I think we'll be right at .500. A little better than .500 is more likely if Kabongo returns. Barnes has some serious work to do with the mental aspects for this team. It truly is like watching a bunch of HS seniors play, because most of them are practically still HS seniors. I think we're physical and most of the guys seem pretty quick. But the shooting has been piss poor and that's usually a mental thing, because gym rats hit nearly everything in practice. McClellan isn't being trusted with the ball, which shows a lot about his mental capabilities as a guard. By having Felix drive and jack up shots and force bad passes, Barnes is basically saying "that's preferable to having Sheldon do it." We won't survive as a squad if we need the true freshmen to win the games for us. Kabongo will open up a lot of options for us. I have a feeling his return date will be 12/19 (the day after fall classes end), just in time for UNC. My guess for the final record right now is 15-16 without Kabongo and maybe 18-13 with him. Tops.
There is no way in hell that the horns will be a .500 basketball team this year! This team is being coached by a guy who makes 2.2 million a year and never gets off his ***. The horns are a joke and will most likely finish last in the Big 12. We just got blown out by a Div II school who has not beaten a Div I school in 37 years! How embarrassing is that
The good news is this should be the first time in awhile where our team is not decimated by the NBA draft. The bad news is Barnes could very well have his worst recruiting class ever at Texas. This is not going to be a tournament team - and probably not a winning team - w/out Kabongo.
The team will be over .500. They will get Kabongo back and put in a little more effort for a few games to assure that. Then once they have begun to look like they have it figured out and might do something they will fold up like Barnes teams have done for awhile now. So in the end Barnes winning percentage won't look so bad on paper but the result will be the same.
Chaminade beat OU two years ago. They've beaten plenty of D1 teams since they beat UVA in the epic upset.
They are unwatchable and frankly that has been a trend over the last couple years. It may be time to cut Barnes loose or just be resigned to watching Durant in the NBA and wait for Texas baseball season.
Yeah Texas won bball out in Maui against a Mississippi State team that was mostly walk ons and inter mural players
This team is poorly coached and Barnes is grossly overpaid. I've had my fill of Barnes and am off the Barnes bandwagon. I'll still follow and support the BBall team but Barnes needs to go.
Again, can't believe I am coming on here to defend Barnes when I have one of his biggest critics, but I think we are over .500 and we will be a bubble team for the tournament. I really think the glue for this thing is Kabongo and when he gets back, this team might turn it around to finish 3rd or 4th in the Big 12. My huge assumption here is that Kabongo has vastly improved and that he lives up to the hype that he originally came to campus with. Not saying anything new here, but this is a young team and they will have bad losses. The hope here is that they improve and each player starts to find a role. The failings so far have really been from the sophmores, that you hope make better strides in the offseason with 1 year under their belts. But I think you will see that start to turn around. Or at least I hope so.
All Barnes needs to do is hire someone that knows how to run a non-pro type offense. Watch Indiana run their offense, it is amazing how much movement and open shot opportunities are generated. Kentucky can get away with it as their entire starting five can create their own shots. Barnes needs to realize that most of his recruits are not Kentucky caliber.
Well, Texas men's BB won't have Chaminade to slap around (oh, wait) for the next five games: YIKES!!! Georgetown-NY UCLA-Houston Texas State-Austin North Carolina-Austin Michigan State-East Lansing Can Texas beat Texas State in Austin? I think that's the only question. Edit: Oops, missed the game today (Saturday) v. UT-Arlington, THEN the Texas-Bataan Death March of the four out of five games noted above. My bad.
We'll beat the snot out of Texas State, but I doubt there's a win in the rest of the games during that stretch. UCLA would be the most likely culprit for an upset.
It is certainly trial by fire for this team. I might have to amend my prediction. .500 and a NIT bid may be what we are looking at.
North Carolina has taken some bad beatings lately by Butler and Indiana. They weren't really in both games in the 2nd half. If Kabongo and hopefully Bond get back by then we might be competitive. I don't think Bond will be back that soon though and who knows about Kabongo. He seems to be just in NCAA limbo.
And right on cue if Rosner's tweet is correct that would make Kabongo eligible for the first time in the North Carolina game I believe.
With a brutally ugly offense ,and losing more than we win as most predict, is it possible or even likely someone actually puts Barnes on notice? Will anyone even hint at some accountability for putting a dull and listless product out there? I'd think not this year. Barnes' seat is fine at present, but suck like this, I do think people start to gather some kindling. Chaminade is a lot like a route 66 type loss in my view anyways. But given the lack of crowds in the drum, is it even possible we could hire a good replacement for Barnes? Maybe, I should just hush! Barnes is a good, if not great coach.
Barnes can hang his hat on the fact that Texas was literally a spoiler/mediocre nobody in the ranks of college basketball, especially considering there were maybe 3 Texas players in the NBA when he got here. Not sure I can even count Terrence Rencher as an NBA player. Now there are 13 former players (and 4 other retirees he coached here) in there, two of whom are legit all stars and major league contributors. He's obviously stated multiple times that he wants guys to go on and achieve their goals of making the NBA, so kudos for that and for making Texas a destination that kids want to come to. **edit to correct: there were ZERO players from UT in the NBA when he arrived. LaSalle Thompson retired the year before. Rencher and Tyler were out two years before.** But if we go 13-18 this year, I don't see him making it past March. There's way too much pressure on a guy who has underachieved given the talent that's been here. He just doesn't have an eye for the college style of controlled offense. When you compare watching Duke/UNC and Texas/Big12 foe, it's like watching the English Premier League compared to a 10-year-old girls' soccer team. Unorganized. Slow. Lazy. No ball movement. Dumb turnovers. I can't even fathom how poorly a team like Butler would do with Barnes coaching them. They'd be like 4-24 each season with their current roster on his watch.
On the bright side Georgetown beat Tennessee 38-37 tonight so Georgetown obviously isn't that good. Hopefully they aren't Chaminade good!
A lot of people point out that Rick Barnes lifted the profile of Texas, as if we were a hoops nobody prior to his bolting Clemson for the 40 acres and sacks of cash. It just isn't true. Look up the records in the NCAA tournament for Tom Penders and Rick Barnes. Then factor in how many times Penders team, playing in a back-watered SWC would pull upsets as a worse seeded team. Then look for a time when Barnes' team won a game in an upset in the Big Dance. Barnes' lone occasion to upset a higher seeded team was in 2002, TJ Fords' freshman year when we, as a 6th seed, popped Mississippi State- a 3 seed- in a Dallas, Tx pod game! Barnes has coached Texas exclusively in the relative bright lights on the Big 12, and at a time when all of our facilities were upgraded on the dimes provided by a resurgent football program. Penders was a drip, an ***, but you give him DJ Augustin and Kevin Durant, I know he doesn't lose in the second tournament game. And while defense wasn't pretty apart from Panama Myers blocking 2nd seeded Purdue to win a game as 10 seed in Indianapolis , the games were entertaining. In one of two years when Penders coached Texas in the Big12 we made the Sweet Sixteen. And we never looked as we did last night. Texas can, and should do better than this crud in year 15 of a coach's tenure. Period...... and we should move before we are again back-watered in a cruddy conference, with no visibility due to the inane Longhorn Network. Having a bunch of guys we call Longhorns due to a loaner year in Austin play in the NBA does nothing for my school pride, while having a team battle, play smart, shoot well, and win games does.
Yeah let's blame LHN for our demise. I'm sure that has a lot to do with hitting shots. I'm not looking for an entertainment value for my dollar. I'm looking for straight up wins. You stated that, "In one of two years when Penders coached Texas in the Big12 we made the Sweet Sixteen." Hell yes we did. We had one of the leading scorers in the country. How did that other year of Penders in the Big 12 go? Talk about consistency. While I agree that we shouldn't be looking for one-and-dones, it doesn't change that Barnes actually made Texas a destination for recruits, no matter how "one-and-done" they are. You're right that Penders probably would have gotten more excitement out of Augustin and Ford. But it'd be a wash because of the defense and other insane factors that Penders brought to the arena.
Penders took the program out of the abyss not Barnes. Say what you want about the tan man, he did that and anyone who says otherwise is dishonest. Barnes has gotten stale as week old bread
Penders never would have successfully recruited Ford, Augustin and Durant, so it is ridiculous to make this comparison. Just as Barnes has jumped the shark and it is time to look for a new coach, you can same the same about Penders in his last years--he was done and it was time to move on. He could never beat a well-coached team with equal talent, unless that opponent screwed the pooch. Remember the OU-UT games from the 1990's. And his second sweet 16 was the beneift of a 15 beating a 2 seed. Barnes was a capable coach and a good recruiter at Texas, but after the collapse of 2010, he can no longer convincingly persuade top tier talent to come here. I think Frazier and Randle will go elsewhere after seeing the display of horrid basketball this year. Barnes has lost his momentum and it is time for him to go.
Elface that is just it. We do not know how Penders would have recruited if dealt the same hand as Barnes with better conference visibility, better facilities, bigger athletic department budget. After all, Penders did get some highly rated kids like Terrance Rencher, Luke Axtell, Chris Mihm, and Albert Burdett (sic) to come here, during a time when Austin was a less desirable destination for HS talent. And Penders missed the tournament in how many years at UT? Was it once, the last melt down year with illegal grade release, etc. or twice? Sure looks like Barnes may miss the tournament this season, right? Here is what I recall fondly about the Penders era: upset victories in the NCAA tournament over Georgia Tech, Georgia, Purdue, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Followed up by a lot of second round games, losses, that were games much closer than expected as in Michigan with the remainder of Fab Five, Wake Forest with Tim Duncan, Maryland with Joe Smith. From a guy who heads to Las Vegas yearly for the NCAA tournament, I can say Penders' teams covered, Barnes teams do not. Penders is a better basketball coach in March than Rick Barnes. No two ways about that. The rest is stylistic, you like defense and rebounding, or offense. I think Texas is a job where it is pretty darn easy to make the tournament annually and leave before Monday after the first weekend. And that is all Rick Barnes is good for as data supports. There is a lot of animosity directed at Penders due to his personality and how things unraveled in 1997-1998, that is understandable. But saying Barnes put Texas on the map in college hoops does some injustice to a lot of Longhorn coaches and players who went before. Heck, I'd wager Abe Lemons' NIT championship team would have whipped all but one or possibly two of Barnes' teams. I think we are mainly in agreement that Barnes has worn out his welcome in Austin. He has done a good job, just not a great job.
