Beard at Texas Tech, Dixon at tcu, weber(?) at ksu all get a lot out of their talent. And all know how to scheme offense that puts pressure down low creating an easy layup frequently. And ttu and ksu play pretty tough defense.
I'm thinking of a charge that occurs after the ball is shot. Same thing to me. If you have to bowl someone over after you make a defensive play then it seems to me that should not be allowed.
Based on what he is doing right now at Tennessee with less talent and his ability to coach defense, how about Rick Barnes?
A few questions: 1) Has Rick changed his style? Seemed as if he'd lost the players with a heavy-handed manner 2) Has he learned how to coach offense or does someone on his staff? 3) Is he competing with under or upper classmen? 4) Is the Big 12 or the SEC a tougher conference?
1) Tennessee is currently 25-7 and this is now the 4th school he has won at, so his style is fine. He was SEC regular season co-champion and is playing in the SEC Tournament Championship Game tomorrow against Kentucky. It would be something if he beats Kentucky and Calipari for the third time in a row this year, but that will be pretty tough. 2) Is our offense better or worse now? Even if both offenses are equally bad, our defense is worse under Smart. Tennessee is 25-7 so they must score some points. 3) He took over a bad team and had to recruit from scratch. He has 1/3 freshman, 1/3 sophomores and 1/3 juniors. He has only one senior. 4) Normally, it would be the Big 12 hands down. I think the Big 12 was down this year and the SEC was up. I keep up with these things because I go back and forth with an aggy friend a lot. The Big 12 was 8-10 against the SEC this year. In a normal years, the Big 12 beats the SEC 2 out of 3 games. However, not this year. Like I said, I think we were down and they were up. This is also a terrible point, because Rick Barnes was the most successful non-Kansas coach in Big 12 history. Rick Barnes won 3 Big 12 regular season championships. That is more Big 12 championships than ANY non-Kansas coach. So yes, I think the most successful non-Kansas coach in Big 12 history that has won at 4 different schools in 4 different conferences (including the old Big East and the ACC) would do better in the Big 12. 5) Who was the last person to win an NCAA tournament game at the University of Texas? Rick Barnes. 6) Did Rick Barnes ever go 11-22? No. He only missed the NCAA tournament once in a 16-18 campaign. The next season he bounced back (with a young team) to 24-11 and went to the round of 32 where he lost to higher seeded team. 7) Rick Barnes was fired for making the NCAA tournament and losing to higher seed in a season where he lost his most important offensive player (Isaiah Taylor) and went 20-14. Shaka's best season so far was his first with Rick Barnes players where he went 20-13 and lost to lower seed in the NCAA tournament. This year, Smart is 19-14 going into the tournament. Smart has to win at least 2 games to get a better record than the record that got Barnes fired.
I agree with your message. I was and am still one who thought Rick was done here and it was time for a change to get better. However, when replacing a good coach you have to hire a better one and we took a chance that appears so far to be a mistake. I was all in after watching some in practice coaching videos when he first got here, but this team just does what it does every game every year. Just look at the unbridled three point shooting as an example. He has to be able to adjust the plan to take advantage of what works for this team and he doesnt seem to do any adjustments. Without the high talent young players we would be the exact same team as last year and that's not good.
