Bilas hasn't been watching UT basketball lately. I know Barnes was getting stale and we needed new blood however, this went in the wrong the direction. What is crazy is we are still sending players to the NBA who did absolutely nothing under Shaka. And the dudes who got the most shots, Kerwin Roach etc, get waived from a Summer League Team. LIKE WAIVED IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER LEAGUE. Zhou Qi never got waived in the summer league even after he missed like 20 shots.
Fraschilla's comments about the state of the athletic department are spot-on and I'm glad somebody said it on a broadcast against the #1 team in the country. I disagree with his "young team" comments, though. Everyone has a young team in the one-and-done era. Shaka has simply been unable to coach any of his Top 100 recruits into anything meaningful. The Erwin Center was a morgue last night for a game against the top-ranked Bears. I know our boosters don't care about basketball all that much, but at a certain point it's got to be embarrassing for them to be associated with this coaching staff. We have plenty of NBA alumni, including a top-5 player, who played for the Longhorns whose profiles we should be tapping into to grow this program. Instead, we're spinning our wheels with a failed coach who is owed too much money to easily fire. Considering ESPN's sizable investment in the Longhorn Network corresponding with one of the worst collective decades in school history, I can't believe that they have people like Bilas going on air and urging calm. Their poor ROI is only going to keep getting worse if coaches like Shaka are allowed to continue driving their teams into the ditch.
What's wild is that Shaka was the in-demand coach when we hired him. He turned down UCLA! It's best for all parties if he gets bought out and returns to a mid-major where he can return to overachieving rather than ruining his name any further.
Honestly don't think ESPN is expecting any type of return on LHN at this point. Shaka is probably a really cool dude so don't think seasoned commentators care too much about telling it like it is, that his tenure has been a pretty gigantic failure. Really sucks because I loved the hire at the time. Who do y'all see as realistic hires?
I honestly don't know any realistic hire. I think Yaklich would be a good promotion until the Moody Center opens and then things can be re-assessed. I don't see Beard leaving Tech nor do I see the boosters willing to spend the money on a buyout AND a top tier candidate.
I don't understand why Shaka went to UT and then stopped playing HAVOC. He didn't think the type of players he got at UT would want to play that way? Shaka has been really bad. I haven't watched a full UT game since maybe last year and I was a pretty regular watcher before he came here. There's no way he says beyond this season.
Think that’s part of it but maybe he also knew it wouldn’t work since outside of that Final Four run, it really didn’t. Think the hire was all about finding that young up and coming coach that could get the most out of players. Don’t think anyone would’ve imagined it would go this bad.
At the time, nobody knew that Shaka Smart lacked the ability to devise good offensive sets and schemes. I watched part of the Baylor game last night, and there is no movement on offense. Every possession involved one guy trying to use his athleticism to beat his man off the dribble while the other four players stood around and watched. It’s no wonder they struggle to score points consistently. Also, I disagree that Havoc, or a similar system, can’t work in a major conference. Rick Pitino’s Kentucky and Louisville teams consistently pressed and trapped their opponents. Nolan Richardson won a national championship at Arkansas with a “40 Minutes of Hell” strategy. Smart should never have scrapped the defensive philosophy that made him the hottest coaching candidate in the country once he arrived at Texas. During his first year, I understood not using it due to personnel issues, but, after that, he should have recruited the athletes he needed for the system.
A&M was tough to make sweet 16 and beyond a year ago. Can't say it's just good coaching at A&M since the starting center from that tough A&M team play for the Boston Celtics, Robert Williams. Only thing saving Shaka smart is he won nit last year!
I like Smart and I think he’s a good coach, but for whatever reason he’s clearly not the right fit for Texas.
bitterwhiteguy has been wrong for years about Shaka. I don’t give him any credit for finally getting this right.
"For whatever reason?" He completely abandoned the Havoc system before he even arrived at Texas, yet we were too stupid to look at different candidates. We haven't had a real wing player pretty much the entire time Shaka has been here. We're an awful second half team because the other coaches make adjustments. While the general defense is good, fundamentals like rebounding are not emphasized. He hasn't taught the guards anything, so they resort to chucking threes. Smart seems to approve of that. We've beaten Kansas and Baylor a combined three times since he's been here. We're well below .500 in league play. We haven't won an NCAA tournament game. We haven't come close to winning the Big 12. We haven't beaten anyone of note since his first year with Rick Barnes' players. To top it all off, dumbass Mike Perrin extended Shaka after we lost in the first round to Northern Iowa. He's not the right fit at Texas because he's a ****ing terrible coach.
Shaka fails to sign Dallas area Blu chip athletes! Texas messed over sheldan mcclellan. Thought longhorns missed out not signing Kansas transfer quenten Grimes, a definite nba talent. Hurricane Harvey affected UT recruiting for basketball IMO. Shaka program produced Jaxon Hayes from New Orleans pelicans who led longhorns to n.i.t. championship just last season in 2019! Shaka doing something right but it's 'diamond in the rough' on recruiting!
That and the $10M left on his deal. Just read that John Bielein is expected to resign. If we’re not getting Beard, Bielein is as good of an option as there is. Comes “free” if CDC is worried about it.
The whole Havok system has not been seen since he got here. That was a system for lesser talented teams to beat bigger talent teams he’s also recruited lots of talent at the bigs and they don’t ever get the ball
I don’t keep up enough with UT bloggers to know the history of this particular author. I thought this post made sense.