Ketch's 10 Thoughts From the Weekend (Shaka is a damn good coach)
- Thread starter Ketchum
- Start date
Never mind that he took an 11-seed into the Final Four with a tougher road than any Texas team has ever climbed.Good coach, get it right, he’s a damn good coach...never mind he never won a conference championship in a mid-major conference and is 1 game above .500 after nearly 3 years here. Right now he’s just trying not to finish dead last in the conference, again.
Or the six straight seasons of 26+ wins.
Or the seven total tournament appearances.
I feel pretty good about Shaka running a clean program, but what about Barnes? Wasn't there some smoke about the people he had to deal with to reel in Cory Joseph and Tristan Thompson?
Jon Wilner (good PAC 12 writer for San Jose paper) was asked which programs should be worried, and his answer was "any program that recruits NBA lottery level players".
Jon Wilner (good PAC 12 writer for San Jose paper) was asked which programs should be worried, and his answer was "any program that recruits NBA lottery level players".
I have to admit I don't know what's in that investigation, but I haven't heard that anyone has concerns. Not from high level admin.
H
Hashtag GetHooked
Guest
He phucking sucks. Just so you know. I absolutely can't wait until he is gone.
It’s because we have good players. If we had a good coach, we would be about a 4 or 5 seed right now.
We don’t do click bait here
Ketch, you are clueless. Embarrassingly clueless as it relates to basketball.
What’s pathetic is Ketch using the fact that we’ve “only” lost to 4 unranked teams as a positive.
My how far we’ve fallen.
Oh, and we’ve beaten 6 tier one teams!!! ....out of 15 tries. Conveniently missed that part.
My how far we’ve fallen.
Oh, and we’ve beaten 6 tier one teams!!! ....out of 15 tries. Conveniently missed that part.
Last edited:
It is OK for anyone to be disappointed with a number of our close losses this year....we all are. However, anyone who does't appreciate what a great job Shaka Smart is doing in building a sustainable winning program with integrity and class doesn't know their butt from a hole in the ground about college basketball.
I am excited about where he has our program headed. Think about what he inherited when you consider minutes for 4 of the 5 positions on the floor this year are being filled with players in their first year at UT. We only likely lose one of those guys next year. Things are looking up!
Quit bitching and support this guy and the Horns.
I am excited about where he has our program headed. Think about what he inherited when you consider minutes for 4 of the 5 positions on the floor this year are being filled with players in their first year at UT. We only likely lose one of those guys next year. Things are looking up!
Quit bitching and support this guy and the Horns.
Well thought out response based on reason and not emotion. Congrats.
Or someone who expects a top 12 paid coach in the country to make a tournament of 68 teams. Seems like that’s not too much to ask considering his predecessor did it 16 out of 17 years.
Riiiiiight.
The players are responsible for the wins and he's responsible for the losses.
"We're Texas. We can do better.
Can you?"
I do believe we can and are capable of doing better. Shaka Smart's two predecessors finished with winning percentages of 65% and 69%. That's a span of 27 years of basketball where the basketball program achieved significantly superior results than the sub .500 product he has put on the floor.
Shaka's results at VCU are irrelevant at this point. Same with Charlie Strong's results at Louisville when there were plenty of the same discussions had with him on these message boards. When your current employer has an existing set of results by which to evaluate your performance, they're not too interested in what happened in a prior life.
I'm sure he's a fine human being and excellent role model for young adults between the ages of 18-22, but the bar is a little higher for his appraisal.
@Ketchum please describe Smart's offensive philosophy and how it has manifested itself on the court in his time at Texas.
You guys act like this place is Kentucky. It's not. Outside of a six-year stretch in the last decade, it's just been an ok college basketball program throughout its history.
hi! When the time comes in the next 24 months, and do not even think for a second that it's not, that Shaka Smart is fired from his job at TX because he's not even close to up to the job, I just wonder what you'll say. It'll be spin though.
A
anon_v7x9c7xxmv5dr
Guest
So if I read that correctly Ketch you think Shaka has done a very good coaching job this year? Please explain. Because here we are in February and Texas once again not even in contention for the Big 12 Title and is hanging on for dear life when it comes to a tournament spot. I'm not sure how any of that results in a good coaching job by Shaka or his staff.
Shaka has managed an Incredibly difficult situation as good or better than I could ever imagine.
His defenses have ranged from good to great at times in three years. The effort and desire is definitely there. These young men fight and scrap. That is most definitely a feather in his cap.
His press has been disappointing to say the least. I thought his press game with the athletes he could get at Texas would create...havoc. Well, it’s as likely to give up an easy layup as it is to create a turnover.
Offense. Man, where to start. It’s bad. Real bad. It was bad his first year. It’s bad in his third year. No movement. No adjustments. No aggression. No flow. No points. One cannot watch us on offense and think, “that is a well coached team”. It is just not possible. It is a train wreck on that side of the court and that did not start this year. It is a calling card of his teams here at Texas.
I think he deserves, and will get another year. Hard to judge this year given the circumstances he and the team has had to deal with.
I had extremely high hopes for him and Texas. I have been extremely disappointed in his teams. He has now convinced me he alone can not do this. He needs input from some good offensive minds. If he needs to shake his staff up then so be it. The product is severely lacking. He has time to turn it around. I sincerely hope he can.
His defenses have ranged from good to great at times in three years. The effort and desire is definitely there. These young men fight and scrap. That is most definitely a feather in his cap.
His press has been disappointing to say the least. I thought his press game with the athletes he could get at Texas would create...havoc. Well, it’s as likely to give up an easy layup as it is to create a turnover.
Offense. Man, where to start. It’s bad. Real bad. It was bad his first year. It’s bad in his third year. No movement. No adjustments. No aggression. No flow. No points. One cannot watch us on offense and think, “that is a well coached team”. It is just not possible. It is a train wreck on that side of the court and that did not start this year. It is a calling card of his teams here at Texas.
I think he deserves, and will get another year. Hard to judge this year given the circumstances he and the team has had to deal with.
I had extremely high hopes for him and Texas. I have been extremely disappointed in his teams. He has now convinced me he alone can not do this. He needs input from some good offensive minds. If he needs to shake his staff up then so be it. The product is severely lacking. He has time to turn it around. I sincerely hope he can.
Do you think he's doing a good job this year, given the youth and the fact that he lost a player to cancer in the toughest league in America?
Forget last year.
I did explain...here it is again...
*****
Instead of focusing on what he hasn't done with this team, let's focus on what he has done, which is take one of youngest teams in the country (four in the top seven of the current rotation are freshmen) and put it on the door-step of the NCAA Tournament, despite playing in the toughest conference in the country.
A conference so tough that if the team shows up on any given night and plays like a team full of wide-eyed freshmen, an ass-kicking will commence, no matter the opponent.
Oh, and did I mention that along the way he'd lost his best scorer for the rest of the season because of a battle with cancer?
Texas now has six wins against RPI Group 1 teams, which is among the highest marks in the entire country.
Of its 11 losses this season, seven were to teams that went into this week ranked inside the AP Top 25 - No. 7 Texas Tech, No. 9 Gonzaga, No. 12 Duke, No. 13 Kansas, No. 20 West Virginia and No. 22 Michigan.
Three of those loses went into overtime. Two of the three that finished in regulation were lost by six and two points, respectively.
Do you think Mike Krzyzewski walked off the floor in November and thought, "If only that really young team that dominated my team for much of the game had a good coach?"
Do you think that likely Big 12 Coach of the Year Mike Beard thought to himself, "Yeah, that team was down Andrew Jones and pushed us on our home floor as much as anyone has all year ... if they only had a good coach."
Do you think Lon Krugar is thinking to himself this weekend, "How did we lose twice to a team with shitty coaching?"
We didn’t fire Barnes and hire Shaka to be average, which would be an improvement st this stage
No doubt that progress in the area of offense must be made. Player development and having older players in general will help.
You don't think this team is average?
@Ketchum
I actually thought your Shaka take was pretty spot on with the exception of the time zone / recruiting comment. Texas MBB has always recruited toe-to-toe with the best nationally and signed elite recruits from coast to coast.
Durant, Bradley, Hamilton, Thompson, Joseph and Kabongo were all 5-star non-Texas prospects signed prior to Shaka.
The MBB record in a vacuum looks awful, much like the FB team record did in year under CTH in 2017 (the obvious difference being year 1 for CTH vs. year 3 for SS). Once you factor in the critical injuries (Connor Williams), the incredibly close losses to highly ranked teams (USC, OU, OSU), and the difficulty of the schedule (Texas had a top 10 SOS in Football most of the year) you can objectively look at the record and be disappointed while also acknowledging the team, players and coaches are not as bad as the record suggests. It’s not an acceptable result and it’s not what you set out to accomplish, but it’s also not grounds for termination either IMO.
I actually thought your Shaka take was pretty spot on with the exception of the time zone / recruiting comment. Texas MBB has always recruited toe-to-toe with the best nationally and signed elite recruits from coast to coast.
Durant, Bradley, Hamilton, Thompson, Joseph and Kabongo were all 5-star non-Texas prospects signed prior to Shaka.
The MBB record in a vacuum looks awful, much like the FB team record did in year under CTH in 2017 (the obvious difference being year 1 for CTH vs. year 3 for SS). Once you factor in the critical injuries (Connor Williams), the incredibly close losses to highly ranked teams (USC, OU, OSU), and the difficulty of the schedule (Texas had a top 10 SOS in Football most of the year) you can objectively look at the record and be disappointed while also acknowledging the team, players and coaches are not as bad as the record suggests. It’s not an acceptable result and it’s not what you set out to accomplish, but it’s also not grounds for termination either IMO.
I'll say what he accomplished wasn't enough and he was a failure.
It's in the article. I don't know whether he'll ultimately sink or swim.
Again, it's all in the article.
Well it’s 8th place in a 10 team league and won’t make a tournament of 60+ teams...
