Texas is... Bad.
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Shaka Smart is a small time coach playing small time style at a big time program. He is wasting the talent he has by using a system designed for teams with lesser talent. He has yet to make the jump to the big time and I am not sure he will or that he can, as long as he is trying to prove that he is right.
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A new facility won’t help the bball program. Fans just do not care and the only time they sell out is when we come to town. I think the UT staff has been saying to the recruits “Just wait till you see the new facility we are going to build.” Only problem is they have been saying that for the last 3 years and there isn’t even a new site picked that they have announced. Texas fans are so fickle. The empty seats yesterday were about the same for every home game so far. UTA had almost as many fans there when they beat UT last week.
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@JayHawkFanToo His system is a variation of 4o minutes of hell which made Arkansas a national power and got them title and Mike Anderson used it to make Missouri a consistent top 20 team and got them to an Elite 8. It’s a system that can be very successful at this level, but ut doesn’t happen overnight.
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40 minutes of mild annoyance…
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@JayHawkFanToo I tend to be more in agreement with you regarding Shaka’s playstyle, given his track record at VCU. His own conference figured it out. His record (lack thereof) speaks for itself. Hey, any midmajor with upperclassmen and a chip can knock of any team in March, but do you hire that coach to rebuild a major program. Would that coach be better than someone like Rick Barnes? See, I’m not sold that Shaka is “better” than Rick Barnes. Younger, yes. But better?
@Texas-Hawk-10 Well, if Shaka is able to contend for top 3 in the BigXII perennially, then I’ll give him more respect. He didnt show it in his own league. He has nothing than 1 fading cinderella run, but had the intelligence? to throw down a challenge to every Big12 program and coach by announcing whatever would “translate well”? I suppose I could spin that and say that UTx “paid” Shaka to say that, but maybe Shaka needs to be smarter with his mouth, as I see him eatin’ crow right now.
I’ll agree about Nolan Richardson’s Razorbacks. We’d agree Mike Anderson may be the most successful protege from Richardson’s tree, having done it at UAB and Mizzou. I guess you could say WVU’s pressing style is similar. So, we have Huggy, Anderson, and Shaka.
I saw that Jerod Haase did not run press D at UAB. We’ve heard Self’s rationale on it. Rick Pitino seems to have evolved from his KY days as well.I am under ZERO obligation to think Shaka’s playstyle will be any more successful in the BigXII than it was (not?) in his previous conference.
Could it be that the TX Athletic Director and Dept are as bad as KU’s regarding their recent hiring of coaches (comparing it to 2 of KU’s football hires)?
I know the laundry (dirty) list of teams that have gone into Erwin Center and beat TX in their own gym…is long and boring.
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People make the mistake of confusing Shaka Smart (who’s proved nothing) with a guy like Brad Stevens (who may have proved something, possibly, with Butler).
I’d like to use another example, that of Fred Hoiberg, comes into IowaState, instantly took hold, instantly got everyone’s attention, and overnight had IowaState in the BigXII’s top3 tier. Now compare the Mayor to Shaka Smart, 2 years in. Point made. How much coaching experience did Fred Hoiberg have?
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Question. So do you see the focus on pressing styles by more teams in the Big 12 helping to push Coach Self into more of a heavy guard system than in the past?
No question that we have been migrating to heavier recruiting of guards. Did Bill see the light and realize how valuable guard play is to winning it all in March? Or is he focusing more on the Big 12 and is tired of going to Morgantown for a thumping?
Or is this just the final impact of losing Danny Manning off the staff?
I’m curious what you think goes on in Bill’s mind.
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@drgnslayr Damn good question slayr.
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@ralster Swish.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 The big difference between those programs is they had a prett good offense to go with their D.
Smart is a terrible offensive coach. Can he get a good win once in awhile because of it? Sure. But you can’t rely on your havoc D while going against big major conference guards night in and night out. If he finds an assistant who is offensively minded, then we are talking. But something tells me that his ego would cause him to never let go of the reigns that much.
That’s what happens when you build your whole career off of a flukey win!
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@drgnslayr it’s not losing manning! Manning’s big guy is struggling. We do the same stuff we did w/manning here. Gonna have to trust me.
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@drgnslayr see our recruits.
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@drgnslayr I dont think Self has changed his overall philosophy, but he has proven he isnt as “rigid” as we all thought he was. Or maybe he was rigid, but then changed.
He has ALWAYS valued multiple, tough, ballhandling guards, be it at Illinois or at KU. It remains a foundation cornerstone (proof of concept) that his only team to win it all was 2008, and they had 3 adept ball handlers (RR, Chalmers, Sherron). 2012 could have added Selby to TT and EJ, but no, Selby was too stupid for his own good, what to talk about KU’s good vs KY.
I think a combination of seeing what respected Hoiberg was able to do with “outside-in” (but they were best with McKay and Niang in the paint, werent they?) coupled with what-is-working+what-is-FAILING right now–> has caused Self to “go with” the 4 guard lineup. Must add in the proven fact of cant-recruit-a-big-JayWright winning the whole enchilada with a role-player-only-bigman (Ochefu), and superlative guard play. They also beat OUs great 3 guard tandem in the Final 4.
Personally, I think Self is hopping/redfaced mad about the 2nd half effort vs Nebr. Udoka is no Embiid, and is a game-influencing liability on the FT line. JJ is better than expected, and functioning at starter-level. Which sadly means he is 100.00% gone/OAD. Just how happy would Self be, when Mitch Lightfoot is equal to Bragg? Extremely down on Bragg right now. Maybe he is in the process of getting his a.s.s. kicked off the team. Y’all know Self doesnt appreciate offcourt problems, especially low-character type legal issues. So, yes, Self is pissed about: broke FTs (Udoka), broke character (Bragg), broke confidence (Lucas), and maybe some broke D (Vick). And I’m just not sure what he’ll say about 3pt% being better than 2pt%, other than point to everything that is broke. For Bill Self, this is an alternate world.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 You did make me ponder UA/Richardson. That was 1 win, and that was a long time ago. I’d ask the UArk faithful, now that they have Anderson, why they are not in the top10? Top20? When will they contend for a Final Four? Was that Richardson NC run aided by the right mix of opponents ‘susceptible’ to 40minHell? Why hasnt it been duplicated? How exactly did NorfolkSt beat Anderson’s best Mizzou squad? (didnt see that game).
I guess in comparing Richardson/Anderson/Shaka/Huggy, I’d want to see better proof of concept, and Huggy may be the best of that bunch who is still actively coaching a pressing style.
I am trying to keep in mind that Seth Greenberg’s diatribe on-air about TX facilities was in context of “a top program like KY, Duke, UNC…” (that’s his quote, and of course, he leaves out KU, which is more relevant as its in the BigXII, and TX’s biggest roadblock).
The question then could be raised: If TX was after a certain playstyle, why didnt they go after Mike Anderson? He’s proved a bit more than Shaka ever did. But something was up with Anderson–> he absolutely set fire to his castle and bolted out of Columbia…to Tulsa of all places, then on to UArk, a “safe haven” for him specifically for a while, to pad the retirement portfolio for a few more years.
Both Roy and Self have proven what exactly to do against pressing teams. Havent they both littered the roadside with such lesser philosophies on their way to 800+ or 600+ wins? And Shaka is brought in to compete with that? Not buying the Shaka thing, let him prove me wrong, but most importantly, let him prove himself correct. Prove he brings something to the table. Because he is sitting at a bigger table now, alongside Self, Kruger, Dixon, Underwood, Prohm, and even Weber from a fundamentals standpoint, and Drew from a recruiting and stability of system standpoint. No gimmicks. Gotta be the real deal in this league. One could argue about Baylor’s zone and how it isnt the real-deal like Syracuse’s version, but this isnt about Baylor. Its about what Shaka supposedly brought to this table. Not much.
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Shooting a higher percentage from trey over 2… isn’t that a case of whether the glass is half empty or half full?
I’m pretty sure that most of the treys we have been hitting are shots our guys would take even if there wasn’t a trey line. The truth is that the spacing is right for how they are playing. We finally found the right mix of motion to create a very good spacing for trey shots. Seems odd that we are actually thinking of punishing our shot selection because 3 points are given instead of 2. Would we even be having this conversation if those shots were for 2 points? I don’t think so.
I can’t rave enough about Josh’s play. He is showing by example how easy it is to score in mid range. He isn’t afraid to take it to the rack (and he does with authority), but also he is smart enough to take what the defense gives and pretty much all D1 defense gives up the easy mid range.
It is important that we take what the defenses give. This is something that should be written in stone for all basketball teams. Once you exploit what the defense gives and you find success, the defense has to adjust to stop it. When they do that, they leave open something else. Why swim up stream with such a heavy undertow in place?
Right now… defenses are giving us the trey line and a lot of soft mid range edges, too. It looks like we are forcing defenses into a mushy, sagging zone. Even when they throw M2M at us, the weak-side help pushes into the paint, creating perfect spacing for our trey shooters.
It would be great to get more production from our bigs, and Landen is starting to settle down and find his mojo. But just having Josh on this team gives us a very solid threat in the low post for scoring. He is pretty tough to stop and can draw fouls easily.
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U drove a frozen rope on the things “broke” post.
Self’s gotta be feeling a little vertigo. Things are going so good, and yet the prospects for them going bad are so transparent.
KU is doing nothing currently that a really good team could not clog up and so force KU to another part of MULTIPLE OFFENSE 2.0. But…
Without Bragg, and with Doke unable to play without being put on the line to get a stop, and with Coleby going on a bailing wire knee, Self CAN’T go to an offense with two posts even for short stints now without committing Josh to a lot more post play, and so stretching his perimeter depth thin too, Or committing to Lightfoot.
Feel good: Stunning stretch of guard play with Josh rounding into shape and Vick gluing, showing he could score, and going back to gluing.
Feel bad: all you called broke.
Feel queasy: losing the extra fouling for one big and the two deep depth you need eventualy for double post opponents.
The good and bad have to torque him. Extremes always do.
The feel queasy has to make his eyes do the simultaneous pull back and zoom in of Hitchcock.
Life is sweet now, but the seeds are sewn for disaster in February, if Coleby can’t start playing full tilt.
This NU game WAS Coleby’s right place, right time chance OF A CAREER. Nothing.
Self is likely AT a drawing board right now sketching what he hopes is another hat rabbit.
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@drgnslayr I’m not debating the 3pt % of this team at all–> I personally think it is beautiful, and lets keep shooting them, especially at our lofty percentages. We actually have a team capable of playing outside-in.
But the question was asked about “what do you think Self thinks?”, so I totally am speculating that he may be a bit awestruck that one of his longtime mantras of inside-looks being high-% “looks”, now actually getting beat by his own team’s 3%. I’d be real curious what he’d say about it candidly. His HOF career is based on his playing the percentages (enhance ours, muck up the opponents), yet here we see one of his basic tenets upended, by his own recruits, no less…
I’d love to corner him in the hall, and yell “what do ya think of outside-in now?” or: “Just what was the extent of your conversation with Fred Hoiberg when he came to your office?”
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@jaybate-1.0 Yes, the question is if Self has fully committed to 4+1, which then makes all the players buy-in and committed to getting better at all it’s aspects.
Frankly, the post players…nobody has any sort of advanced back-to-basket game. Udoka tries, but he’s elemental. As we’ve seen, 1yr-2yr transfers can be hit or miss in the post. KYo, Tarik, Hunter, now Coleby. Self basically abandoned Hunter Mickelson since he was a lame-duck dead end player.
I have no doubt in my mind that if Bragg and Lucas continued right where Perry and Lucas left off last year–> we’d still be playing 3+2 this year, with the 4+1 only in stretches.
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Im still tickled every game how the announcers cannot get over the fact how good our Towson and AppalachSt guards are. Self has beat Duke twice with Frank.
Its odd that KU gets called “snob hill” by the WichitaHate Hockers, yet Self has a team of hodgepodge scrappers that goes toe-to-toe with the haughty pretty boys at Duke University, still reeling that the refs “gave” their W in MadisonSqGarden to “KayWho”. Unbelievable. But I guess its all relative to one’s vantage point. I know of other fans that see KU play KY or Duke, and just consider it a game of 2 evils, opining that “they’re all the same”. All relative. Or, more accurately: varying degrees of uninformed, thus unable to differentiate.
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@ralster With any system, it’s about execution first and foremost and then talent second. When Nolan Richarson had his amazing run from 1989-90 to 1994-95 with a national title, 3 Final Four’s, and 4 Elite 8’s, he had superior talent relative to anything Anderson or Smart has ever had.
We saw Pitino win a title at Louisville using elements of 40 Minutes of Hell with NBA level talent. Any system can win a national title ith the right combination of execution, talent, and a little luck.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 Great info. I didnt watch any of Richardson’s games. To be honest, between grad school at KU which kicked my butt for those exact years, and trying to keep up with MJ’s Bulls, and my NFL teams, I actually didnt watch much college ball at all. Didnt even see Danny win it in 1988. (Got DVD now of it). Didnt see the 97 Hawks lose to Miles Simon/AZ either.
DVRs are a wonderful thing now, for sure.
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@ralster said:
Didnt even see Danny win it in 1988.
I have just felt my heart stop and my soul descend into a dark, deep unimaginable Void. Just the concept of the horror to which you refer…shiver…
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@mayjay well in '87-88, I was busy chasing the hotties at my small college, pretending to play my 80s rock guitar (can still do an awful EddieVanHalen impersonation, ha!). Didnt show up to KU until 1989 for professional school, then I started to learn about the tradition and the 88 NC, etc. But in 87, was also in a deep unimagineable void, as the girl I really liked, broke my heart majorly. A time of personal growth, maturing, etc. I sure wish I had bball to watch back then. Started watching KU in 1990, became my religion in about 2000-01…
My frame of reference for college bball was WSU, since I grew up in Wichita, & WSU was actually decent in the 80s. I learned to play harrassing, A-rated onball D by watching a bushy headed WSU PG’s footwork on the TV, a guy named Randy Smithson.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 But, to boil it all down, Shaka is no Pitino, no Richardson, not even Anderson. He sure isnt Huggy either. They contended. He pretends.
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@mayjay Children, children… for shame, for shame… Forgive them they know not…
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@ralster “But in 87, was also in a deep unimagineable void, as the girl I really liked, broke my heart majorly… I sure wish I had bball to watch back then.”
Wow, we have a bit in common on that score. Luckily, BB was my saving grace, but being in DC before the internet (and before ESPN took Big 8 games national) meant I lived for ESPNSC highlights at best and the USA Today sports section as a daily devotion.
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I expect we will have Carlton back in January. The sabbatical should do him good. He will have a little fresher body, and more than a month being just “near” the team so he will have developed a better psyche for what he needs to do and what he can contribute to this team.
By that time, Doke will be well-entrenched with Landen to cover the 5. Carlton will have to win minutes back at the 4 and he will have to have quite the compelling display to make Bill want him on the court for more than relieving some guard minutes.
Carlton is about to hit the wall. He will have to find a way to lift his game big time. This is the perfect scenario for a young player with lots of potential but wasn’t digging deep in his soul to reach for the highest.
There are a few uber talents out there that never have to dig that deep. Carlton is not one of those so gifted. He has the framework to be very successful, but so does several hundreds of guys in D1. A big light bulb is starting to light up in his head now.
It is time for him to marry basketball. Basketball needs to be his girlfriend… uh… friend. He needs to put those extra hours in at night, working on his moves, his shot, his handles… Greatness is there for him, but he will have to become the practice warrior Perry was.
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@ralster At least you got to watch KU beat WSU in all but the '87 regular season matchup in the 80’s I remember watching the '93 game and thinking that this series needs to die. KU can beat up on any minor (mid-major is too much credit) school they want.
http://m.kusports.com/news/2015/mar/20/look-back-history-ku-vs-wichita-state/?templates=mobile
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@drgnslayr said:
There are a few uber talents out there that never have to dig that deep. Carlton is not one of those so gifted…It is time for him to marry basketball.
PHOF!
Otherwise, I have no comment on this incident, except to say these situations make me sad beyond words.
