This team is a maddening hot mess. 26 turnovers. 17 field goals. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. Today we joked how many ways can Texas find to turnover the ball. You look at the talent on this team and wonder, "what's missing?" I would love to see what an elite coach like Coach Mulkey could do with this talent. I'm certain she wouldn't tolerate such sloppy play. On an unrelated side note, Coach G and her partner were at the game today. The first time I've seen her there since she stepped down. She looked great as she greeted fans. You have to wonder what she's thinking as she watches her recruits flounder. Ah the good 'ole days when we were mediocre (smile).
I don't even know what to say about the state of Texas basketball -- men and women. Combined we are 0-7 in conference play. I'm glad I also went to Ohio State for graduate school.
Seattle you are a one trick pony. Same line no matter what the thread. I sometimes wonder if you are a 12 year old posing as a UT fan on this board because your posts are so juvenile. At least come up with a new talking point. Anything.
I'm sorry you feel that way. The facts speak for themselves. Speaking of which, your Cokie post is gone on the football board? Wonder why.
Heard my friends, who are are 25+ yr Texas WBB fans say on the way out of the game... "The best thing about this game was seeing Coach G in the arena."
In many ways, I think we are an entitled, impatient and somewhat deluded fan-base. TX has been a solidily middle of the pack team for the duration of the big 12 with a blip ten years ago when TX won the conference outright once and went to a final 4. Goestenkors was unable to replicate the success she had at Duke at Texas for reasons that are still unclear to me, but her teams while never stellar were always respectable: no losing records and always receiving a NCAA tournament invitation. Her first year, she took a team that hadn't been to the tournament in 2 years to the second round of the NCAAs. She did not win an NCAA game after that, but always got us there. Right now this TX team has a losing record against a weaker than usual schedule, has lost 6 games in a row, 4 of them to unranked teams, and even more worryingly, the problems that the team had in game 1 - an inept and stagnant offense and a related tendency to massive amounts of turnovers - have still not remotely been addressed by the coaching staff by game 15. Bar a miracle, this team will end the season with a losing record and won't receive an NIT invitation let alone an NCAA one. The question is not whether Aston will raise TX from the cellar; TX has never been there, but how fast she is dragging TX into the cellar and how long is she going to be allowed to keep us there. She was a risky hire with no head coaching experience in a major conference. Halfway through her first season, the results have been close to disastrous. I hope she can turn it around, but from watching the games, it is increasingly clear that she is lost against the level of competition that is the Big 12, and we haven't even played Baylor yet. One small example, last week Sherri Coale waltzed in Austin with an OK team decimated by injuries and effectively whipped us, a late rally by TX when the game was no longer in question managed to make the score a bit closer, but the outcome was never in question. Last year, we beat a healthy OK team in Austin by 25 points. It looks like we could be in for five years of being the whipping boy of the Big 12. TX is becoming an automatic W on an opponent's schedule. That is what the cellar is and that is where it looks like we are headed. I could be angry that Goestenkors chose to abandon the program, but its her life and her decision. I don't share the nostalgia for her, but it is completely understandable. If her replacement did not have these so far very poor results, the whole question would be moot.
seattle4UT is to Coach G as txtreefan is to Coach Aston. It's hard for me to give any credibility at all to a poster that compares Game 15 to Game 1. In fact you can't compare the games prior to UCLA with the ones after it in my opinion. We just didn't look this bad offensively early on. Our turnovers were occurring more in transition than in the halfcourt. But now it looks like zone is the defense to play against us because we can't figure it out. As I previously said not having a point guard is killing this team. Rodrigo hit the freshman wall way too early in my opinion. They really need to work against a zone in practice and limiting turnovers in the halfcourt set. That was the difference in the game yesterday. Stop telegraphing passes (maybe try some pass fakes) and making stupid ones and this team would be a much better ball club.
I agree about how damaging it is to not have a point guard. Rodrigo is a turnover machine. I've never coached a day of bball in my life but I've played lots of sports. You just have to think better coaching could reduce turnovers. I don't think we have any "must-win" games this season. Now it's just a matter of seeing if this team can regroup on any level to be competitive. I've said before it's so hard to watch because you look at the players and think, "this team could be/should be pretty good." And they're just not. To add to the intrique -- we'll see what happens the remainder of the season without Cokie.
seattle4UT is to Coach G as txtreefan is to Coach Aston. It's hard for me to give any credibility at all to a poster that compares Game 15 to Game 1. In fact you can't compare the games prior to UCLA with the ones after it in my opinion. We just didn't look this bad offensively early on. Our turnovers were occurring more in transition than in the halfcourt. But now it looks like zone is the defense to play against us because we can't figure it out. As I previously said not having a point guard is killing this team. Rodrigo hit the freshman wall way too early in my opinion. They really need to work against a zone in practice and limiting turnovers in the halfcourt set. That was the difference in the game yesterday. Stop telegraphing passes (maybe try some pass fakes) and making stupid ones and this team would be a much better ball club. The turnovers have been in the half court all along due to the lack of variety of offense sets. Its not just a matter of telegraphing passes, the passing lanes are also entirely predictable. The offense did not LOOK as lame early on, because TX had such a height and athlete advantage in the early games. UCLA simply exposed the problems that were there and persist. There is essentially one half-court strategy on offense - force-feed the post. In this regard, game 15 was identical to game 1. I resent the comparison to Seattle4UT who has never made a substantive basketball comment on this board. I actually watch the games. We agree about the OSU game. I have been complaining about this turnover problem and the myopically stubborn half-court offense that produces it from the get-go. Check my posts. Sure, freshman point guards struggle, but the attachment to an offense that clearly is not working, and is particularly bad against any half way competent zone defense which everyone now knows is the way to play Texas is extraordinary to me. The UCLA game was 7 games ago, and there has been no improvement in playing against a zone, and we all know the zone is coming. Why?
Notice TexasSports.com did not post any pictures of Goestenkors in the crowd in the photo gallery of the OSU game.
Seattle -- after all this time I finally understand why you're obsessed with Coach Goestenkors and I think you may be on to something.
Don't worry -- my nails snap on and off. Someone please hold my earrings (smile). As for Coach G earning $1 million -- why be mad about it? Heck -- I'd like her agent. I'm always fascinated by people who begrudge others for making money. Isn't that one of the points of working?
There's a cat fight on the WBB board. No hair pulling please, and be careful not to break a nail. Spare us this half-witted sexism. The men have a longer NCAA streak on the line. And Seattle4UT, it makes sense that you are an Aston booster if you have not seen the games. I promise you it is much tougher to be so when you see the terrible product she is putting on the floor. There were things about Goestenkors's coaching style and philosophy that also drove me crazy - the overly elaborate trapping defenses that resulted in an opponent's lay up more often than they forced a turnover; post player development that was less than optimal - Ashley Gayle can claim to be the best shot blocker in TX history but never learned to make a lay up on a consistent basis; teams that lost 10 plus games in a row to the Aggies because they never developed the toughness to handle the 40 minutes of hell that was a Vic Shaefer coached defense. But then I imagine this Aston offense against such a defense: 40 TX turnovers. What worries me is that half a season of Aston's coaching is doing more damage to the program than 5 seasons of Goestenkors, who at least made the program respectable again after 2 seasons of not even making the tournament even with a first round WNBA draft pick on the squad. TX is currently on a six game losing streak, the longest in my long memory, and if the team loses to Tech in Austin on Wednesday, a Tech team that had no problem beating OSU in Stillwater, the same OSU team that won in Austin by double digits (though I hope the transitive principle really does not apply in this case), we could be looking at a double digit losing streak down the line. Shudder. I am trying to be patient, but watching this half-court offense fail in the same way over and over and over again, with no visible attempt at trying something else is somewhat taxing. If, the team, at least tried to drive and dish, backdoor cut, produce some semblance of a set play, pick and roll, set a double screen or two, really anything that showed that there was a person with some sense of how to break a zone in charge, I would be more sanguine about the future of this team and program. This team does not have a talent problem. It does not look like they have an effort or attitude or chemistry problem. They have a youth problem, and relatedly a preparation problem and on offense they have a glaringly obvious coaching problem.
Don't worry -- my nails snap on and off. Someone please hold my earrings (smile). And thanks to texexted for adding some humor and grace to a rather sour thread
I'm busting in here to apologize for my posts yesterday. Even though I felt the way I did at the time, I didn't mean to take it out on this team. I'm a fan, and always will be. I try to remain positive, and will continue to do so. I let a lot of frustration out here yesterday, but did not mean it toward our student athletes, coaches or our TX program. No, I am not Lance Armstrong.
And for the record -- I never intend to attack the players. They're only as good as they're coaches. And, while I second-guessed the hiring of Aston, I hoped she would be a great fit and help move Texas back towards relevancy (first) and eventually, championships. When Texas was ranked #13 in the country earlier in this season, I suspected things would change once we started conference play. I never dreamed the bottom would fall out like it has. I was also critical of Coach G's lack of tournament wins but I really liked her as a person and felt eventually, someday, she could turn things around. Certainly it was much more slowly than anyone wanted. That said, as a UT graduate, long-time season ticket holder and someone who was at the Erwin Center 27 years ago celebrating with the team when they returned home their only National Championship, I will always support this program. However, I will also always be critical of, and disappointed with, what in my opinion is a product unworthy of the University of Texas. Men's basketball doesn't get a pass either. This institution should have the best coaches in the country and should, year in and year out, compete for championships -- National Championships. No doubt most people on this board feel the same way, even if we let our emotions and sharp words get in the way some times. Kum ba Yah now please go beat Tech.
@utfann - Aston is not doing a good job working at the moment - no excuses. Aston should be given the same amount of time (ahem 5 years) to show that was the right hire for Texas. I'm not thrilled either that we've started conference play at 0-4. I'm particularly annoyed that our offense at the moment is predictable and that opposing coaches can easily figure us out. @txtree - Thanks for sticking to the facts. Yes, I am cheering for Aston and hope she takes this opportunity as her dream job and soars with it. @stat - do I really have to spell this out for you? Notice how mediocrity and now just plain awful permeates our sports programs with exception of VB and Swimming. The entitlement and arrogance doesn't start from the bottom. I just knew that wearing flip-flops in Prague showed her true colors with respects to being serious.
