you guys are nuts. Barnes is a good coach and will hopefully be here for a long time. Texas wont be replacing him. It would be his choice if he left and I cant blame him if he is listening to all this crap! Pike
I think he deserves at least 2 years to right the ship. For the record, Barnes has done the following since he has been here. * 12 NCAA Tournament appearances (17-12 record) * 1 Final Four appearance * 3 Elite Eight appearances * 5 Sweet Sixteen appearances
things could be (and have been) a lot worse. i'm not ready to send this guy packing because of this bad season. the quick fix: Coach Boom needs to coach the defense and I'd be surprised if opponents are scoring in the double digits against us.
Yes, Barnes has taken us to 12 tourney appearances. But, Penders took us to 8, 1 "16" and 1"8". Maybe it is just high expectations, but after 12 years, I am not sure Barnes has done anything that truly amazing. He is a good coach, but I want a great coach. We have had 20 years of good coaching.
So its all the kids fault? Gotcha. Head coach, who is responsible for what happens on the court and for what players we choose to bring into our program, is not at fault. Let me write this down. It boggles my mind how many people try to argue that the head coach isn't responsible for the poor product we've seen on the floor. Do you understand what a head coach is? Yes, the players make mistakes, but to use that as an excuse to protect the head coach's *** when he scouted and offered scholarships to those players is beyond asinine. The players didn't appear out of thin air; they were chosen and invited to play here. This 2 million dollar a year investment is really paying off in spades right now.
I was certainly disappointed by this season. I had modest expectations and never thought we were quite a top 2-3 team. We just didn't seem to have the weapons but we did have a lot of depth. Early on we worked our big men more and were much more physical on defense. That said, our guard play was bad the past two years. I'm not going to grill Coach Barnes because his style of basketball is much better than any basketball prior at Texas. That said, we have to get solid outside shooters and a better offensive philosophy. Here's to next year.
Bill Self, time for him to go? Took prohibitive favorite and number one team to a second round loss. Barnes, took number one team (earlier in season, please ignore the injuries) to a first round loss. Are fans pissed? Yes.
You guys that want Barnes fired or on the hot seat are cracking me up. We were 24-10 this season. It's not an end of the world type of season. It sucks but come down from the ledge. I guess UCONN and UNC should fire their terrible coaches since their teams underachieved this season. I guess Kansas, Villinova, and Georgetown should fire their terrible coaches also since they had disappointing early round losses to teams they should beat. Then, let's hire Tubby Smith or Mark Few since their teams were so awesome this season. Man I would trade anything to go 21-11 this season like Minn. did, or to go 24-6 in a terrible confrence like Gonzaga. Oh, and let's stop recruiting these one on done kids like Kevin Durant and um, um, well um, crap what was his name? Oh, wait! That's the only one we've had. Well, at least stop recruiting those McDonald's AA since they aren't team players. I mean look at Kentucky now and N. Carolina last year. Oh wait. They have a lot of McDonald's AA. And, I think TJ Ford, Boddicker, and Buckman were McD AA when we went to the Final 4, but we'll overlook that. Let's start recruiting more guys that will be 4 year guys like Pittman, Damion James, Justin Mason, Matt Hill, Clint Chapman, Alexi Wangmene, Jai Lucas, Varez Ward, Dogus Balbay, J'Covan Brown, and Shawn Williams. Oh, that's all but 2 of our current guys. Well, if it was all 13 I bet it would have made a difference. Some of you have stated that Avery had a terrible year and others think he should turn pro. What? Which one is it? Since when is 11.6 ppg terrible for a freshman. And, when did that become NBA quality? Last, as someone else posted, Barnes has: * 12 NCAA Tournament appearances in 12 yrs * 1 Final Four appearance * 3 Elite Eight appearances * 5 Sweet Sixteen appearances He made UT basketball relavant to most of you bandwagoners. Before him most of you would have never cared what happened with UT basketball. That's why you and the rest of the idiots that you hang around don't appreciate what he has done here. Did he do a good job? No. Does his offense suck? Yes. But, every coach has a weak area. The offense actually wasn't the problem this year. The defense and FT shooting were just aweful. That is his job to improve and I'm sure he'll do what ever he can to fix it. I also want to leave you with this. Self's 2nd season at KU they were #1 in the nation before losing 6 of their last 9 and losing in the 1st round. I think he's done ok since. I'm also certain that UCONN, UNC, and UT will rebound.
I'm also not sure how you can say that A&M and OK St. are better than us since we split with A&M and beat OSU both times we played. We also had the same record as A&M going into the tourn. And our terrible offense finished 2nd in the Big 12 in PPG and 4th in FG %. We were 9th in Defense and last in FT's, but I can see why it is only the lack of offensive creativity that you have a problem with.
I really can't believe the people that want a coaching change so soon after just one bad year. Barnes runs a pretty good program all things considered. If you want a change, who exactly do you want? There aren't that many guys you can go out and get who would be clear improvements. My list excluding those that you clearly can't get (Self, Williams, Coach K, Donovan, Boeheim, Calhoun, etc) runs exactly 3 deep and I'm really not sure you could get any of them even if you made a run at them: Tom Izzo, Tom Crean, and Jay Wright. I'm not replacing Barnes with retreads like Tubby or young coaches who show promise but don't have long enough track records like Matt Painter or Buzz Williams. Barnes has an avalanche of talent coming in and deserves to coach it.
If this team could have made foul shots they still would be dancing. This is one of the worst displays of free throw shooting I have witnessed in a long time. True they have other faults and needs but I can shoot a better percentage than they have this season.
Peterson has one weakness. Our team has far more. Not a great comparison. The mental aspect is the thing I dislike most about Barnes. He crushes his players confidence. Trying playing hoops while feeling timid. Literally IMPOSSIBLE to do well. That's all on Barnes, because guys like AB and JCB came in with brass balls and look at them now. I agree that 24-10 is not a bad record for the every day NCAA team. That has nothing to do with the argument. The team was 17-0 and 1 in the country. There were also extremely high expectations before and throughout the season. We finished 7-10, which is horrible for any team. We also routinely did not look up for games, prepared for games, or interested in winning. That is completely on the coaches. I completely understand if you don't want Barnes fired. But to say he is not blameworthy or that other coaches couldn't possibly do better is just insanity.
It is pretty simple for me. 1) Give me a team I can be proud of 2) Give me good basketball to watch 3) Make the 2nd weekend of the tourney Barnes didn't deliver on any of the above this year. This is why I am so disappointed and why I think he needs to feel the heat.
To be honest I've already given up on Barnes because I think we've seen enough to know that he can't deliver the big-time goods. That said, if he doesn't retool his coaching staff next season, he's even worse than I imagined. We should expect better results than we've gotten. Period.
Even though I think Barnes is completely safe next year, I agree that if Barnes doesn't make some drastic changes to the way he and his staff actually coach the players, we're in for a long slow painful demise of UT basketball. I mean going down to winning around half of our games. He's got to change. I really don't think it bothers DeLoss to fire a coach, but the process of hiring, negotiating a new coach can't be inviting to an old man ready to walk out the door.
If there was half as much passion from people actually attending games as there is on message boards during a ****** season, the Erwin Center wouldn't be such a ******* mausoleum...
True, Ignatius. It's kind of pathetic at times and flat-out embarrassing at others. I believe many on here don't live in the Austin area and therefore can't help it (I go to Mizzou but I attend every UT basketball game I can over winter break--went to 4 or 5). UT fans will just never be the kind of people to get the "house rocking" as they say. My dad's gone to nearly every basketball and football game, and many baseball games, for about 30 years now and as he says, "It's been that way since I've been going to games and it's just NEVER going to change..."
Barnes is safe. We have had two final four caliber teams in the last five years, they both lost in the elite eight. One, lost to a talented LSU team in overtime when Aldridge had an awful game. The other, was out-manned by Memphis in the elite eight. With Barnes we are sure to have more final four caliber teams. This year, however, was not one of them. I agree that Barnes did an absolutely horrible coaching job this season. We should have been melding our most talented players into a cohesive unit throughout the season. Instead, we get to March and still don't have a clear starting line-up, not to mention any identity. But I think the biggest problem the last couple of years has been a hole in recruiting. We have lacked a complete pg. Maybe things would have been better the last couple of seasons if Balbay had not lost a year to injury or if JCB would have qualified last year and had a year of experience coming into this season. But it is what it is, and I see Barnes fixing it.
