If some of you are like me, I get annoyed when college basketball starts during the football season. The reason is instead of almost 100% football coverage on sports news shows, other sports start to steal some time. And in the case of score tickers, when basketball starts it eats the majority of time with so many basketball scores to show. It seems like I wait all year for football, dying to get it back, and then within a few months I'm already getting pounded with basketball again. HOWEVER, much of that frustration is because the last few years I've not had much to be excited about on the UT college basketball front. I mean excitement in my expectations when starting the season. The last few years we had some hope as always, but I knew deep down it was wasting time and setting myself up for failure. And the 2013-14 Horns were an amazing treat for the weak of faith that season. What a shocking show they put on. THIS YEAR, I'm pumped to watch this team. It just seems so long since I was excited for our basketball team and anxious to get going. So now when I see those first college basketball scores roll across the ticker, my feelings will be night and day compared to the last few seasons. It's awesome to have that to look forward to. I mean really, we went through a period where all 3 of our major teams were turning out duds and several embarrassing losses. It just seemed like an onslaught of negativity and coming up short. For 2-3 years. Almost relentless it felt. Now Texas football is fighting mad and should show well under new direction. I feel very confident with Strong and his ways. Nothing but excitement here. Then Texas basketball, I can't say enough at how proud these guys made us and how anxious I am for more growth and new additions to join them. And lastly, Augie has the baseball team back realizing their place is in the CWS. Lot of those young players got a taste last year and I doubt they want to give that up. So we gotta be excited for baseball to roll around again. Just saying, such a change has/is taking place in our 3 major sports programs. We are on the upswing which is an AWESOME position to be in. Especially after the year-round hell we endured lately for years in a row. Enjoy these upcoming seasons, this one will be full of pride, emotional big wins, great games to witness, and UT teams that fight their guts out. Spending so many years following all 3 programs closely, these type of seasons don't come around often. The 'eye of the tiger' years filled with hunger. Guys breaking their backs to reach a higher place. Savor it. I know I will.
It's an exciting time for basketball for the first time since we had the team that was briefly ranked #1 a few years ago. Our frontcourt will be pretty awesome. I just hope our guards continue their progress and get a better feel for their roles. In a perfect world, this is what Barnes would come up with: Taylor - plays the 1-guard spot and uses slashing ability to get the ball to others (in addition to scoring outbursts on occasion) Holland - stopper and glue guy Felix - shooter and distributor when Taylor can't fulfill the role Walker - three point specialist Yancy - strong bench support man who can take minutes to get offense rolling Croaker - third shooting option if Walker can't hit
Felix is a poor shooter, a turnover machine and a defensive liability. Assuming the other guards are healthy, he should see little playing time. Barnes has much better choices this season.
"Felix is a poor shooter, a turnover machine and a defensive liability. Assuming the other guards are healthy, he should see little playing time. Barnes has much better choices this season." Not at guard he doesn't. I think you're probably most frustrated with Felix's inability to stay consistent. Sure, he had the poor shooting games and the sloppy defending on occasion, but I wouldn't say that was the norm for him. He was 2nd on the team (albeit REALLY poor output from everyone) in three point shooting. His turnovers pale in comparison to Taylor and Holland. He led the team in scoring 7 times and assists 6 times. He also had a couple game winners. Unless you're banking on guys like Walker taking over all of the three pointer responsibilities, or Taylor doing all of the PG legwork (which was equally sloppy as Felix), then I don't think there are better options. Certainly not Yancy or Croaker. And not on offense for Holland.
Felix deserves just as much credits as the rest of the players who stuck around after all the defections. I feel his play was key in getting this team off to a fast start. He had a lot of pressure on him too being one of the leaders of the team even as a soph. I love his game too and look forward to a big season out of him.
