I went into this year thinking that Bradley would help alleviate some of the guard woes we've had the past couple seasons. He'd be like our poor-man's version of Derrick Rose or at least some kind of Darren Kelly that could help score and do some of the little guard things that makes a team better. Slash, dish, play defense, and occasionally hit a shot. Man... 17 min, 1-5 FG, 4 fouls, 0 assists. I know there is such a thing as overhype. I usually don't buy into it, because if a freshman isn't playing well, it's probably because of nerves or coaching issues or both. I know last night isn't the best example of his play, because his assignment was a tough one. But a line like that doesn't come from a guy who would have gone straight to the NBA if the old rules were still in effect. What is his role on this team? Is he supposed to be like the new Mason when Mason's gone? Or can he actually contribute at a level consistent with other starting guards in the Big XII? I kind of expected Hamilton's year, being a season removed from play and his ability to score from anywhere on the floor. I also expected Brown to play the way he has... streaky but with flashes of greatness. I have not expected Bradley to get this far down so late in his first season of play.
I'd say he had an off night on the O side but still played solid, tenacious D. He's a true freshman. He's going to be inconsistent. Last night was all about the Sr players.
Calipari is a slimeball POS, but he wants the one and done phenoms like John Wall, Tyreke Evans, Derek Rose etc and he knows what to do with them once he gets them. I think it's a ****** way to go about things, but he does it and he does it better than anyone using that philosophy. I think RB loves getting a Kevin Durant or Avery Bradley, but doesn't know how to get everything out of them while they are here. Come tournament time guys like a Durant, Rose or back when Carmelo was at Syracuse are the ones you can ride all the way to the final 4. I also look at what Peter Carroll did at USC in getting the freshman out there and playing ASAP cause after a couple years they may be gone. OTOH, Mack was the kind of guy that deferred to his seniors or would hold off on playing a Cedric Benson til after OU, now he has freshman starting in NC games. Point is, RB needs to turn these guys loose cause they won't be here long. Either that or go the Coach K route and get guys that are more likely to stay 3-4yrs, develop the **** out of them and put out a great/consistent product.
Barnes said after the game that he's hit the wall... needs a couple of days off, which they will get.
He has hit the wall. He had a very good first half+ of the season, but hasn't been playing as well lately. It happens. He should be a very good player at Texas and beyond.
Anyone who thought any of these guys were one and done to the NBA were dead wrong. John Wall is better than all 3 of our guys put together. Its not even close.
I don't know how we could have gotten much more out of Durant. Back on topic, I'm a little confused on why Bradley isn't even an option at the point. I mean, after Ward and Balbay both went down for the season, I see everybody talking about how our options are Mason, Lucas, and J'Covan. Why is Bradley not even an option? I don't understand that. Lucas seems too eager to look for his own shot and he seems to play smaller than his actual size (if that's possible) on both ends of the floor. I love Mason, but his complete and total lack of a shot makes life much, much harder for Pittman, James, and G. Johnson. J'Covan seems to lack lateral quickness on defense, and on offense he's sloppy with the ball (travels, palming calls) and just as likely to make a careless playground no-look pass out of bounds as he is to make a smart drive-and-dish. I'm starting to think that we might be better off to just live or die with Bradley at the point. Mason may take better care of the ball, but Bradley plays just as much defense, is a far better scorer, and doesn't allow unmitigated double-teams on your post players on offense.
I see Bradley as more of a catch and shooter than a pure ball handler. I'm glad to hear Barnes say he's hit the wall. That would explain his slide in productivity. He is a high level talent and will end up being one of the Horns best players before he's gone, IMHO. Hook'em!!!
But what then is your point, rickysrun? You seemed to indicate failure past and present is due to Barnes not playing the freshmen stars enough. Then, when shown Durant played all the damn time with maxxed out performance, you want to claim we ignored your message, which is now that Barnes is a ****** coach, because he should have won with that team? That's the worst kind of circular reasoning.
Bradley will be fine. As I always say, this is NOT football. These guys have played together nationally, and we know Bradley was among the best. Heck, we've seen flashes of that this year. I think his only problem is he's too good of a guy on the court. I understand the Wall hype, but he's not 3x better than our freshman. We saw Wall and Bradley together before college, and Bradley more than held his own. Sometimes, the way they talk about Wall, you'd think he's having a Durant or Beasley like season. He isn't.
Yeah, I hear what you're saying Rex, but I can't quite agree. Memphis was a preseason top 3 team and did have more talent, more size, and more experience. Syracuse had a lot more size and more experience. Warrick has been a 20+ minute, 10+ point, 5+ rebound a game guy in the NBA for the past 5 years. Nobody else on that team has had much of a pro career, but the only contributors to the '07 team to have significant careers in the NBA will be the two other freshmen, Augustin and James, neither of whom looks to be likely to play at a level above Warrick's level in the NBA. Did Syracuse have more talent? Maybe not. It did have more advanced talent due to experience, and it had a lot more size, which played a significant role in Texas's loss to USC, whose bigger perimeter players made life very difficult for Augustin, Abrams, and Mason. Funny that Boeheim should be held out as the great coach Barnes isn't as a result of winning the championship with Anthony in 2003. Boeheim was considered by many for years to be some kind of a loser and a joke for never having won the tournament, and for having lost with supposed superior talent of Colemen, Seikaly, and Douglas. In 26 years at Syracuse before winning it all, Boeheiim had been to the Final Four twice and the Elite Eight only one other time. He really didn't start to get credit as a good coach until the Wallace team surprised everyone to make it to the finals. Funny how winning one game will transform a career. I don't think Barnes should get praised for this year's performance. I do think claiming the 2007 NCAA loss proves his inadequacy is kind of silly.
Klotz was in a comparatively minor role on the Final Four team. Buckman, Ivey and Boddicker had much larger roles.
Pac-10 was pretty kick *** that year. Put 6 teams in the tournament, 3 in the Sweet Sixteen, and 2 in the Elite Eight. They had as many or more teams in the tournament as any conference between the first day and the finals. USC had 10 wins over NCAA tournament teams (12 if you count the 2 wins in the tournament). Some of USC's losses were utter squeakers to very highly ranked teams. A pair of losses to UCLA (a Final Four team) by a total of 6 points. A pair of losses to Washington State (later made a 3 seed) by a total of 7 points. By comparison, Texas had 4 wins over tournament teams (5 if you count the tournament win over NMSU)--Texas Tech twice, A&M, Arkansas.
DJ the second best freshman in basketball in 2006-07 and an NBA starter? Now you're just making stuff up to support an opinion that Barnes is a lousy coach. DJ is a backup to Felton on a mediocre to poor NBA team. He started one game this year when Felton was hurt. He was the 9th player drafted after his sophmore year, behind sophmore Russell Westbrook. His freshman class put 8 guys in the first round in 2007. He was the 30th ranked prospect according to Scout in 2006, 49th according to Rivals. He wasn't even considered the best point guard in his class--Lawson, Conley, Collins were all more highly regarded before coming to school. Conley and Crittendon were drafted as 1st round picks in 2007 as point guards. Maybe he played better than them as a freshman, but he still wasn't going to get drafted ahead of them. Nor would he have been drafted ahead of Oden, Wright, Hawes. Was he a great college freshman? Sure. Was he the second best freshman basketball player in the country? Not likely,and when you consider the NBA drafts potential, not performance, how is being picked after 9 or ten of your peers = second best? I don't think Barnes is immune from criticism. Assuming this year's team doesn't make it out of the second round of the tournament, that will be only 1 Sweet Sixteen in 4 years. That's not good enough. He has to do better than that. Before the last couple of years, his big claim was that he had Texas in as many Sweet Sixteens over a 6 or 7 year period as anyone. A) We want more than that, and B) it's no longer true. But let's not just make up nonsense on our way to criticizing him. Now, seriously, I mean, seriously, what would you have done as a "completely different approach" to the 06-07 team? I was worried from early on that the team was too small, but Pittman couldn't play 5 minutes, Atchley was fumbling everything and being regularly ridiculed for being a waste of a scholarship, and Hill proved to be ineffective on offense and was hurt for much of the conference season, so what was Barnes supposed to do with that team? I'd really like to know what anyone can suggest as a way to have gotten that tiny, inexperienced, and defensively challenged team to perform better.
Honestly, bierce, the only thing I can think of that Barnes did wrong that year was missing out on Darrell Arthur and taking a few of the other guys in the class. And you can only blame a coach so much for losing somebody to KU with two other 5* forwards already committed. Remember, Barnes expected guys like Tucker and Gibson to be returning that year. Imagine a team with Augustin and Gibson at guard and Durant, Tucker, and James all basically hybrid forward players. A.J. comes off the bench for instant offense. If THAT team lost in the second round (or didn't, you know, get a 1 seed), then I would have a problem. But as has happened a couple times in the past decade, we were 1 year off (Aldridge/Gibson/Tucker to Durant/Augustin) or 1 small piece (C.J. Miles going pro unexpectedly) away from making it over the hump. But THIS year all that finally came together and we just blew it. Our future recruiting foreshadows more opportunities, but the lack of big men leaves me dubious as to whether we'll see a team that is as complete on paper as the team we were supposed to have this year, any time soon...
The only difference I can think of in running the team, other than recruiting differently or putting a gun to Tucker or Aldridge's head and making them stay another year, would have been to make the team play a lot more man to man defense, but I don't see how that would have helped, since the team was basically running 5 players out there for 30+ minutes a game, using a short bench very sparingly, and really didn't have a really good option for a post defender in a man defense. As much as we all moaned and groaned about the three point shooting killing Texas that year (gee, that could happen against a team playing three guards that average 6 feet tall when you pad the shoes of two of them?), would man for man defense have worked any better? Did Texas have anyone who could handle an experienced post player with any size? I saw potential in Hill early in the year, but he started having foot problems and wasn't in any shape to help most of the year. Atchley was a stick who could occasionally block a shot, but he couldn't hold position at all. Could Augustin and Abrams have been able to handle the demands of chasing opponents all over the floor on a man defense for 35 minutes a game at that stage in their careers? I kind of doubt it. Should we have had Durant man up against centers all year and have our three guards running non-stop all game, every game? I really don't think that would have helped in the long run. For all the hype Durant had (and he deserved nearly all of it), that was a very unfinished team.
No team with that little experience ever got a seed that high. He had the NPOY and a PG who understood and fit his system. Things went better than expected, but the team got better without Durant the next year because of experience. The last two years, Barnes hasn't had a pro prospect at point, and we have seen what we have seen.
