SL Xpress

Most satisfying win of the year for me. But none of those 3 teams we swept are the standard. We're going to face a Nebraska/Pitt/Louisville type team in either the Sweet 16 round or the Elite Eight round, depending on the seed we earn and whether we win enough in the tournament. None of South Carolina/Georgia, or even A&M resembles those teams. Nothing against A&M, which is coming off two impressive wins against Kentucky and Tennessee (which was a grueling battle - seriously hat tip to the Aggies for outlasting the Vols)., but they're simply not at that level and haven't been all year long. They're not nearly as good as last year when we split against them on the season.

You mean the 2023 team. The 2022 team only lost to Kansas and looked like a juggernaut for most of the season. We've beaten South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas A&M. None of those teams remotely resemble Nebraska, Pitt, and Louisville. Now, if we managed to get in what looks like the Florida regional, sure. I will give A&M credit that they just beat Kentucky and Tennessee, so they were playing well coming into Gregory. I loved the win. But I still do not believe we have the serving to beat a regional host. And we're still rated as one of the last 4 subregional hosts, so unless we continue winning, including into the SEC tournament, we'll be facing a regional host in the Sweet Sixteen round. It all comes down to serving. Can this team be a better serving team come tournament time? Adding Anderson and Harris - neither of whom are utilizing the top spin jump serve they were showing off at the start of the season - has helped, because we don't have Kujundzic serving any more. Harvey was one of our most effective servers against the Aggies. Even got a nice dig a la O'Neal when she was in the back row, and also laid up a nice assist. That 2023 team was a very good serving team all year long, and simply ratcheted it up a notch. And they still had to fight off a couple of match points against Tennessee in Palo Alto in the 4th set in the Sweet Sixteen round. Same with A&M last year, that barely beat Louisville in the Sweet Sixteen in a match that Louisville probably should have won, then upset Nebraska, before looking dominant in the Final Four. But the key to those teams were good serving. I'm still unconvinced we're a good serving team. We're just better than we were earlier in the year. When going against the top teams, you simply have to get them out of system on a regular basis when you're at the serving line, or you're going to have a series of first ball side outs. We won't face another team that resembles a #1 through #3 seed until the SEC tournament. And I don't believe the SEC has anyone on the same level of the other top seeds. I thought Kentucky would be there, but I don't completely understand what has happened to them, other than they dearly miss Hudson from last year to go with Deleye. "If championships were awarded based on October message-board evaluations, we'd have a lot fewer banners hanging in Gregory Gym." Actually, that's not true. We'd probably have more banners hanging in Gregory Gym. Most of the time we roll through our nonconference schedule and then dominate the Big 12, and are easily one of the top 4 teams in the country. We've ended up losing to some juggernauts over the years, including Penn State and Stanford, not to mention the Elite Eight loss to Nebraska in Gregory when they served us off the court. And on sheer talent we were probably better than the Kentucky team we lost to as well. Having this many losses is pretty much new territory for this program under Elliott since his earliest years.

That's what that ref was doing.

We do not have the talent to win it all. I do not believe there's any chance this team can get hot enough to make it out of the Elite Eight against a regional host. I don't think they're making it out of the Sweet Sixteen. They'll likely be going against a #2 seed on a neutral court. And that's only if they're not facing the regional host in the Sweet Sixteen. Which will be a loss. Georgia is not that good. They have a decent record, but they're about to get smacked around because all of their toughest conference foes are at the end of the conference slate. This match tells us very little about how this team will fare against talented clubs. If we manage to beat A&M on Sunday that would be more of an accomplishment, but A&M has had struggles this year, too. We almost beat Florida. That was a good sign. Personally I still think it was a mistake to move away from Swindle running the 5-1, but it is what it is. Not using Kujundzic as a server is a move in the right direction. I don't think Henderson or Harris's serves are amazing right now, but they're landing in the court. There's a lot more upside there. It looks like they're trying to rest Spears' wrist. She's not serving and with the 6-2 she gets subbed out by the setter while Gaido moves to the front row, so she's only playing 3 rotations. Honestly, as much as anything, serving is the key to a deep run. But serving well against crappy opponents doesn't tell us much. That libero for Georgia might have been the worst libero we faced all year. Same with their combination of setters. They're just not very good. Still glad we dominated them so much. First back to back sweeps all year long. That's incredible for a Texas team.

That was complete domination. Aggies on Sunday.

While the program has a lot of losses, with several of them being beatdowns, the only loss to an opponent who won't be hosting the first two rounds is OU. As long as Texas doesn't repeat that, we'll be hosting the subregional for sure, which is the ticket to the Sweet Sixteen. This team is not good enough in serving to do anything more than that. I mean, there are deficiencies all over the place, but that's the biggest one. I guess they might play out of their mind or the opponent plays like hammered dog doo the way Wisconsin did, but they'll be out the next round for sure. Georgia is a decent serve and blocking team. Both of Gabe Muoneke's daughter's play for Georgia, for those that remember him. One's a senior and one of their better players. Transferred from A&M. The other is a freshman. No telling if there will be any punching of opposing players going on. We really need to beat the inferior foes, and Georgia, while still entertaining the possibility of making the tournament by the skin of their teeth, is absolutely an inferior foe.

My niece was a scholarship athlete at Oregon. Graduated with a master's degree a couple of years ago. Is huge into sports. Works for a professional soccer team and is now trying to break into the NFL. I'd love to get her a job at UT in some kind of marketing capacity at the athletic department if it were possible. We talk sports all the time. Not just Oregon. All of college football. I told her when Lanning promoted Mehringer that was a terrible mistake, and he'd likely be a huge failure. It wasn't just his tenure at Texas. Heck, Herman ended up firing nearly all of his original assistants, which shows just how miserable that first staff ended up being. No, it was also his tenure at Rutgers, where he was literally the worst OC in the country. By far. The guy has been an abysmal failure at multiple stops. So how did he get the gig? Because he had the good fortune to be part of Lanning's first staff, and like many head coaches, Lanning believes in promoting from within. Given that Oregon falls a little behind in terms of paying competitive wages for a lot of their coaching staff, they've seen quite a few leave for lateral moves. Not that they're horribly under the market, but for a program that pays their head coach a premium wage, and has a roster payroll somewhere around $50 million, the assistants are often not paid at a commensurate rate. So you see them leaving for greener pastures on a semi regular basis. But Mehringer stayed, so as other coaches left, whether for lateral promotions or like Stein for head coaching opportunities, Mehringer moved up. I'm interested to see how Lanning handles this offseason.

Bobby surreptitiously funded a trip to NYC so Gerry could report on the scrimmage with St. John's. Shhhh. Keep it on the down low.

I'm grateful we have a system, and arena and an administration that is willing to lean on students to provide energy at the basketball games. There were so many problems with the Erwin Center. It was a massive multi purpose arena where the front row seats were far away from the action, and because of the mild incline, the seats in the corners of Erwin might as well have been in Round Rock. Still, when full of 15,000 people for big games it could still produce a heck of an atmosphere. When Dodds got to Texas one of the things he changed was every sport dependent on their own fundraising. He created the Longhorn Foundation, where a single donation gave access to premium seats based on that donation across all sports. Which was a boon in so many ways, because it helped generate additional funding for the athletic department, and all sports were more able to share in the riches the donation program produced. However, one sport took a huge hit because of this approach, and that's men's basketball. Because the same donations for suites and club seating in DKR-Memorial also gave access to lower bowl premium seating in Erwin. The athletic department in their constant quest to emphasize increasing fundraising over creating a winning environment, were only too happy to sell those premium seats to those donors. Many of those donors weren't even Texas fans, because the athletic department also prioritized selling these seats to corporations and other organizations interested in having somewhere to host clients and employees. The basketball tickets ended up being a throw in, because they were pennies on the dollar compared to the original donation needed to access the tickets. In the meantime the administration made it harder and harder for students to obtain tickets, then blamed them when they didn't show up, and then moved them to lesser priority seats. Even the seats behind the basket which became available when they did a bubblegum and bailing wire makeover of the arena to bring seats mildly closer to the court, were very limited, and if you didn't make it in time to get those seats you were relegated to the rafters as a student. Meanwhile, anyone in the upper deck to look down into the lower bowl and see a sea of empty seats from ticket purchasers who couldn't be bothered to come to the games. When the program moved to Moody Arena one of the things they did was separate donations to the Longhorn Foundation for a specific donation for Moody Arena. This completely sucked for longtime fans who didn't deserve to get punished after years of loyalty, but it was necessary to create a greater financial incentive to attend games. Now the tickets weren't just a throw in for the huge donation necessary for football tickets. They had their own weight, and better reflected their market value. In addition, this administration has been great about moving students into the lower sections, both in football and in basketball. Not necessarily around the 40 yard line the way they were when I went to school there, but at least they're contiguous rather than broken up (which was always asinine), and the basketball student seats were designed to get them involved in the action from the creation of the arena. There's still a big problem during the winter break when the students aren't on campus, but it is what it is. I feel like Beard was excellent in galvanizing the student body to come be a difference at the games (Penders was good at this, too). I'm glad Miller is trying to emphasize getting the students out there. If I could have a brief conversation with him, I'd say always be positive whatever support you're getting. Be thankful and grateful. When coaches start calling out fans for not being supportive enough, it never goes well. If the team is successful enough and wins enough, they'll come out to games. It may not be as rabid for the less competitive games as the coaching staff would like, but if the team wins big over the course of the next few seasons, they'll come. I do think a lot of the hard work has been done with the creation of Moody and the student seating there, but Miller and this team have their part to contribute as well. It's good to see him engaging with students and I really like the reception he received in the video above. BTW, he's been going to all the home football games. I don't know how many of the road games he's attended, but I know he went to the volleyball and football games in Knoxville earlier this year. I love how involved he's trying to be at UT. I'm hopeful and expectant it's going to pay big dividends down the road in terms of fan base excitement around the basketball program. Just keep at it.

There is nothing in college sports that gets shut down that can't potentially be opened up again in a court room. And I literally mean nothing. Until there's some kind of federal legislation - and this is not me being a proponent of the bill that the Senate passed - which gives the NCAA some kind of antitrust protection and creates a body of law around college sports - then every rule put in place by the NCAA is subject to litigation. In fact, every court ruling is subject to litigation, such as what we've seen with the competing lawsuits in Louisiana versus federal court in the battle between the SEC and LSU. The problem with federal legislation is that they're always going to give you more help than you wanted or needed. There's no way the current legislature in a political climate today is going to be able to come up with a common sense way to address college sports. It's always going to be agenda filled, creating as many problems as it solves. But that's how it all works. Or doesn't work, depending on perspective.

I think that's the right way to think about it. It's not how I think about it, but it is the right way to think about it. What I will say is that Beard wasn't an option. For Terry to keep the team together and focused on their team goals was a significant accomplishment. I'm grateful for the Elite Eight run. I'm also grateful we now have Miller. I hope for great things for the basketball program under his watch. Also thank you for the nice words.

They're part of the history of our program. My experience as a fan is in part defined by the head coaches who have coached our athletic squads. I'm liable to bring up Black, Lemons, Wetlich, Penders, or Barnes, as well. And certainly Smart, who managed to exceed Wetlich as a complete disaster of a hire. Same in football. Royal, Akers, McWilliams, Mackovic, Brown, Strong, Herman, and now Sarkisian, plus whoever comes next. They're all a part of it. I'm hopeful we're about to enter the sort of golden age we experienced in the 2000s. I thought that was going to last until I died. But it didn't. I'd love to see us put together a string of Sweet 16s and better. We'll see.

That's idiotic. What are you supposed to do? You have to cover the team. And frankly, you've always liked Rodney Terry. I LIKE Rodney Terry. But you can't come out and say you don't think he'll be a good coach after he's been hired. I can say, just for the record, that Gerry has always felt like Sean Miller would be a great hire. Even the first go around when Terry got the job, he liked Sean Miller. That's not to cast aspersions on Terry. Gerry simply thought Miller would be a good fit. So far it's looking like he was right.

This team is not that talented. They're not that fast. They don't have electric players all over the field. They lost critical pieces to injury. It's so impressive Bates has them playing at such a competitive level. I hope and expect this bodes well for when Bates is able to bring more of her players into the program and build a national championship level talent pool.

I've already posted this, but Dylan Swain is the only player on that list that made it to the second weekend in March while at Texas.

What are you going to do? I posted on Surlyhorns my regret about Terry being named the interim coach when it happened, in the sense if the team did well that year - and the roster absolutely was created to do well - he was going to have to be named the permanent head coach. Folks replied that I needed to just enjoy the season and not worry about that stuff...which, fair. But I knew Terry wouldn't be a good head coach, but I also knew he could still have a successful season with Beard's roster and Beard's staff. To Terry's credit, that team did make the Elite Eight. Those don't exactly grow on trees around here. Since the field of 64 was first instituted, Texas has four - FOUR! - of them, which is bonkers for a program that makes the tournament as often as Texas does over the last 40 years. To me it was worth the short term of Terry simply to get that Elite Eight. It's not like we kept Terry on for 6 years like we did with Shaka Smart. That TRULY drove me crazy. BTW, I'm firmly convinced with Beard as the head coach that team gets to the Final Four. Especially past that Miami team. But IMO you can't be arrested as the head coach for domestic assault and still remain the head coach. Not at Texas. Beard had to find a way to not get arrested that night, but he didn't. Blithely answered the door with the cops, convinced he could talk to them about his innocence, "Look! I even recorded the whole thing! Listen!" That is not how it works. The moment she called the police, go get a hotel room. Get the heck out of there. In any case, I'm glad we have Miller. But we're not out of the woods, yet. We need to keep momentum, hopefully string together a series of second weekend seasons. If we make it farther, great, but at least make it to the second weekend. We're not like Florida which can lose in the second round and not really miss a beat. They have already established their track record. Miller is only beginning to establish his at Texas. And a Final Four would be a definite chef's kiss. It's there for the taking. Grab a #2 seed. Play in Dallas in the first two rounds, San Antonio in the next two rounds. The team is constructed to be Final Four material for sure. But the nonconference record is a big factor in the eventual seeding, with only 4 games on the slate that matter. Florida comes super early in conference play, which is not to our advantage. Then it's the gauntlet through the SEC and the SEC tournament. Got to find a way. Get better over the course of the season. Play their best ball in March. Limit injuries after the Mikey Lewis setback. Get to Detroit.

You can't have passionate fans without having passionate fans.

That is a crazy list of NBA players with so little tournament success to show for it. Is Swain the only player on there to make it to the second weekend? I'm pretty sure he is.

At least he's classified as a senior. Can you imagine if he was counted as a true freshman with 4 more years of eligibility left?

I cannot get enough of these preseason interviews. Also, I hated when Tucker was gone from the Astros, but it's good to see him covering college basketball now.

That doesn't look like 11 to me. Gerry doesn't know what he's talking about. Unsubscribe.

I thought that was released in November?

This team has a huge deficit in serving and setting against any really good team they face. Florida has issues with their pin hitters. King/Chaney/Leban/Byrd are not horrible, but they're not as good or as terminal as the pins on other higher seed teams, which is part of the reason why the outcome was so contested. All of them other than Byrd are short, and Byrd, for as athletic as she is in terms of her vertical, is not very nimble. She's slow to her spots and terrible on serve receive/defense. Texas is actually decent in serve receive, but they have issues against great servers - but a lot of teams have problems with great servers. Taylor Parks was giving us fits last night. At times, we could not get her off the service line. Bella Lee, and King were also effective. Same thing happened against OU. Same thing happened against Alabama. Same thing happened regularly in nonconference when we'd get dominated by top teams. Yes, maybe get better at serve receive, but what would also be helpful is if we could return fire, but we can't, because our serving sucks for the most part. Which was the story for last season and why I never thought we had a chance to make it to the Final Four - and is the biggest reason we lost to Wisconsin. Only this season, the serving is several magnitudes less effective. It was interesting to see Elliott so animated on the sideline. I'm curious if he's heard from donors that the Tom Landry look on the bench isn't cutting it as the season goes down in flames. This is the second season of 4 where he decided he needed an upgrade from Swindle and he ended up sacrificing the season as a result. It's 2024 all over again. For much of the same reasons. This offseason is going to be so interesting for me.

What Bates has done with this team is remarkable. I'm excited about our future. We do need to upgrade the soccer facilities. I don't know what that looks like, but we're not competitive in that sport with our facilities any more. I'd think Bates was given some assurances before taking the job. In any case, she was not handed a full kitchen cabinet, and they've suffered some critical injuries. The level of production this year after last year's abomination has been heartening to say the least.

Here's hoping that featuring Nya Bunton is a signal of her return to the court.