and an awful person before changing. Jans was drunk and acted like a person on Sixth Street. 

If you want to go into every person past, you would be stuck with no one. 

 

You’re missing the fact that Beard was arrested for domestic violence and CDC asked for his resignation that day. I think all Bierce is saying is CDC will be super concerned about blemishes on a new coaches past. That can’t happen twice. 

[HudGar1922]

10 minutes ago, Jordan91 said:

You’re missing the fact that Beard was arrested for domestic violence and CDC asked for his resignation that day. I think all Bierce is saying is CDC will be super concerned about blemishes on a new coaches past. That can’t happen twice. 

and beard has ok miss ranked and doing well and meanwhile we probably don’t make the ncaa tournament 

[TexasFanatic]

10 minutes ago, Jordan91 said:

You’re missing the fact that Beard was arrested for domestic violence and CDC asked for his resignation that day. I think all Bierce is saying is CDC will be super concerned about blemishes on a new coaches past. That can’t happen twice. 

Something happening in the moment vs 2015…. 
 

Sark would have fired Sark for what he did at USC. He also hired him in 2021. 
 

Things change 

[harveycmd]

This time last year it was clear that Texas couldn't run an offense. It was noted that the Longhorns needed to stop wasting time and change the leadership of the program. There was pushback by moderators here that Terry needed time to get "his guys." He has his guys and it's even worse now. 

[pinkman_90]

8 hours ago, Jordan91 said:

I answered your questions so I have a couple for you. 
 

What are your thoughts on the program?
 

And how do you fix whatever problems exist? 

What I think a lot of us miss is that looking to the past really doesn’t help. The big reason is that NIL did not exist back then. Finding a coach that can do more with less was doable pre NIL and pre portal. Can that work now?
 

Keep in mind there is going to be a roster turnover every year. Further Texas is on a budget( See Toppin). And it’s hard to create a culture when you have a revolving door on players.
 

To make it even harder you can go pro after one year or skip college all together and play overseas. So we can’t use football as a model. 

I think the team has no offensive identity, no defensive identity, no cultural identity, and poor roster construction.  There is some talent but it doesn’t fit.  

Out of those, maybe one you can blame on NIL (roster construction).  And that’s still primarily on RT.    You seem to use this “Texas is poor” narrative.  Do we spend like the blue bloods or a some new money schools?  No but we’re in that next tier.  
 

“Finding a coach that can do more with less was doable pre NIL and pre portal. Can that work now?”

I also have no idea what you mean here.  So coaches that overachieve will no longer be a thing because of NIL?  I think you’ve tried so hard to defend RT that you’ve completely lost the plot.   

Edited Sunday at 12:49 PM by pinkman_90

[CoachBobbyFinstock]

If we can dream, I want the Iowa St coach. 

[bierce]

11 hours ago, TexasFanatic said:

Lol you care too much about past incidents. Sark was a drunk and an awful person before changing. Jans was drunk and acted like a person on Sixth Street. 

If you want to go into every person past, you would be stuck with no one. 

I'm not the guy making the hire.  CDC will be.  I'm just predicting what I expect him to do.

He will look for a guy 50 or under with an excellent resume at lower levels and some experience and success at this level.  Without incidents of assaulting women in his past.  Or not disciplining a current player for taking a firearm to a former player when the former player used it to shoot someone. 

Otzelberger would be a dream hire, but the buyout for someone under contract through 2032 might be too much to handle, and the buyout terms of his new extension have yet to be announced. 

So I'm thinking someone like McCasland.  Not saying he's the guy, because I was unimpressed with Tech's offensive play against ISU after Toppin turned his ankle.  It was way too dependent on iso drives like we see with Texas this year.  In fact, the things that make Tech so much more successful than Texas on offense this year are Hawkins's ability to get into the paint to cause a defense to break down, and the rest of the team's ability to use that disruption to get open for easy shots and to get in position for offensive rebounds.  But I then watched a lot of Tech's game against Arizona.  That was a very good showing by them. 

But there you are looking at about $16 million in the coach's buyout (40% of remaining value of contract, and due in 60 days of resignation).  And you are looking at a guy whose teams play a slow game on offense. 

Of course, maybe Musselman is already sick of the fires and is looking to pay big money to get out of L.A.  I could say the same about Cronin, but his behavior over the last two weeks has been pretty odd. 

[ATX16]

The sum is less than the parts at this point.

Kaluma, Mark, and Johnson get significant minutes for any team in the country. Pope, Weaver and Shedrick are good pieces on any team. 

Its the coach's responsibility to meld the talent and I think Terry has produced a very average result to this point in the season.  

 

[TexasFanatic]

21 minutes ago, bierce said:

I'm not the guy making the hire.  CDC will be.  I'm just predicting what I expect him to do.

He will look for a guy 50 or under with an excellent resume at lower levels and some experience and success at this level.  Without incidents of assaulting women in his past.  Or not disciplining a current player for taking a firearm to a former player when the former player used it to shoot someone. 

Otzelberger would be a dream hire, but the buyout for someone under contract through 2032 might be too much to handle, and the buyout terms of his new extension have yet to be announced. 

So I'm thinking someone like McCasland.  Not saying he's the guy, because I was unimpressed with Tech's offensive play against ISU after Toppin turned his ankle.  It was way too dependent on iso drives like we see with Texas this year.  In fact, the things that make Tech so much more successful than Texas on offense this year are Hawkins's ability to get into the paint to cause a defense to break down, and the rest of the team's ability to use that disruption to get open for easy shots and to get in position for offensive rebounds.  But I then watched a lot of Tech's game against Arizona.  That was a very good showing by them. 

But there you are looking at about $16 million in the coach's buyout (40% of remaining value of contract, and due in 60 days of resignation).  And you are looking at a guy whose teams play a slow game on offense. 

Of course, maybe Musselman is already sick of the fires and is looking to pay big money to get out of L.A.  I could say the same about Cronin, but his behavior over the last two weeks has been pretty odd. 

Texas has made about 15-16 M in athletic revenue just by playing 3 extra games. 
 

Money is not an issue 

 

Sark is the 3rd highest paid coach 

Schloss is 1

I fully expect us to pay top 3-5 for our next coach 

Edited Sunday at 04:49 PM by TexasFanatic

[bierce]

2 minutes ago, ATX16 said:

The sum is less than the parts at this point.

Kaluma, Mark, and Johnson get significant minutes for any team in the country. Pope, Weaver and Shedrick are good pieces on any team. 

Its the coach's responsibility to meld the talent and I think Terry has produced a very average result to this point in the season.  

 

I agree about the average results, and I'll go you one better by saying disappointing results so far, but look at the parts you have listed.  Two SGs and one combo forward are significant minutes players.  Three other guys are "good pieces,"  You mean like role players off the bench?  When two of them have to start for us and the third was starting while Mark was injured and coming back from his injury and is now injured himself?

Maybe our roster is mostly Terry's fault.  Maybe its largely the fault of the guys with the money not doling it out for other players Terry wanted.  I think it's a mix of fault there.