Junior Miller, the Ticket's BB guy, and George Dunham on the morning show just ripped Rick Barnes a new one. Specifically, "He gets less out of more talent than anyone in the country." And, "Another year where he can't take a talent rich team further than the 2nd round." I like Coach Barnes but he needs to do more with the talent he's recruiting. If some of his recruits will stick around, I think he can do it. Plus, if he can get the offense moving, screening and spacing, and oh by the way, get a great three point shooter to open up the middle when TT is blanketed like he was yesterday, then I think he will do it.
Also remember in crunch time not to call time out when your team IS AHEAD and you rebound. That gave zona the time to regroup and everyone in the world knew we would try to force it to Brown. If hamilton just walks the ball up he runs time and gets to the line. Did Barnes ever explain his decision to call time out after the Zona missed shot and the Texas rebound?
I am willing to give Barnes more time. If TT and JH really do come back and Texas cannot make it into the sweet 16, then he needs to go. He should change up some of his assistants this year.
A grain of salt is in order. Miller is an unabashed OU fan (although he attended North Texas State). He never passes on an opportunity to rip Texas, legitimate or not. His one-liner at the end of the segment--i.e., "What do John Wooden and Rick Barnes have in common"?--suggests to me that his sole intention in that segment was to bash Texas and Barnes. Never mind that his Sooners got hammered three times this season by that team and are looking for a new coach (and, adding insult to injury, lost out to Tech in the BCG sweepstakes). Barnes may well deserve criticism for this year's shortcomings, but Miller is not a credible source for such criticism, IMO.
Screw those guys. Obviously blown call. Our team is weak in the middle and our only big time player in the paint had a really bad night. Texas crawls back into the game and has it in their hands and then the refs do what we all know they did.
Hey, I had Texas losing to Oakland in the first round, so as far as I am concerned, this team exceeded expecatations. I also had Arizona in the sweet 16, so my bracket is looking good.
More than one player signaled for timeout (not just Hamilton). So that makes me think it was a directive from the sideline. I was not as beat up about the timeout call because I expect that from a Barnes team. They do not have the floor leadership to be able to handle the pressure situations without calling a timeout and regrouping there. Unless TJ Ford or DJ Augustine are running things, then there is not enough stability on the floor to have things under control. Thus, they had to call a timeout.
First of all, the main reason we are and have been "talent rich" is because of Barnes. Second of all, how did we go from un-ranked at the beginning of the year to "talent rich underacheiver" by the end of the year? As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. At worst, Barnes' most recent teams have done just about what was expected of them in the NCAA tourney, usually losing to a team that is seeded just about the same as Texas. Just like Mack Brown before the first Rose Bowl win, he needs a return trip to the Elite 8 next year, if for nothing else, to remind people that we've been there multiple times over the past ten years.
I've been as critical of Rick Barnes' offense as anyone on this board but to suggest that UT let him go is, in my opinion, just crazy. He certainly needs to keep the offense evolving. It faltered down the stretch, but it was better this year than any other year I can remember outside of the years where we had a TJ Ford or DJ Augustine type point guard running the show. If Hamilton and Thompson are true to their word and stay, and the recruiting class turns out to be what most think it is, this team next year is going to be right in the thick of the race for the conference, a #1 seed and a possible Final Four run. As someone else stated, we have this talent because of Rick Barnes. He's not a perfect coach but be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.
How many times have we heard that if "such and such happens, then we will make a run." I think I hear that every year. Bottom line, if Myck Kapongo is a TJ Ford or DJ Augustine type player, then we will make a Final 4 run. If he is not, then we won't.
The Ticket has a long history of Horns bashing. Oh, and their politics are also BS. They are funny, though.
WH, this seems like a very narrow view of the program. You sound like a UT alum that had to suffer in the pre-Penders era basketball and saw some really bad times. I guess you could say Barnes is a victim of his own success, but it does not seem like he can do much more than what he has done to this point (which, I completely agree has moved Texas basketball into a national perspective). But is that enough? Are we to be happy with this and just accept getting so little out of all of this talent? I do not accept this. But I do see a fine line because we do not want to make a rash decision and turn out to be like Oklahoma (a once national program that has had 2 losing seasons in a row).
What am I supposed to be reading? This quote: "It is very important to not assume that your players know what to do!"? Welcome to coach-speak 101. What does that have to do with time-outs? Barnes does not like to call time outs in end-of-game situations. This game was an exception to the rule.
The problem with calling time out in the Zona game is that we had the lead and BB 101 says do not call time out with the lead after a rebound with 15 seconds left. Burn a few seconds, let the other team come to you, and foul you. Hamilton is better than 50% at the line. If he makes one then i am betting we win. If he dinks two straight, then Zona has to take it the length of the floor with no time outs and make a shot. If you call the time out, it gives Zona a chance to regroup and divise a plan to deny Brown the ball. Which is what they did. The TO set the stage for the ref to hose us. Which he did. Good coaching on Zona's part. Not so much on our part.
And if Hamilton "walked" (as he was about to do), you'd be screaming about how Barnes should have coached his players to call time out. Or if Hamilton was fouled and missed, then you'd be screaming about how Barnes should have called a timeout and gotten the ball to Brown who's our best free throw shooter. Hindsight games are stupid (especially when people have an axe to grind)
If any of the sports commentators or fans bothered to check the Longhorns season statistics, they would know that Hamilton is the team leader in turnovers by a fair margin and that he is not the player one wants handling the ball under those circumstances. I surmise that Hamilton was aware of this when he grabbed the rebound. Calling the timeout was not mistaken in every respect.
So, I guess the other players that were on the floor that called a timeout knew that Hamilton was going to turn it over as well and knew that they should call a timeout because Hamilton is prone to turnovers? Come on...
Junior Miller is an OU douchebag who routinely takes shots at the Horns. He not-so-subtly talks glowingly of the Sooners (former players and current team) and either very noticeably ignores the Horns (former players and current team) or takes shots like he did this morning. Which is retarded given that the refs completely cost us the game, and Zona is not that much different from us, talent-wise. The guy is by far the least funny personality on a major show on the station (besides Norm) is a gigantic doucher off the station, and generally adds no value at all. Without Gordo, Dunham and Miller would be nothing.
OK, so Miller is an OU homer and a douchebag. Texas is a bigtime program and we blew the game in the final 15 seconds. We are not exempt from questions and 2nd guessing. George Dunham was asking the same questions, and he is NOT an ou homer. In fact, he seems a Horn fan most of the time. Our Horns deserve a lot of credit for clawing their way back into the lead. And so does Barnes for leading the team back. But the final 15 seconds were critical to the loss. The ref hosed us, and it appears a coaching miscue contributed big time to the loss (calling a misguided time out). Barnes is a man and he can take questioning. It comes with the territory. He has done a lot for this program. And deserves credit. But he doesn't get a free pass.
There was nothing inherently "misguided" about the Hamilton time out. Sure....it backfired, but that doesn't make it "misguided". The events that caused it to backfire are so outside the spectrum of reality that you can't hang that on Barnes. Hell.......reportedly, Barnes and CJ even discussed the fact that we had another T/O available if he had trouble in-bounding the ball.
