I was soooooooooooo WRONG about this hire! Blame me! This offensive genius has one play. High Pick and Roll......THAT'S IT! Meanwhile VCU and Tennessee........YEP!!! Those NIT crowds will be HUGE......Yikes! That is ALL. I apologize! HoffHorn
You certainly weren't alone. I hope CDC reviews the past 5 years of football and men's basketball and makes institutional changes in UT's athletic department screening and hiring procedures. Doesn't Texas pay big bucks for some professional service to evaluate and screen? Texas certainly made huge mistakes in the two biggest revenue sports programs AT THE SAME TIME and this resulted in loss of revenue and prestige. Fortunately football is recovering just fine.
You two were not alone in thinking this was a homerun hire at the time. Great guy, no doubt, but.... #results
I was also a fan of this hire 4 years ago, and will be a bigger fan if/when we say goodbye to Smart. In his 4 years, he's now 66-66 with ZERO NCAA tournament wins. Over that same time period: UH . . . 99-31 with 1 win (should increase this year) Texas Tech . . . 90-43 with 3 wins (should increase) Baylor . . . 87-48 with 2 wins Texas A&M . . . 80-55 with 4 wins OU . . . 77-55 with 4 wins TCU . . . 75-63 with 0 wins (but has a better chance of getting an invite than us) and lastly U of Tennessee . . . 84-48 with 1 win (and counting) I think you could make an argument that Charlie Strong was a better hire than Shaka Smart.
True that, unless he makes it to the NIT, does the usual “one & done” in tournaments so he ends up 66-67.
CDC refuses to comment on SS returning next season. Sounds like he's buying time by saying the season isn't over yet. Maybe we have a glimmer of hope. Texas AD Chris Del Conte declines to comment on whether Shaka Smart will return next season
IIRC Shaka was signed to a 5 year contract, but had a decent first year and was given an extension and a raise. Since then he's had a sub .500 season, another one-and-done at the big dance, and a breakeven season. I've only seen one full game this year which was last night's first round loss in the the conference tourney. But every game the strategy and schemes seem to be the same. I don't believe we will see a vast improvement next year. One thing I disagree with is contracts with guaranteed money. I do like giving a guy a raise if they perform well each year and nothing if they fail to meet expectations. I also don't like the excuse of "our one or two top guys were injured". I can go for a small severance if things don't work out, but not the, "we will pay you the remaining 3, 4, 5 years of the contract" to reward poor or downright bad performance. And awarding contract extensions for one, half-decent season is nuts. However, I realize this is the norm and to attract talented coaches, necessary. So, we're probably stuck with the current practices for the foreseeable future.
You have to admit the "Strong and Smart" thing was pretty catchy at the time. It would have worked out better if we had only compensated them properly. Hookem! -sp
Both hires were pathetic; some success coming from mid tier programs. No development, very little adjustments and even less success! Paying dearly in both sports until they finally cut the hires and move on to better coaches. Herman!!! Should be several possible replacements in the wings for BB but it's clearly a matter of eating millions! Cut the one and done stuff also!
For the record I was against the Smart hire from the first time they threw his name out. His lone deep tourney run to the Final Four with VCU was a fluke, albeit the crowning achievement on this resume. He was not a splash - not really tested and tried or an established enough get for the money. Certainly not enough basis value in him to justify as a replacement for what we lost with Barnes. A guy that can recruit but can't develop players or win big games? yeah, strike 2. He was a diversity hire.
Unfortunately, there are 12.9 million reasons why he will probably be back next year. Not saying its a good thing, just saying its a huge factor.
College Basketball Misery Index: When madness turns to sadness https://es.pn/2XncapE via @ESPN App http://es.pn/app Texas registers on the misery index which doesn't include this year. Somehow I forgot about our first round loss to Northern Iowa in 2016. Nice job Shaka.