Maybe the best thing that Rodney Terry has done as the non-interim head basketball coach at Texas is making it easy to move on from him after two seasons.
It's not a fun thing to think about. Nothing about the Texas men's basketball team outside of watching Tre Johnson shoot the ball is fun. Saturday night sure as hell wasn't fun.
But, it was emphatic.
Say what you want about Terry's not-quite-last-place program through two nearly complete seasons, but it's not messing around down the homestretch with the kind of up-and-down play that might make an athletic director toss and turn over the decision that everyone knows has to be made. Texas is in such a free-fall that even actual free-falls would blush by comparisons.
Three straight losses have Texas sitting at 5-11 in conference play. Six losses out of the last seven games has Texas sitting on the outside looking in with regards to any postseason play that matters. The Rodney Terry era might not officially be over, but I dare you to find a Texas fan that wants to watch another 40 minutes of the product he's producing.
It's time for Chris Del Conte to clean up the mess on aisle 9 that he's responsible for. Simple as that.
We don't need to re-litigate the events surrounding Terry's hire. It was a mistake. Duh. Most of us that paid any attention to Terry's head coaching history could see this coming from a mile away. Hell, maybe Del Conte saw it as well and was merely blinded by confirmation bias and the feel-goods created by the success built on the shoulders of a horrible, untrustworthy dirtbag.
All that matters moving forward is the future. No offense to anyone involved in the last three seasons of Texas basketball, especially the last two, but you'll please forgive me or anyone else that not only doesn't want to look backward, but I barely want to acknowledge any of its existence.
Right about the time the Longhorns were trailing by 27 points in the second half on Saturday night, I just wanted to be done with it all.
In roughly two weeks, it will almost certainly be done. If Del Conte needs any more convincing, Terry's team will likely provide it for him. That's the thing about those free-falls ...
They don't stop until something stops them and the only thing stopping this one is the completion of the schedule. Once that road game in Starkville, the home game against the Sooners and a game in Greenville in the SEC Tournament are put to bed, the free-fall will end and the true rebuild that Del Conte should have overseen at the end of the 2022-23 season can begin.
We've all looked back enough. It's time to only look ahead.
No. 2 - Let's talk about Matthew Golden ...
There were times during the 2024 season when I found myself questioning my eyeballs with regard to Matthew Golden.
On more than one occasion, I'd see him make a play and think to myself that what I'd just seen was something straight out of some kind of freak zone.
But, it seemed to be treated pretty normal by most folks ... so I just kept my mouth shut and convinced myself that it was just my confirmation bias towards Golden as a player I covered that was speaking crazy thoughts. Recency bias or something.
To be fair, Golden's freak show stuff happened in small doses for much of the season, so it was easy to be dismissive of my potential hyperbole.
Then the SEC Championship game happened. Then there was the Arizona State playoff game. Then there was whatever we call this against Ohio State ...
By the end of the season, Golden didn't feel like the second coming of whatever Xavier Worthy was/is, but he felt like an absolute upgrade of Adonai Mitchell and that dude was really, really, really good.
Yet, I still wondered if some kind of bias existed inside of me because outside of Daniel Jeremiah, it didn't feel like anyone was seeing the same things. Then he ran a 4.29 in Indianapolis. Less than a handful of weeks after recovering from a nasty January ankle sprain.
I now feel completely vindicated inside my own brain space to myself. Forget about you guys. I can trust myself again.
Golden isn't just going to be a badass NFL receiver. He's going to be a guy that plays in Pro Bowls and competes for All-Pro honors. That's the kind of talent we were watching last season and that's what he will be in the NFL.
I only wish we had been able to see him play a little pitch and catch with Arch Manning in 2025 before we watched him leave because I'm not sure we're going to see anything quite like him in a while. It might seem like talent like Golden is falling from trees in the last couple of years, but I assure you ... He. Is. Not. Normal.
No. 3 - About Gunnar Helm ...
F'ing ouch!
It turns out that Gunnar Helm's historically poor RAS score (2.23 out of 10) wasn't an accident. He ran on a mangled foot after a false start during his first attempt at the 40.
We know Helm is a tough hombre and we know that he's a hell of a football player. The NFL knows that, too. What the NFL currently doesn't know is just how dynamic of an athlete Helm is.
Suddenly, fingers are crossed that when the Texas Pro Day rolls around in 24 days, Helm will be able to give a more accurate snapshot of his physical abilities.
"That did not help him," an NFL scouting friend of mine, who plans to attend the Texas Pro Day on March 26, said on Sunday afternoon. "No team is in the habit of drafting tight ends that run 4.8s very high. He's a good player and he has fans, but I've been fans of a lot of guys that fell like rocks because of bad workouts. I promise you that if he doesn't have a good workout in Austin, what happened at the Combine won't be remembered fondly."
I asked the scout what he needs to do on the Pro Day ...
"Everything," he replied. "From a workout standpoint, he has everything to do. He didn't just lose the testing this week, he lost a chance to put a marker down at his position next to all of his peers. He has to make up for that."
I suppose we can sit around pointing fingers and playing the blame game for the decision to not shut Helm down immediately after the ankle was injured, but what's done is done. As I was telling
@Russhorn on Sunday on the Orangebloods message board, we all want the best for Helm and are cheering for his success. Let's hope he's 100 percent in a few weeks and can make up for the time that was lost in Indy.
No. 4 – Ahem ...
Let's go to the measurements...
Size: Kelvin Banks (6-5 1/8, 315 pounds), Will Campbell (6-5 7/8, 319 pounds)
Hand: Kelvin Banks (10 3/8), Will Campbell (9 1/2)
Arm: Kelvin Banks (33 1/2), Will Campbell (32 5/8)
Wingspan: Kelvin Banks (84 3/8), Will Campbell (77 3/8)
One of these players has routinely been questioned as a tackle prospect in the last couple of months and it's not the guy with the short wingspan and average-sized hands.
I know Campbell can ball. I know he's athletic as hell. He's not Kelvin Banks.
Any NFL team that bypasses Banks for Campbell will get what it deserves. Surely, a guy with sub-33-inch arms isn't going to be the first tackle taken in the draft.
Just as a reminder, here are the arm lengths of every first-round tackle in the 2024 Draft: Joe Alt (34 1/4), JC Latham (35 1/8), Olu Fashanu (34), Taliese Fuaga (33 1/8), Amarius Mims (36 1/8), Troy Fautanu (34 1/2), Jordan Morgan (32 7/8) and Tyler Guyton (34 1/8).
No. 5 - Just in case you needed it as a reference point ...
No. 6 – Still No. 1 With a Bullet ...
Ho-hum, all Vic Schaefer and the No. 1-ranked Texas Longhorns did on Sunday afternoon was clinch a share of the SEC regular-season title with South Carolina.
In year one of the SEC.
Seriously ... well done, ladies. Well done, Vic. Well done, Vic's staff. Enough praise can't be doled out to a regular season that sees the Longhorns sharing titles with Dawn Staley's defending national champions. That program is the bar and the Longhorns cleared it and never went back.
Now the real fun belongs in an SEC Tournament that could be an even bigger bloodbath than whatever awaits any of these teams in the NCAA Tournament. If we're lucky, we're going to get Ali/Frazier III this week ... aka ... Longhorns vs. Gamecocks for a chance to cut down the nets in Nashville.
Texas will be the No. 2 seed, but that might be the preferred seeding with the injury to LSU's Flau'Jae Johnson, the star of the No. 3 seed Tigers.
If we're really lucky, we might get the same thing in Tampa in a little more than a month. With a different set of nets to potentially cut down.
No. 7 - It turns out that coaching does matter ...
Don't look now, but after a season-opening loss to Louisville in 10 innings, Schloss-Ball has reeled off nine straight wins, including three straight this weekend in Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, the team in College Station that no longer plays Schloss-Ball, but started the season No. 1, is currently 5-4 and riding a four-game losing streak with losses to Oklahoma State, Arizona, Texas State and Cal-Poly.
lololololololololol.... Pooooooooooooooooor Aggies.
No. 8 – BUY or SELL …
(Sell) I'm sure he's vetting options, but nothing is that far down the road.
(Buy) I've had a number of people contact me over the years about purchasing Orangebloods. I suppose one of these days, I'll find my Huckleberry.
(Sell) Hard to flat-out say they'll absolutely win the next two years, but a repeat this year looks unlikely. This is going to be a tough award to win in the SEC.
(Sell) New NIL deals for dozens of players have already been leveraged. That horse left the barn in January.
(Buy) The Manning family did not send Arch to Texas to be the second coming of David Ash. It's stunning that these ideas have even been allowed to formulate.
(Sell) Luby's fried fish is the best standalone fish.
(Buy) Give me that elite coaching with a bunch of high four stars!
(Sell) It's way too early to assume that. The running game is missing the best Texas OL in two decades and a 4.3 playmaking speedster. Let's not play the pretend game where that is all easily replaced because of Arch.
(Buy) That feels like a Jimbo Fisher hire. You're not getting peak-Self as much as you're pretending you're getting peak-Self.
(Buy) Sure.
(Sell) Nah, I'm not sure I see it this way.
(Sell) Put some respect on the names of that 2024 staff until the 2025 staff does something to warrant the praise. That's an NFL running backs coach, a college co-defensive coordinator and an NFL defensive passing game coordinator that have gone out the door and I don't know that we can definitely say upgrades were made.
(Buy) Texas has a significant quarterback advantage.
(Sell) That would mean the end of the significant quarterback advantage.
No. 9 – Scattershooting all over the place …
... You'll have to forgive the UCLA women's basketball team if it doesn’t care to face cross-town rivals USC again this season. UCLA record vs. USC: 0-2. UCLA record vs. Everyone But USC: 26-0.
... A fifth-round pick for Deebo Samuel? Good grief, have fun with that, Jayden Daniels.
... Sports Story of the Weekend: "Ryan Peake, an Australian former motorcycle gang member who turned his life around through golf, earned a place at The Open Championship on Sunday when he won the 104th New Zealand Open by one stroke."
... I'm not going to lie ... Cody Rhodes telling The Rock to go F himself was hilarious. Yet, it wasn't as hilarious as John Cena's reaction. And it was even less hilarious than Cena's heel turn. Well done to everyone involved.
... Something tells me that CM Punk will have a big say in the outcome of Cena/Rhodes at Wrestlemania.
... Give me Bournemouth to win the FA Cup.
... 40 years ago ... man ... this would still be my at-bat song.
No. 10 - Top 10: Gene Hackman ...
We lost one of the all-time acting greats this week with the death of Gene Hackman, who was found deceased in his New Mexico home, along with his wife Betsy. The circumstances of both deaths is murky and confusing. I wonder if we'll ever know what truly happened in the couple's final hours.
What isn't murky is the legacy left behind by Hackman, who will forever be remembered as one of the greatest American actors. A little more than a year ago, I put together my Top 10 Hackman movies and it felt like the perfect time to revisit the discussion.
I considered revising the list because the top five can be spun in almost any order, but I decided not to change a thing. I'm comfortable with where I left things.
Honorable Mention: Mississippi Burning, Superman: The Movie, The French Connection 2, Superman II, Enemy of the State, I Never Sang for My Father, Scarecrow, A Bridge Too Far, Wyatt Earp, The Birdcage, The Replacements, Young Frankenstein, Postcards From The Edge, The Quick and the Dead, The Poseidon Adventure, Get Shorty, Heist, Prime Cut, Twice in a Lifetime, Under Fire, Downhill Racer and Reds
10. Bonnie and Clyde
There are other movies in the honorable mention section that I enjoy more, but this is the movie that served as his true breakout role and it just feels like it HAS to be on the list. The role of Buck Burrow earned his first Oscar nomination.
9. The Firm
Arguably, it's the best John Grisham movie adaptation of them all. I have it behind A Time to Kill, but a lot of people have this in the top spot.
8. Night Moves
Roger Ebert gave the film four stars upon its release and called it "one of the best psychological thrillers in a long time." He was right. This might be a few spots too low.
7. No Way Out
A case can be made that this is one of the 10 most underrated movies of the 1980s. I watched it this week and it is still a banger.
6. The Royal Tenenbaums
For my money, this is the best of Wes Anderson's movies and it's all because Hackman delivers an A+ comedic/dramatic performance in the twilight of his career.
5. Crimson Tide
It's Hackman vs. Denzel on a nuclear sub. They should have made 10 of these movies.
4. Unforgiven
3. The Conversation
Absolutely incredible. I gave it some No. 1 overall thought in my head. That's how good it is.
2. The French Connection
I understand the shouts for No. 1. I actually think he might have given a better performance in the sequel.
1. Hoosiers
This movie makes me feel something every time I watch it and I have to be in triple digits pretty easily when it comes to views. Hell, I'm friends with Jimmy Chitwood on Facebook! It might be both the best sports movie ever made, but also it might be my favorite.
