vs KU

No Bamba. But ties 8 early. Let's see what type of fight we can put up.

 

12 of our 23 points from Roach. Looks like the plan is for the offence to go through him.

 

Lets make it harder - Coleman picks up his 4th foul less than 5 min. into the 2nd half

 

I like this basketball team better than pretty much anything I’ve seen since December, minus Osetkowski. I’d be ok to never see him in a starting lineup again. His value add is negligible. As a matter of fitness and hustle, purely, he needs to be a bench guy. I went back and watched tape from his breakout season at Tulane and Jesus, I didn’t realize how bad of snowbird he is. With the players we have coming in next season, I don’t see how Dylan gets more than 10-15 mins a game.

Roach should absolutely not be allowed to run Point. Jacob Young was one unlucky weird rim spinout away from a new career high 17 points. He added spark and gave 100% every play. Sims absolutely needs to be our feature Big next season. I wish Mo the best and thank him for his service. He’ll be a top 3 NBA draft pick.

The Horns left it all on on the court and hung in there against a really stout KU squad that will go deep in this tourney. Shaka, if he has another season (and I hope he doesn’t) needs to stick to his brand system; small, uptempo, defense oriented...see you guys next year.

 

So you're really on board with firing a guy who is close to making the tournament with his star player out with leukemia and his NBA lottery pick out for the stretch run, along with someone who may or may not add value from week to week? (I guess he's a key player... who knows at this point...) That's not going to happen, and if it did the University would rightly be absolutely ripped to shreds over it.

 

Agree 100%.

Osetkowski has regressed since the start of this season, makes awful decisions (including when to shoot 3's), plays sub-par D, and is usually a liability. Why Shaka doesn't coach him NOT to take 3's is bizarre. Much better 3-shooters on the team. Added, he should be near the basket trying to get rebound; not squaring up against his defender 4 feet beyond the 3-point line.

The "Roach as point" experiment played out last year to a disaster. Why Shaka allows Roach to continue running the point is pure insanity. Roach is a great athlete and ball player, but he frequently turns into a turnover machine. You don't have to be a great scorer to be a good point guard, but you cannot turnover the ball frequently.

These 2 points above tell me that the players on the team don't understand their roles, which is on coaching. Or it could be that Shaka hasn't figured out what their roles should be. At this point in the season, team roles should be clearly obvious.

3 years into his tenure, and our program under Shaka has not produced better results on the court. Our offense is an amoeba of guys playing pick-up basketball.... no clear objective other than random picks and then jacking up contested 3's. No semblance of organization or purpose. It's just awful, and painful to watch. Shaka is a fantastic recruiter, and a good motivator. But he is not very good at actual coaching. He cannot coach at the Big 12 level. The fact that he gets awesome players from high school, but then puts a terrible product on the floor like he has the past couple years is even more of a knock against his ability to coach. He'll be given another year. But unless a miracle season happens next year, he should be gone and for good reason.

Just my novice observations.

 

Program stuck in mediocrity with signs that the coach either was not ready for the level of competition or whose "system" doesn't work in the Conference. Sound familiar?
Basketball is not as cut and dried as football with the one and done's and fewer players (failure of 1 of 5 more noticeable than 1 out of 22). CdC probably gives him another year and a meaningless contract extension (for recruiting purposes).

 

Shaka has not been blessed with quality shooters who can bail out his failure to teach and coach the half court offense. And sadly, in games against athletic teams who know how to run the floor, we get torched by them beating us down the floor and making tons of layups (KU, wvu, bu, ksu). This may be the biggest question mark. Shaka is supposed to be a great D coach, with lots of pressing, etc. But the Horns get beaten down the floor, and/or lose their man in the half court, leading to easy dunks over and over.

Yet, My biggest complaint against Smart is the poor coaching of half court offense. To be fair, He was hurt by the loss of Taylor who left early. He would have been a senior this year. And of course Jones this year (just a soph). We saw how a solid senior point can elevate teams with KU, ttu, and WVU. Those guards made those teams the top teams in the B12. They all blossomed in their senior season and were outstanding.

To see how a team can be coached up when he has a lot of good (not great) players just look up to Fort Worth and see TCU. Jamie Dixon is outstanding. Maybe the best in the B12. (OK, Bill Self, but still...)

Shaka is truly great at getting his teams to play hard, with heart, guts and grit. They were diving for the ball, going full bore to the end. This separates him from a lot of other coaches. The players play for him harder than any coach I've seen here (Barnes, Penders, Wet-lick, etc) and that means a lot.

Some will call it an excuse, I call it fact and bad luck, but the losses this year were enough to sink a ship: Jones, Bamba last 3 games, Davis, last 4 games. Just look at last night's box score. NO BENCH. Six guys played over 33 minutes. NO BENCH. Yet, they kept it competitive on the road at Phog Allen. That is impressive.

I don't think we have the depth to stay with wvu. I think we lose, and that will keep us out of the NCAA.

I am at odds with myself about Shaka. I think he will be given one more year. I hope he wins the B12 next year. I'm not betting on it, though.

 

We really were not all that great in November or December. We lost some close ones, but we also had the Tennessee State debacle.

Alabama was a good win, but they are as schizophrenic as we are... probably more than we are.

 

Texas Tech too. Granted, Tech has 3 Seniors in their top 6 production in games/minutes played (and Tech will probably suck next year because they graduate half their squad). Chris Beard is a career assistant coach with short stints of success at Jucos, regional states and a one low-mid major. I think Tech was a perfect pivot point for a coach like him. Small **** school, small **** town market, big energy fan base in a big time conference...add low expectations all around and he has a silver lined path to greatness. Dixon is obviously a bigger time coach but not too far off of the Tech/Beard parallel.

I think there's a good case for Dixon in the top 5 of Big 12 (10) coaches; At the top obviously Self, then I'd probably insert Lon Kruger simply for his longevity and success in the league with multiple teams, same for Huggy in 3rd. Then Dixon at 4. As much as I'd like to rank Scott Drew higher based on his post season record and his ability to recruit really solid talent to what could possibly be one of the least attractive places in the United States for a teenager to matriculate, I can't, because he's a shady dirt-bag.

 

The fixer upper propaganda campaign has convinced the non-Texas parts of America that Waco is Disneyland. It really is amazing what one tv show can fool people into thinking. Not really relevant to basketball recruiting, but still amazing.

 

I wonder what kind of coup Del Conte can pull off to make a straight contract swap with TCU? Shaka and his staff for Dixons...even Steven.

 

That's really the issue. I certainly am not sold on him, and I'm frustrated by poor transition defense and a team that doesn't have the discipline to continue running an offensive set when good defenses make them harder. (I would disagree that Shaka can't coach offense because you can see signs of it. But if your players just fall back on old habits, and you don't have anyone you can bring in that will do any better, you're kind of stuck.) Without a shot-blocker they're pretty mediocre on interior defense - again, that's partly the personnel you're dealt. But he has yet to have a lineup with any semblance of quality depth, and there's no way you cut a guy off at the knees without at least giving him a chance to play with his players and a bench that he's had a chance to cultivate somewhat.