Report: Hamilton and Thompson to declare for NBA

I'm not sure the kids would deny it just yet, because there's only been that one article that said for sure they were leaving. Odds are they probably haven't seen it. And they still wouldn't deny it because they unsure. I never said it wasn't true, I'm just saying let's stop making it a foregone conclusion. Especially TT he comes from a good home that makes good money he's not hurting for cash and he seems to enjoy being a kid. So the NBA millions may not be as important as one may think. That's just mo though.....

 

The problem with Barnes is that he is his own worst enemy.

Any player that is worth a damn and draftable will be encouraged to leave for the NBA. I see little evidence of an attempt to build a basketball atmosphere here at Texas. It ain't bad luck anymore when every potential NBA player heads to the draft. Thompson is Exhibit A if he enters the NBA. Thompson would pass on playing with a point guard who is his best friend and who would increase his star status tenfold. The draft will be deeper next year, but Thompson would go higher next year than he would this year.

Damien James stayed, but he thought he was headed to the final four. Didn't we all.

Barnes' recruiting of 4 solid, but not spectacular players (Mouton, Thomas, Boddicker and Ivey) who stay for four years was a one time deal. That was done on the upside of his career.

He is now on the downside of his career. Underperforming three years in a row is a trend and not a glitch. Players no longer develop under Barnes. Balbay and Johnson progressed as leaders, but Balbay and Johnson's games did not develop--balbay's refusal to shoot hurt the team and Johnson still made freshman mistakes. Hamilton and Brown made a natural progression by better understanding what the coach wanted. But they also improved after having not played organized basketball for a year.

Barnes will continue to recruit good players, but his teams will have to overcome chemistry issues and mixed messages from the coach in order to excel.

What is the liklihood in a year that we will be crying about Kabongo leaving for the NBA before he has a chance to play with Ridley.

The beat goes on.

 

I completely agree that championships are hard to come by. So, let's check Final 4s:

Coach K - 11
Dean Smith - 11
Roy Williams - 7
Tom Izzo - 6
Jim Boeheim - 3
Bill Self - 1 (not sure why I included him in the original list as he is not a great example).

Granted, most of these guys have been coaching longer than Barnes, but Barnes has been coaching D-1 ball for 24 years now and has 1 final 4 to his name.

My only point is that these coaches would do more with the talent that Rick has brought in. Impossible to prove either way. Just my opinion.

 

Misleading in that you are picking and choosing the information that you relay to people to put Barnes in the best light possible. The basic premise of all your posts is that, "Yeah, Barnes has not lived up to expectations, but see how hard it is to do X and Y, so we really shouldn't be that hard on him."

S16 every year may be a bit much as far as expectations go, especially when a program may lose a couple of big-time players that get the program to a level and then those players leave (an example would be Duke with Singler and Smith leaving. S16 may be a bit much to expect from them next year even with the returning players and the talent they have coming in). But when you recruit like Barnes when you constantly bring in these 1 or 2 and dones, then I don't think it is too much for fans to expect immediate returns. If that is too much for us to ask, then change the way you recruit and you may not have the same demands put on you. When we constantly see players come through here for a year and leave, it gets frustrating. Rick, do something with the talent you bring in or change how you recruit.

It still drives me crazy that we had TT in here for 1 year and we basically had to watch him get completely taken out of a game because Barnes does not know how to make adjustments to this novel defense called a double team. Now we never get to see the guy play in a Longhorn jersey again and we basically have nothing to show for his time here.

 

Right, but there are a ton of coaches that are succeeding at it as well. And Rick Barnes is not one of those.

 

How can you say that when I've given you the very short list of teams doing better than RB since he arrived at Texas?

Who is succeeding, in your mind -- at least, doing better than RB?

 

It is all a matter of doing the most with the talent that you have and Rick Barnes is not doing much. But, since you insist on a list of teams doing better, let me provide you with a list:

Connecticut
Butler
Duke
Kansas
Memphis
Ohio State
Florida
North Carolina
Georgia Tech
Syracuse
Indiana
Maryland
Arizona
Utah
Kentucky
UCLA

Since your lone criteria you have established is final 4s, this is a list of schools that have made the championship game since 1998. I threw in Kentucky and UCLA since they have had multiple trips to the final 4. This is the most research that I want to do as this argument is just getting old.

I think it is interesting to note that if Rick Barnes basically did not have an all world PG that led Texas to a Final 4 by himself (despite Rick Barnes coaching the team), then your argument would basically open up to any school that has made an Elite 8 in the past 14 or so years. And without another all-world PG (DJ Augustine) leading his team to the Elite 8 (despite Rick Barnes coaching the team), then it would be even worse.

 

Busterbrown, your argument would be better if you didn't list the schools who have dirty pasts such as UConn, Memphis, tOSU.

 

I didn't say anything about FFs. You did. You didn't like the measurement of S16s. You thought he should be making FFs, not me.

But only a handful of those teams have the consistent performance that RB has accomplished in his time at Texas.

 

I guess I'm glad RB can recruit elite point guards. Count me as one who likes having him in Austin.

 

This is a bit of a funny argument. I'm happy to have RB in Austin and plenty of AD's would love to have him at their respective schools. Let's not forget that Rick had options to go to Arizona Kentucky and I'm sure UCONN will come knocking as well when Calhoun gets out of town so it's a bit hard to talk down on a guy that wins 25 games a year regularly. And there are very few major college coaches that toore with less. Duke unc uconn ucla etc don't count because they generally have more talent hands down.

 

Let me just put it this way. We have a baseball and football program that can compete for a national title. Maybe not every year, but many of the years we feel we have a good shot to get to the MNC game in football, or make a good run at it...or make the CWS in baseball. How many times under Barnes have we entered the field of 64 and you thought to yourself we have a legitimate shot to get to the final. For me, none. Even with KG, I saw us limited to Final Four at best. I just feel at the money we pay and the allure of our university major sports package, it's time to take that next step to competing for a title soon in basketball. Does Barnes get us to that next step? I don't see it, and I want to, believe me.

 

I'm a Barnes supporter but not a fan of his offense. And, I don't think it's too much to ask of Rick to win a Conference Tourney title or two each decade.

 

So now Perry Jones is staying. Isn't he projected to go higher than Ham and TT?

 

"And, I don't think it's too much to ask of Rick to win a Conference Tourney title or two each decade."

But he DID win one... two decades ago.

There are many other numbers to consider when talking about how good Barnes is. Total wins? Good. NCAA Tournament appearances? Haven't missed one yet. There are always great numbers to back up that he was the right hire at the right time.

But are we going to win a national championship with him? The supporters will argue that hardly anyone wins national championships and I'll give you that. With all of the "goal is to get kids to the NBA" crap from last year, and two collapses in a row from top-2 ranked teams, the thing I see most frustrating about Barnes is his inability to coach the players he has. I'm cool keeping him around forever if we're making the tournament every year and getting to the Sweet 16 1-out-of-3 times. But what's not cool is an inability to find a system that works and making adjustments during games.

I'd rather lose games because the other team was better than us.

And the subject that has been avoided on this board as long as I've been posting is the work of Barnes's assistants. Which one is in charge of the big men? Recruiting? PG play? Or do they all just sit around and let Barnes dictate what the team is supposed to do when they're blowing a 22-point lead to an NIT team? Why does everyone get a free pass for a game like the KU road win this year (first one EVER there...) and then we don't hear about any fixes for the other 3 times we poop the bed? I want some assistants who are heard and not just seen.