This team

Somebody please help me here. What's wrong? Can anyone see this team being better by the end of the season? Conference play looks like it could be a brutal year.

I keep hearing the desperate need of a point guard. That may be true, but what I see is a totally uninspired and lost team. Not sure a point guard can fix all that.

 

We will not acquire a point guard during the season or another center, but if we can get our free throw percentage up and start shooting the 3-ball a little better, we will look better than we have lately

 

This team has shown flashed of working together as a team. If they develop and can do it consistently, it's going to be a good season. If not we're going to see a lot of Alabamas (good comeback), Long Beach States (struggle against team we should have dominated) and UTAs (loss to inferior talent). We can hope for the development but hope is not a good business plan. Let's see what Smart can do to develop what he has

 

I am not so sure of that.

 

UTA is pretty good. UTA also beat St. Mary's, then ranked No 12. I agree with Viper about lack of a point guard and do not believe we should continue with Roach at point. He has not improved at all so far. I think Yancy is a better option. Roach just wants to drive into the paint until he is surrounded , not looking to pass and throw up a prayer.

 

I don't know about this either. UTA has a lottery big man who dominated us in the paint and with a soft jumper, including nailing a few three pointers. We have no one who is there now. Allen may be there in a couple of years. But not now.

 

We need a distributor.

 

I know Young is considered a shooter, but does he not have the handles and vision to be a point. Seems to me that at 6' maybe 6'1 that he should be focusing on point skills if he wants to play at the next level. Don't see many 2 guards in the league that short. He would still get plenty of shots.

 

Point guard is as important if not more important than quarterback. It's not that we don't have a great point guard. We don't have a point guard at all. Also doesn't help that 2 of our guards are having the bigggest sophomore slumps of all time.

 

I am afraid this^^^ is true. Just an average B12 point guard and we have at least two more wins.

 

Seems to me that someone just forgot to follow the Recruiting 101 handbook for idiots last year.

Problem: I am going to lose my only two point guards next year.
Solution: Recruit point guard....any point guard.

I guess they thought Roach would be the answer.

 

I always thought Jones was being recruited as a point guard because I assumed certainly our coach knows with Taylor and Felix leaving we have to have a point guard. Well, you know what happens when you assume.

 

I think Jones is doing a much better job as a PG than Roach is.

 

I'm trying to remember last year's recruiting process, and as I recall Shaka got in a little late into the mix. I don't know if a big-time PG was really in play for us, and Andrew Jones may have been the best available option. I don't think the staff just didn't bother to try and recruit a point guard.

 

When other schools need to recruit a point guard they find one....No excuse for our situation when our coach is making millions to win games.

 

You're right. He should have paid a guy...

 

Yeah, our coach is making millions. He should win every game. He should have every player he wants. He should make all, and I mean all, the right decisions. Because he is making millions. Millions, millions, million, millio, milli, mill, mil, mi, m........

 

I'll give Car54 this much. He's very, very consistent in his message.

 

I'm not one to name names, but the initials of players who need to step it up are ED and JB. Four more wins if either of them makes any sort of difference.

 

I think you may be getting what you're going to get from Banks this year. He wasn't really a guy who I thought was going to step in immediately and shine - he's got a lot of tools but is still pretty raw. I think he'll be a solid to excellent junior for us.

Roach has been a little stagnant and probably needs to pick it up. Davis certainly does and I'm hoping this last game was a sign of that changing. It would be nice to see more consistent urgency from Yancy - he adds a lot to the team when he's able to drive and get to the line, and knock down the occasional 3, and he had a really nice night this past time out.

if they can keep knocking down some shots and working the offense through Allen, good things will happen.

 

I'm going to assume that our bigs continue to improve, as they have the last few games. Then I will be closely watching the point guard play. How the point goes, so goes the season, imho.

 

Absolutely horrendous game against Kent St. Lazy play is all I'll say. Even with better athletes they are being out hustled to every rebound and loose ball. Terrible shooting and FT shooting.

 

Is not very good. The way they have played projects to bottom 3 in the conference. It will be surprising if they win five conference games.

 

No post-season.

 

How many teams in conference can we beat?

 

This team is more likely to go 0-18 than it is to win 10 games in conference. This season has a very bad feel to it, like the basketball equivalent to Strong's second season. There doesn't seem to be any improvement at all.

 

It's going to be a very rough year for the Men's Team this year.
I don't even see a Leader on the Floor.

 

I like Allen. I think he already has a nice offensive skill set. I would scheme through him, or at least with him as one of the focal points. But it has not happened all season and probably wont (which will slow his development, IMO).

 

I still don’t understand how we didn’t sign a point-guard, other than Jacob Young-who hasn't totally worked out at that position. My best analysis is as follows:

We get 13 scholarships. We have 14 guys on the team and I don’t think Joe
Schwartz, Ryan McClurg, or Isaiah Hobbs are scholarship players.

Here is the best I can do with the sequence of events at Texas:

Date Player Position Event
09/29/15 Any Walk-on Tryouts
11/11/15 Any Basketball LOI signing (Early)
11/11/15 James Banks C Signed LOI
11/11/15 Jacob Young G Signed LOI
04/12/16 Dylan Osetkowski PF Transfers to Texas, Eligible Fall 2017
04/13/16 Andrew Jones G Signed LOI
04/13/16 Any Basketball LOI signing (Late)
04/21/16 Isaiah Taylor PG Hired agent, ineligible
06/04/16 Jarrett Allen C Signs scholarship papers
06/06/16 Mareik Isom F Transfers to Texas
09/29/16 Any Walk-on Tryouts
10/16/16 Isaiah Hobbs G Walk-on. Graduate Transfer


I also collected some data on the 2016 Top Texas Basketball Recruits as of 09/15/15 as per http://247sports.com as to point guards Texas was recruiting (in order of rankings):

Date Player Position Event
11/11/15 De'Aaron Fox PG Signs with Kentucky
11/11/15 J.J. Caldwell PG Signs with Texas A&M, Ruled ineligible 09/16/16.
11/11/15 Jacob Young PG Signed with Texas
11/11/15 Carsen Edwards PG Signed with Purdue
11/11/15 Brandon Averette PG Signed with Stephen F. Austin who released him when Brad Underwood went from Stephen F. Austin HC to OSU HC. He followed Brad to OSU, signing a new LOI at OSU in April 2016.

The best I can figure, all of the PGs we were interested in signed LOIs on 11/11/15 and at that time Shaka was still hoping Isaiah Taylor would stay another year. Still he knew he had a bunch of scholarships to give.

It doesn't appear that we ever had much hope of getting De'Aaron Fox away from Kentucky. He was also recruited by Kansas, Arizona, Louisville, and many others.

Similarly it doesn't appear J.J. Caldwell was interested in Texas and he wouldn't have been a solution because he was later ruled ineligible.

Carsen Edwards was from Humble, TX (Atascocita), so he might have been interested in staying in Texas. Texas was never near the top of his list, so I don't know we were really in it with him. He has been very successful at Purdue averaging 22.6 minutes, 11.3 points, and 2.1 assists per game.

Brandon Averette apparently hitched his wagon pretty hard to Brad Underwood, 1st at Stephen F. Austin, then following him to OSU. He played HS at Richardson (Richardson, TX), He has been reasonably successful at OSU averaging 15.3 minutes, 7.6 points and 1.8 assists per game. Would he have come to Texas instead of Stephen F. Austin if Texas had made a big play for him?

Maybe we should have recruited more broadly and even deeper.

(Sorry for my inability to keep the columns straight because no tabs are allowed and the imports from Excel lost the columns and borders.)

 

The uninspired and lackadaisical loss vs. Kent St. this week really woke me up how awful this team is playing basketball.