bierce

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.

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 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?

You might try reading my comments above yours. Then you might consider I might have pretty objective view of our basketball program.

Barnes was sent away because he went 7 years without a second weekend and was -2 in conference play over his last 4 seasons.

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.

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.

Larry ends our offensive misery with a pastry pass to no one and walks away from the defensive end before Florida dribbled out the clock. He should sit the next game in favor of walk-ons for that crap.

If Vinson doesn't get in the game, then I have to ask if he is that disgruntled, that far in the doghouse, or so injured that we are looking to get him a medical hardship?

Then Larry loses the dribble. Then bricks a three. We desperately need Weaver back.

Larry got in the lane and instead of going to the rim and drawing the defender, he stopped to make a cute bounce pass to Onyema slightly behind him? WTF?

Larry having another nothing burger of a game. I have to think we'd have been much better off with Weaver on the floor in these last three games.

Onyema with two HUGE plays. The tip out of Johnson's miss for three, Then he was sealed away from the defensive glass by his man but still managed to get the rebound. The ft were just icing

It was preceded by a good play as well. Great steal, dumb foul, clear out for position and dunk. If only he could have done that sequence without the silly foul. You still have to admit this has been a great game for him so far. He leads us in rebounds, assists, and steals, and he is second in scoring. Who among us anticipated that?

Usually Kent comes in with Onyema, so bringing in Pryor might be an indication Terry is not happy with Kent's production, which makes sense.

Tough pass there during an attempt to speed the game up.

Pryor

Bad game definitely, but he had been doing well on the boards in conference play before today. Just not on the defensive end against Tennessee.

I'm guessing Shed comes out during this timeout.

The free throws in the last minute were the only points for us not scored by Johnson, Onyema, or Mark.

Drawing a foul is one way to get at two for one at the end of the half.

Onyema is without a doubt our MVP on the half.

That offensive rebound was not on Onyema. He did his job of defending the shooter. Someone didn't box out, whether it was Kaluma who was trying to cover the Gator who was inside on a mismatch with a guard, or someone who let the rebounder come in from the perimeter.

Johnson doing the thing where he tries to make up for one bad play by making another.

Onyema with the offensive board wasted by Johnson trying to go whirling dervish.