Whatever. One Final Four and a couple of Elite Eights. I'm willing to cut Barnes a lot of slack and just say he made a mistake recruiting some guys this time around. He is one of the top coaches in the NCAA and has a 10-year track record at UT to prove it. You should hope he stays around a long time. Barnes will turn it around next year. UT partisans will just have to suck it up a few more games while this team fizzles out.
He was referring to the coaches' poll, not ESPN. Texas has 7 losses, only one of which is to a bad team (OU). Baylor, KU, KSU, and A&M are all ranked, and the other two were road losses to pretty good teams (UConn, Mizzou). It's certainly not what was expected of Texas, and because the losses all came in the latter half of the season, you can't really say Texas is very good right now, but the season as a whole hasn't been bad at all. Realistically, if they had been losing the games throughout the season instead of all the latter half, they'd be ranked around the 12-18 range right now.
What are Rick Barnes' supposed coaching strengths? I know this team is young but I see next to zero improvement on either side of the ball from earlier in the season.
Recruiting and defense - and running a pretty good offense with a top-tier point guard. Coaching weakness is running an offense without a top-tier point guard. He also tends to be very good at working on improving the team over the course of the season such that they are playing their best at the end of the year - this year is an unmitigated disaster in that regard. Barnes has openly said that this year has been frustrating because he doesn't seem to be able to get through to the players and can't seem to get the team to consistently play the way he wants. He said (maybe last week?) that he expected the freshman to be much further along at this point, and that the seniors aren't leading the way they should.
Texas gotta have that WANT to, you feel me? If they have that for 3 weeks, they'll be a tough out. Big IF.
They should be able to... I mean.. most likely won't be a tough opponent to begin... they have enough that their talent can win 1 game in the tourney.. it's after that 1st game where the questioning begins.
They're not going to end up with an easy opponent. They're going to be a 6 seed or worse. Right now, Lunardi has them projected as a 7 seed, playing 10 seeded Clemson. I've lost pretty much all confidence in this team. There's no reason to believe they're capable of a consistent stretch of good basketball.
Why? Texas has been one of the top 6 or 7 programs in the country over the past 7-8 years in terms of total success. They've made a Final Four, several Elite Eights, and they have the 3rd or 4th longest streak in the country of even just making the NCAA Tournament. They've floated in and out of the Top 10-15 most years. They've become an attractive destination for NBA caliber talent. Given Texas' total lack of history in basketball, Barnes has built the program pretty well. This year is a disappointment because of the high expectations, but it happens. UNC won a national title last year, has an all-star recruiting class every year, started out in the top 5 this year and isn't even in the tournament, for example. College basketball is so dependent on freshmen that it's much more unpredictable than football, for example, where you have a pretty good sense of how teams will turn out because they are mostly upperclass talent.
What is happening to UT? That's 10 straight points for Baylor in almost no time. If they don't pull it together, this will be over soon.
Two things. One, Texas isn't great this year. Realistically, they are probably around the 30th to 35th best team in the country. They have no great players - a few good ones and a few talented ones that have major weaknesses. Second, Baylor is very, very good. I fully expect to see them in the Sweet 16, if not the Elite Eight depending on their matchups. They are highly underrated and keep getting better as the season goes along. In a lot of ways, Baylor is playing how Texas was expected to play this year.
Barnes has won an average of almost 25 games per year at Texas, and you're surprised he hasn't been fired? Dean Smith averaged about 25 wins per year at North Carolina, and it took him 21 years to win a national championship.
I missed the 1st half entirely and have no idea how UT kept it close. That was a major behind-whipping in the 2nd half by Baylor. UT will be very lucky to win a game in the NCAA tournament. Based on what I saw today Major, they are NOT the 30th-35th best team in the country. Let's be real. They are in meltdown mode. The 17-0 start is ancient history and this team is completely lost. I'm curious how many guys transfer over the summer. Barnes needs to regrip the tennis racket or this malaise will return next season.
When they lose, it certainly looks ugly. But when they were winning early, they were winning ugly too. Part of it is that they just play an ugly style of basketball. At the end of the day, they've only had 1 bad loss all season - Oklahoma on the road. Outside of that, all their other losses were to ranked teams (Baylor 3 times, Kansas, KSU, A&M) or difficult road games (Mizzou, UConn). If they had started around #25 in the preseason, these are all games that Texas would have been expected to lose. It just looks really ugly because the B12 is so good this year, and so they played lots of great teams. If I'm right about Baylor being an Elite Eight type team, then 5 of their 9 losses were to top 10 quality teams. He needs to find some big guys to recruit to replace James/Pittman. The freshmen will likely all improve, though it's unclear how much. They definitely have a lot of work to do, and I don't think expectations will be super-high going into next year. My guess is Texas is around a 7 seed, wins a first round game, and then gets pummeled in the 2nd round.
