Balbay out for the season

And he’s not even a tight end!

While I agree that Barnes’ job in limiting J’Covan is now tougher, I know he has it in him to rise to the challenge.

Barnes said himself he doesn’t have to do a damn thing with Brown. Lucas 20 minutes, Mason 20 minutes. Problem solved.

Someone said we fucked karma’s wife in the ass…I think we also slipped karma’s daughter a roofie at a frat party, had our way with her, dropped her back off at karma’s house the next day while karma and mrs. karma were at church, and then took an upper decker in the master bath for good measure.

I feel for the kid. Lets not forget this is his second blown knee in 4 years.

At this point he might as well stick around and rehab with Todd Wright.

I still had a glimmer of hope that we could at least make it to the Sweet 16. Not any more. Balbay may not provide much on offense, but his defense will be greatly missed. Plus, our once deep bench is now a liability.

Good PGs are going to light us up. Dex will have no hope of staying out of foul trouble as guards constantly drive to the hoop on our PGs.

Now we get to see the real Jai Lucas.

Should be fun to see who guards Anderson and then TMG this week…..Both tore up Mason and AB earlier this year…

Throw The Dick at them. He got named to the All-Texomaland 2nd team for a reason.

Dick, game on!

Box and 1 using Dick may work.

No joke, I’m surprised Barnes hasn’t gone to the walk-ons yet. If he had access to Ian Mooney he’d be playing 20 minutes a game.

Would anybody notice (or care) if Barnes brought Paulino and Ogden off the bench?

Vasherized , correction it is not “The Dick” it is D. Dick

I’m pretty sure the Armenians were behind this…

PG JCB
SG Bradley, sub: Hamilton
SF Johnson, sub: Hamilton
PF James
C Dex/Chapman/Hill

What’s so hard about this? and let Jai/Mason use about 10 minutes to spell the PG/SG starters?

I guess we’ll have to lose Mason to an injury to get it through Barne’s thick skull.

Side note, Is it true we’ve only beaten 1 higher seed in the tourney in Barnes’ career? I heard that on the radio this morning, that’s not accurate, is t??!

Side note, Is it true we’ve only beaten 1 higher seed in the tourney in Barnes’ career? I heard that on the radio this morning, that’s not accurate, is t??!

Yes, but it’s much harder to beat a high seed when you are a high seed yourself.

So when we roll in as a 7 or 8 seed we will have a chance to beat that higher seed?

Well, it appears that we’re not going to have to play 3 on 5 anymore. Unless Jai becomes our PG of choice, then we’re playing 2 3/4 on 5. I’m going to miss Dogus. He had his liabilities, specifically as a offensive threat, but his positives are numerous.

1. He was our best perimeter defender and best overall defender. He’s already pestered James Anderson, Clemente, Dunn, Sloan, and others into difficult shooting performances from the field. He was our lock down defender and we could stick him on players from 3 positions.

2. He was arguably our 2nd best athlete. He could rebound, press, play in transition, handle the ball (Mizzou withstanding), and pass the ball.

3. He wasn’t afraid of dirty work, a desire that is absent on this team. He brought energy to playing defense, going after loose balls, pressing, passing, picking and screening—really whatever we needed, Dogus was willing to bring effort to except score. We already have too many guys that are looking to get theirs. This is a bad loss

Dogus may not have been the optimal guy with the most upside to log heavy minutes at the point especially on the ball while trying to help establish our low post game, but he was a valuable cog. A good guy to give 15 minutes or plus depending on matchups. It will help perhaps in that Barnes is now precluded from F’n up our starting lineup but this is a major loss no matter how you spin it

Jeebus. I thought we were the only ones who got fucked over by injuries. At some point, folks have to stay healthy, right?

I think it is good for UT. Balbay has looked horrible, really, really horrible in Big 12 play. I mean, the dude just kills UT. I understand the fascination with his athleticism, but at some point he has to produce. His defense is not nearly good enough to make up for his offensive play. Dude needs to watch some Doug Gottleib film to see how a crappy shooter can still be a weapon on the offensive side.

Barnes sounds like he’s up to the challenge regarding Brown and his minutes. Just heard him say on the radio that day-to-day consistency is what he’s looking for. He sounded a little Queegish, if you want to know the truth.

Well, being shitty day after day is consistent.

Nordberg: thanks for reminding us about Ian Mooney. Ian played a lot of minutes that one year.

BiH, too bad Barnes expects consistency from a frosh. The most he can expect is effort. Great reference to Captain Queeg. I will now incorporate “Queegish” into my vocabulary.

Captain Queeg? I prefer Captain Quagmire. Giggity, giggity, goo…..

The staff has been put in a bad position which is in large part its own making. As strange as some may find this comment, the player evaluation in the recruitment of this team has been suspect.

We have three bigs on the bench that cannot effectively play on a consistant basis for different reasons. Two because of physical limitations and one because of mental/toughness issues. Should those have been vetted in the recruiting process? I would say so. Lucas is a mistake that everyone agrees on, both inside and outside of Cooley. It was a knee jerk reaction take that Barnes was talked into approving. Balbay certainly had the athletic ability but in the proper environment should never be more than a bench player.
Even if Williams wasn’t gimping around in a boot, from what I’ve seen he doesn’t bring anything more to the table than most 6’6" white shooters. He’s stiff and relatively unathletic and I will be surprised if he’s not largely a miss as well in the final analysis. In a thirteen scholarship environment you just can’t afford many mistakes, both in terms of talent evaluation and the assessment of the overall ability of a player to assimilate into your particular program.

Barnes is now taking a much more proactive role in recruited player evaluations as a result of the collection of players he has. Better late than never I guess. I do believe that Joseph is on the way, Nova notwithstanding, but it would be nice to find a big to come with him and Thompson. Fuck Jazzy Hartwell.

The three seniors needed for leadership, while great people, are not natural leaders. Ward could have provided some leadership because of his mental toughness but he is where he is.

We put ourselves in the position of needing three freshmen to shine in order to have the team we all expected, and given the mental and emotional issues two of them brought to the party in hindsight those expectations were lofty indeed. Barnes had a good handle on Hamilton’s game coming in, and never expected him to start during the first half of the season because of the lack of sophistication in his game. He did hope that he would assimilate more quickly than he has. J’Covan is trying, but his practice habits still have a long way to go. Both kids are good people and if they hang in there as expected will be markedly different players next year. As frustrated as I am about what we’re seeing, I can’t fault Barnes for not caving on his practice expections regarding two players, because if he does that then he risks losing the others. He’s in a tough spot here, but again he’s put himself in it.

Vasharized, since you’ve attended some practices you may want to comment on this if you’re so inclined, but the practices are structured to be fast paced and physically demanding in order to foster endurance and toughness, but what is lost in that structure is the flexibility to stop practice when someone misses an assignment, whether it be off-the-ball defense, not setting a screen correctly, or any number of other things, and walk the offending player through what he is supposed to do and explain why. The most effective way to teach that I know of is when the mistake occurs. They film all of the practices and I assume they address this in some other forum, but it doesn’t seem to be directly addressed much during practice.

I guess we’ll leave the offensive structure for another discussion, but I think any discussion would be more interesting if we really knew how much of what we’re seeing in conference play is the players just disregarding what they’re being taught in practice, or the content and/or teaching methodology leaving something to be desired. The total lack of movement, particularly when gauged against other dribble drive teams makes movie reruns a viable alternative.

All this drivel is worth less than it costs, but was somehow therapeutic for me to type, so I appreciate the help from this website.

Let’s say that Barnes has complete control over what he wants… he’s certainly had it in the past, and that’s how he built up the goodwill he appears to be depleting today. He has to know that the entire expectation of the season is being flushed for this.

We don’t see another NC opportunity on the horizon, for all the reasons noted in ADP’s excellent post. In some ways, I think his reputation is at stake. If that’s true even a little bit, as disappointed as I am in how the team is playing, it’s still a bigger deal for him.

Vasharized, since you’ve attended some practices you may want to comment on this if you’re so inclined, but the practices are structured to be fast paced and physically demanding in order to foster endurance and toughness, but what is lost in that structure is the flexibility to stop practice when someone misses an assignment, whether it be off-the-ball defense, not setting a screen correctly, or any number of other things, and walk the offending player through what he is supposed to do and explain why. The most effective way to teach that I know of is when the mistake occurs. They film all of the practices and I assume they address this in some other forum, but it doesn’t seem to be directly addressed much during practice.

Good post as always, ADS. In the practices I’ve been to at Cooley, Barnes will stop practice for brief instruction but he’s always screaming at the guys to the point where they’re just ready for the rant to end rather than absorbing what he’s actually saying. Of all the coaches, Ogden and Springmann are the most low key and capable of relating to the players on their own level, imo. The guys all respect Wright, who has done more in-game coaching this year by far than any prior season.

The very coach who doesn’t seem to be getting through to his guys is Barnes and that’s obviously a major fucking problem. The reason we’ve seen this madness not only sustain itself from January to February but actually worsen in a lot of cases is because of Barnes’ own disdain for self-diagnosis. He knows one way of doing things and because TJ Ford and Royal Ivey figured it out, J’Covan Brown and Jordan Hamilton better figure it out too. Totally different kids but look at their background and it’s pretty easy to see these guys needed to be handled differently.

I don’t doubt that Barnes works his ass off, loves the kids, takes his job seriously, and genuinely wants to win. If anything, he’s pushed too hard and has become too stubborn to back off and listen to some alternate strategies both on player development and relations.

As unlikely as it sounds given the trend of play we’ve gotten used to, he’s not beyond making said changes come March and you just may see a different team in the post-season. I’m certainly not expecting it but I wouldn’t be surprised either if our form reverted back more towards January then December. Stranger shit has happened in college basketball.

I’m officially bummed. Two years of this… and here I thought the guy was going to cruise to his 500th win this year.

I’m not saying this to be critical of you Bob…. but most of us don’t give a shit how many wins Barnes has or will have. We want conference championships and to compete for National Championships. If this season ends the way it appears to be heading, I honestly think we should considering going in a different coaching direction. If those are unreasonable expectations then too bad.

Vasherized, thanks for the response. The fact that I can’t spell one of my favorite poster’s handle correctly is depressing. I agree with your assessment of Ogden and Springmann. They are both very good; however, in teaching freshmen there is no substitute for the head coach having the clock stopped, walking over and demonstrating in a reasonable voice how to do it, then have them run it again until it is done correctly. Ranting at them while they impatiently wait for you to finish does not foster much retention. Unfortunately I agree with you.

Art… not exactly what I meant. I thought they were gonna win at least 30 games easily. Now they’re gonna have to hustle to win 25. He would cross 500 with that, but I’m not really focusing on it.

As to the expectations…. they got trophies in ‘06 and ’08, and they’ve been to an FF and two EEs. That is winning championships and competing for NCs. I’m not discounting the failure to put this together, but as I posted a couple of days ago, it’s not all on Barnes. A big chunk of it is, though.

Who ya gonna call if you dump him?

I never would wish injury or bad luck on anyone but since Rick Barnes is such a horrible game manager and plays the wrong players the majority of the time Texas actually got better with this injury; balbay was an offense and defense liability.On offense Balbay would probably have an difficult time throwing a small rock into the ocean and on defense he would commit horrible dumb fouls at half court while Texas would have the lead and in the bonus and just give away 2 points he just doesn’t understand “time and score” which means he should never play because he lacks common sense.

That was a very shitty and uninformed post, Mo. Texas is going to miss Balbay tremendously on defense.

he’s always screaming at the guys to the point where they’re just ready for the rant to end rather than absorbing what he’s actually saying.

And you wonder why Knight and Barnes are such good friends.

Mo,

what player in our team isn’t a liability in some facet? That’s a huge problem with this squad. You put one guy in for one reason, your’re giving up something else. Of the three "balanced players on this team, one can’t lead, one is inconsistent, and one is hurt.

One small indication that RB can recognize when a change is in order? Just look at our set inbounds plays on O at our end of the floor. We used to be abysmal at this. Now we are pretty good. Small issue though, it took years to get here. Probably not a positive indicator for this March.

Work – That’s what I was getting at in the Island of Misfit Toys post:

http://barkingcarnival.fantake.com/2010/01/23/the-island-of-misfit-toys/

Great post ADP. I also like Vasherized’s follow up. However, a coach has a way of doing things and is normally stubborn and set in his ways. I don’t think the winningest coach of all time just said, you know I have a different set of players with different personalities so I think I will change my style of coaching and teaching to fit the players.

Art, thank goodness you weren’t a Syracuse fan or else you probably would have burned Boeheim at the stake for missing the NCAA tourney two of the 6 years before winning his first national title in his 27th year at the school.

Groundhog,

I’ll hold my criticism until 2025.

“One small indication that RB can recognize when a change is in order? Just look at our set inbounds plays on O at our end of the floor. We used to be abysmal at this. Now we are pretty good. Small issue though, it took years to get here. Probably not a positive indicator for this March.”

Do you really see this? I completely disagree. I’ve always thought we were one of the worst inbounding teams in the country, and it seems to be at a whole new level of bad this year. One game we called TO on the 4-second mark, then proceeded to get a 5-second call anyway. We have NO good inbounds plays, in fact usually a few players are walking to get open while the other two just stand still. Eventually one guy runs to the backcourt and we catch a jump ball to start our offense. It’s awful to watch and a joke to fix.

Blake,

It took two decades before Jim Boeheim constructed a successful inbounds play. Please be patient.

http://www.youtube.com/watch#v=XK_bfqvpmR0&feature=related

Is that you in the maroon sweater at the podium, art?

Boss Hog,
Like I said samo, samo. Please increase your medication.

It is what it is……… samo samo

:-)

Unfortunately its 60 years later and Jimmy Chitwood has a new speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7ObHBADklg

GH,

I’m not ready to run Rick out of town, but I am extremely disappointed with the job he has done the last two seasons. No denying this is a poorly coached team. Are you challenging that point?

What happens tomorrow night? Does Brown start at pg and play all of his minutes at pg? Or does Mason start and play all of his minutes at pg?

Before Balbay got hurt, Brown had to split between pg and sg, this had to be confusing for Brown. Point guard is all about distributing the ball and getting shots for your teammates. Shooting guard is all about getting your own shot. Brown may improve quite a bit just from being able to focus on one position (pg).

If Mason plays the bulk of the pg minutes, Barnes will have to make some significant changes to his O because Mason does not have the shooting/creating capability to run the O through him. From a practise time management perspective, changing the O a lot is the last thing Barnes wants to do this late in the season.

From a coaching/management perspective, you definitely handle different personalities in different ways.

Art,

At least you have a sense of humor. That’s nice to see. I got a hearty laugh out of your Boeheim comments as well. That’s was funny shit.

Why are you disappointed with last year’s team? That team didn’t have it.

I’m disappointed in the play of the team as I had high hopes for them. But after careful examination, I have come to realize that the term, “hitting the freshman wall” was uttered for a reason. However, our lack of a true difference maker at the point position seems to be a Barnes achilles heel. The theory is he can’t win without one and I can’t dispute that.

The fact is, this team is 21-6 with five of those losses to teams likely to make the NCAA tourney and 4 of those are on the road. This team can still make a run in the tourney. Do I think it’s likely given the lack of fundamentals and effort I have seen from our frosh? No, but let’s see what the rest of the season has in store for us.

I mentioned this to Sky who refuses to have a dialogue in facts especially when it pertains to Connor Atchley, The Fab Five, Freshmen point guards, disregard for historical facts or any number of topics we have discussed, but our 2006 recruiting class with James, Durant, and DJ was more talented than the one we are currently witnessing. That team went 25-10 Durant’s freshmen year and lost in the 2nd round of NCAA tourney. The next year without Durant, Augustin led them to a 31-7 record with an elite 8 appearance before losing to a better Memphis club. Why do you think that was? Therein lies the reason that I’m not ready to jump ship. Let’s see what happens the rest of the year and next year when our most talented players have a year of seasoning under their belts. That and comparing Barnes 11 year record compared to other great coaches gives me comfort that we are headed in the right direction. There is a reason that freshman point guards don’t win NCAA championships. It’s happened once in 25+ years in college hoops. However, my pitch fork will be sharpened if we don’t show marked improvement next year as the biggest improvement takes place between a players freshman and sophomore years. And make no mistake, our most talented players are freshmen.

Sky, I will increase the medication to figure out why I just entered into a circle jerk with you over the past couple of days.

Is it me or is this teams biggest problem Barne’s misevaluation of talent?

He came into the season, I suspect, thinking he had TOO many point guards when in
fact he had ZERO point guards in terms of quality.

I suspect he thought Balbay (red shirting) was going to be the secret weapon of the future a couple of years ago. Then he fell into the Lucas trap. He probably all along also expected
that Brown and Bradley could more than adequately man the PG as well. As it turns out, Barnes struck out on all 4 counts. I