Texas Hoops vs. Wake Forest: Post Mortem

I’ve been waiting for this since I finished watching this game at midnight. I was on the fence on Rick until the final 2 minutes of OT last night.

Thanks, Trips. The one true highlight of the season was your ability as a writer to express what was happening out there.

Thanks,
Hook ’em!

Regarding J’Covan’s brain fart at t the end of the game, I posted this on the open game thread:

We have all discussed the browbeating that Barnes gives his players. We’ve all noted how they’ve had their confidence beaten out of them.

Hypothetically, what if Barnes showed more confidence and more playing time in JCB over the last 2 months? Would a more confident and experienced JCB taken the ball down court instead of passing?

1 Final Four in 12 years of elite recruiting (ok, maybe 9 of ELITE) indicates a serious problem within our system. I don’t know what goes on off the court, but it seems like Barnes consistently coaches the identity out of his teams. When these guys played with the talent set that they have been given early in the season, they were impressive to watch. I hate to say it because Barnes has done so much for our program to take it from where it was to where it is, but I think it’s time for him to go. With our athletic program, we can get any coach that we want and there is no excuse to consistently underachieve.

“We’ll continue to be who we are, which is a top 25 team with a special run in the tournament every decade or so.”

Indeed. I mean when you look at Deloss’ comment that “We are the Joneses”, who in their right mind would expect that we compete on the court with such imminent institutions as: Ohio, Butler, Murray State, BYU, Old Dominion or St Mary’s of California!?! I mean, the built in advantages that those programs have in terms of funding, endowments, basketball facilities, campus lifestyle and just plain old name recogition are astounding!

Come on people it’s Murray State & St Mary’s that we’re talking about here!!!

Our players have been tuning him out for awhile. It’s entirely possible that J’Covan just wasn’t listening.

It’s all on Barnes, even the free throws. He’s had this team so tight for the last 45 days, you knew those free throws weren’t going in at the end. He needs to loosen up and have it rub off on the players. Anyone could tell by Gary’s “motions”, those weren’t going in. Still not sure how they give up an 8 pt lead in OT. Surprised Wake wasn’t fouling sooner…

Defensively, we soundly get thumped a bunch…..Does that count?

Hamilton was clearly not happy with his lack of shots in the 2nd half. I applaud his maturity and not being more distressed. He wisely played dumb as to not getting more shots….

And what was with the charge Brown committed? Near the halfcourt line? A brain-fart of a turnover that essentially took our foot off their throat and extended a hand to pull them back into the game?

Has anyone ever gone from hero to goat as dramatically and thoroughly as Brown did in OT?

On the Barnes talk, I really don’t have enough Bball knowledge to have an ultimate opinion, only some preliminary thoughts/questions:

This may seem arrogant but I believe its true – if you are a coach in virtually any sport at UT, you will be a good recruiter. The state is loaded with athletes, including basketball players, UT as a university is top-notch by virtually any measure and just really doesn’t have any serious in-state competition.

Also, it takes years to build a football program because there are 80-something scholarship athletes on the team, they all need to learn and fit the scheme, execute as a team, success affects future recruiting, etc, etc. It takes years to build a truly elite football program. Not so in basketball. You only have 5 guys on the floor, each year they can leave for the NBA, so your competition changes more each year. While scheme and execution are important, I think they are less so than in football. Basketball is a little more free-flowing where athleticism matters more (as opposed to 11 guys all doing their job in concert). Point is, you can build an elite or very good basketball team in a couple of years, unlike football – see Baylor and plenty of other examples.

So, even if we are not a traditional basketball powerhouse, I don’t think its unrealistic today to think that we could be top-ten year in and year out. Lets put this year aside. Barnes has had 12 years and produced, what, one final four and two elite eights but is averaging 1-2 tourney wins?

He has accomplished a lot and deserves a lot of credit, but I guess my thought/question is, because we are UT and have a lot of built-in advantages, and because an elite basketball team can be built in a short time, why is it heresy to expect more? Barnes is good, but with the current status of everything (our advantages), wouldn’t any coach here be good — why not expect great. I look around and it seems like other coaches are doing a lot more with a lot less.

Scoring-wise, JCB had a great second half. But — right now — his basketball IQ is way too low to be a championship-level PG. Not only was there the brain fart at the end, but the charge was inexcusable.

That said, the entire team found a way to lose at the end — which (for the most part) was the story of the 2nd half of our season.

We suck, thats on Barnes

I started that post before any of the other comments. Didn’t know redundancy could be so long-winded.

so we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.

Murray was in Austin for SXSW recently, looking every bit the cranky old grandfather that’s always been in him. Still, I like UT’s odds in OT with any of his characters coaching this team.

It’s not Brown’s fault they made a bad call. It is Brown’s fault giving the ball up there. In his defense, he was in a pretty sick spot in the corner. Not in his defense, he is allowed to dribble and shouldn’t BE in the corner in the first place.

Trips, I love you man ! Of course its man Love and not like the love you have with Henry…..

You are the very best of all the talking heads on Texas Basketball, your knowledge is vast and your style is dynamic and you reach the crazies with your knowledge on hoops.

You are right about the level of elitism that Texas will reach during Barnes stay here. It will be a long stay, over on Bon the pin head thinks that only Self, Coach K and Roy and Jim B. are the only coaches that would be a step up.
But we know that Barnes lacks imagination on the O side of the ball and the last 2 years the Defense has taken a step down. There are a few young coaches that could ,they will not be young when Barnes leaves, that could add a much needed SYSTEM of play that would take us to the next step. The only system we have is broken and Barnes set in his ways may not be able to be fix it. Barnes really needs a long look in the mirror and evaluate himself, staff and recruitment philosophy.

Of the many badgames the sick example of coaching that stick out in my head is the first 7-10 minutes of the first half and the second half that we fall behind by double digits and we sit our “hot” players on the bench and then expect then to led us to victory…Please even a football coach knows to go with the hot hand.

Barnes is set in his ways and I hope for enlightment in the area of chemistry and player motivation, development and communications.

Its been a rollercoaster ride here at BC but what a season to remember for all the bad games but also for the blog that is so good, you being a big part of it. The other crazies have been insightful and funny as hell. Moments of great story telling and dumb shit and dumb asses and you know who we are.
A big fucking Hook’ em !

“This may seem arrogant but I believe its true – if you are a coach in virtually any sport at UT, you will be a good recruiter. The state is loaded with athletes, including basketball players, UT as a university is top-notch by virtually any measure and just really doesn’t have any serious in-state competition.”

All historical evidence to the contrary. Respectfully, the comment is not only arrogant but it’s delusional…..That’s not to say that we shouldn’t aim to be elite. That should be the goal and we may have that capability to crash the elite private party, but nobody has recruited well in the history of Texas basketball before Barnes, and it’s not like the athletes just started to play here…..

The calls for Mack Brown’s head came after less than 10 years of high level recruiting and sub par success (no Big 12 Championships/BCS bowls). That being said, Mack only really struggled with OU; take that out of the equation and we probably do play and win some championships. Mack rarely underachieved as spectacularly as Barnes has, particularly this season. I don’t follow basketball recruiting as closely as football, but based on sheer talent coming into the season isn’t this arguably our most stacked recruiting class ever and top 5 in the NCAA? Barnes has had plenty of opportunities and the flair with which he pissed away this season to me is just the icing on the cake. To be 1 of 5 teams in NCAA history to go from #1 to unranked is a deal breaker to me. Bye bye Ricky.

Hook Em!

Thanks for doing these Trips. Lord knows I wouldn’t have been able to.

Hamilton says he’s coming back. Bradley says he’s unsure.

We need to go get the best JC point guard in the country. And then we need to release about six guys from their scholarship for next year.

Barnes lost this team in January. Why? I believe any post-season assessment by the coaching staff must begin with that question and a lot of introspection. Barnes will not be the victim of this season’s collapse like Abe Lemons was in 1982, but unless he learns from his many mistakes this season and makes immediate corrections starting with himiself, I expect 2-3 members of this team, who have the talent and coaching connections going back to their AAU days, to transfer rather than put up with his BS another season.

On the effectiveness scale of UT basketball coaches, Barnes is now just barely above Penders and Weltlich.

Trips, I don’t comment often but I read every last word you posted this season and wanted to express my gratitude for all the effort.

Over the past 3 months we’ve gone from budding euphoria in Arlington, to concern in Storrs, to disbelief in Austin, to anger in College Station, to helplessness in Kansas City, and finally to downright disgust with the effort (or lack thereof) set forth by the Longhorn team last night.

Through it all, no one on this planet captured and elucidated what transpired more effectively than you, and it all came at a net cost of zero dollars to the consumer.

You’ve got a very special gift (no homo) and I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge, passions, and analysis with us every step of the way.

Now that the nightmare has finally concluded, I hope you’re able to enjoy the rest of the tournament and reflect on a job well done.

Looking forward to reading on for many months to come.

-Chris
Dallas, TX

Trips, thanks for all of the post-mortems this year. It’s one thing when you’re 17 – 0, and it’s something else entirely when your year ends like our has. There is only one thing in this one will which I take issue. You said:

“In the plus column, I was happy with the players’ efforts for most of the game.”

I was not. The lack of movement on the offensive end of the floor, the lazy passing, the lazy switches defensively, and poor positioning for rebounds all indicate a lack of effort. This team quit on Barnes. He may have quit on them too. I saw a listless, idea-less team that looked uncoached (or, unfortunate tip of the hat to ransom here) in capable of being coached. If it’s the former then it’s on Barnes. If it’s the latter, like it was with JCB, then it’s on the players and Barnes. Whatever. A terribly disappointing season in which the team got much worse as the season wore on. We really, really need a point guard.

Thanks for ruining my season Trips. It was your damned optimism that got me fired up for this season in the first place. If your preview of next year has a hint of glass half full, we better be talking scotch.

You get props for churning these out. The fact that they became formulaic is on Barnes, not you.

I’d consider going pro if I’m Bradley even though he’s no where near being ready to contribute. I’d rather get different tutelage while being the 10th man, and gettting paid, then another year of this. I love the kid, and would hate to see him go, but I wouldn’t blame him.

If AB can get inside the top 15 or so, he should go. If he can’t, then he should come back. He’s got a lot of warts on his game, but a lot to build on as well…..

With only 10 seconds left, we let the guy streak virtually unimpeded down the length of the court. Then, we can’t even keep it together long enough to force a long shot and the guy hits a medium range jumper to win it.

The part that really hurts, he didn’t even need the whole 10 seconds. Dude could have made a sandwich.

Thanks for the really good (and really painful) work all year long.
I have been following Longhorn basketball for longer than I care to admit, and this season was just torture to endure.

The only season that comes close was the 1981-82 Mike Wacker injury year. That team was the first of the “modern era” to put Texas even remotely into the national conciousness. Kind of the same start (that team was unbeaten and ranked #5 in the nation, scheduled to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated when Wacker went down in Waco).

Abe Lemons quit on that team — and they followed suit.

This time I think Barnes coached them down until they just didn’t care to listen anymore. Like that 1981-82 squad both coaches and players were ready for it to be all over long before the plug was finally pulled.

Because nobody could stay in front of the WF pg, UT played a lot of zone. It is tough to block out from a zone. Barnes is usually excellent at teaching blocking out in zone D but it did not happen this year (especially last night).

Damion was the only good rebounding big man for the horns this season and the only really athletic big man, too (not a coincidence). Dex is poor athletically, he never got in shape. Chapman and Hill are not quick or leapers. Wangmene physically looks athletic but is not very tall and is average (at best) at running and jumping.

The front line players need to be taller, quicker and better jumpers because their highest priorities are D and rebounding. Since big men draw a lot of fouls because of all the contact inside and because they have to guard the penetrators that get by the UT guards, you need a lot of athletic depth inside.

Losing both Ward and Balbay really hurt the horns’ back court D. After losing Balbay went down, UT should have played much more zone. Maybe with more practise, they would have been better at blocking out from a zone D.

Why didn’t we call a time out after Wake hit the go ahead jumper?

The clock would have been reset to ~1.5 seconds. Wouldn’t the ball have been advanced to half-court? Or was that rule changed?

Well I posted this on the game thread, but it looks like we are moving on:

Holy shit. Stop with all this fucking “think about the kids” bullshit twat rubbing. Put some fucking responsibility on the shoulders of the kids for just a second.

We were out rebounded approximately 192823 to 31. We had people (James included) standing flat footed staring at the ball as Wake made high-light reel dunks.

We had players just throwing up shots. Brown happened to make his contested 3s early in the shot clock last night. But he’s also had games where he’s not on and he goes 1-8 from 3. Same with Hamilton. Bradley and James were both HORRIBLE shooting last night, but at least James had the excuse that he was getting fouled (he went to the line 4 times). If you are going to take 15 shots and only make 4, you damn well better be driving and getting to the foul line. He probably would have missed his FTs anyway. Bradley and Brown are still the same players offensively: selfish. They keep doing it even though it is obviously not the game plan. It is on them to learn.

We can’t shoot free throws. Most of these guys have been playing basketball for 8-10+ years. It is Barnes’ fault they can’t shoot FTs?

Is it RB’s fault that Brown tends take his time to get back on defense? That he half-asses it most of the time? Why isn’t it Brown’s fault that he doesn’t put in the effort and that he doesn’t learn that the reason he is sitting is becaue of that lack of effort? (I must say he did seem to do better last night)

Barnes has his faults and does need to make some changes, but damn it, all this breast beating and tearing of hair for these poor fucking children is getting ridiculous.

A comment on Rick’s recruiting based off of Nordberg’s comment…

He’s recruited better than any other coach in UT history. When Texas signed Kris Clack, I remember how excited I was that we’d gotten a McDonald’s AA. Under Barnes, we’ve signed at least one almost every year. But the notion that Texas has recruited elite classes is based off of perception skewed by the the Kevin Durants and TJ Fords, without the balancing reality that there have been plenty of Matt Hills and Conor Atchleys, too.

While Barnes has hit some HRs (notably KD, DJ, TJ, Damion, Lamarcus), the number of scrub recruits he’s also brought in is disturbing. With the exception of Aldridge (and maybe Damion, depending on how you classify him), Barnes has been pretty bad a recruiting interior players. He’s signed a collection of decent players (Boddicker, and undersized guys like Tucker and Gary Johnson) to busts (Mike Williams) to downright liabilities (see entire roster of bigs on this year’s team, including Dexter). If our recruiting was as elite as is often implied, we wouldn’t be bringing in guys like these.

We’ll see next year with Tristan Thompson. Maybe Rick can convince Rakeem Christmas in 2011 to sign. God knows we need them to be good, because I don’t think I can stomach any more blown layups, bad hands, and slow feet like we saw this year.

Trips, thanks for all your posts this season. I don’t always agree with you but that is sort of the point of a blog isn’t it? Your assesments are usually well-written, informative and fair and where else can you find those qualities?

As for the team, I watched a loose, confident and well-prepared Texas beat UNC from behind the Texas bench and thought the sky was the limit for the season. Somewhere, for some reason, that team went away. I personally don’t think that Barnes and the staff suddenly forgot how to coach simple fundamentals, or decided they would deliberately sabotage the season for the sake of proving points to Hamilton, Brown, et al. I suspect there are other explanations for this season, some of which may ultimately come to light and some which may not. NONE of us are at every practice, or every team meeting so the truth is, we can only guess as to what may be the issue(s). This team set a record for stupid plays and last night’s pass by Brown to Johnson, after he was undoubtedly told to take the foul, is a prime example. Whose fault is that?

Overall, I didn’t think I would ever be as disappointed in a Texas bb season as the Wacker injury season. I was wrong.

It’s tough to compare Mack Brown to Barnes or really any coach for that matter.

Can anyone name a single coach who has had to play a Top 5 school, every single year, when every game matters, from their own conference, even worse, their own division, all away games, then have that one single game decide the fate of the entire season and whether or not they get into the post season?

Barnes doesn’t have this obstacle to the post season.

As I posted late on the game thread:

UT needs to decide what it wants in a basketball program and whether Barnes is the man to get UT to that point, whatever it is.

Barnes needs to decide what he wants to achieve in his coaching career in the next 10 to 15 years that career will probably extend. He needs to decide where he wants to be. He needs to decide if he is going to make any changes in the way he coaches or the way he treats his players.

The vast majority of UT fans (the ones who don’t care about basketball very much at all) need to decide whether they are ever going to care about basketball or create a basketball culture at UT.

All three of the above decisions are intertwined.

Break out the champagne, the season is over!

“To that point, there’s no reason Wake Forest should be playing volleyball on the glass against us like we’re an Ivy League school. It’s pathetic, and, along with defense, the two go hand in hand in a pathetic marriage.”

If only we could rebound like Cornell, we would have won.

Gigolo – Yes. It would be a bad move to ship Barnes out, a coach who will consistently keep us in the tournament and get us to the Elite 8 and Final 4 ever once in a while (hell, he may win a NC, I don’t know) for a fan base that will not fill the stands when we are undefeated and ranked in the top 5.

Ransom – Think one of those factors may have been Balbay? As bad as he was shoorting, he was great on D, and he was a better distrbuter/handler. If you assume that they get about 25 minutes a game (traying to normalize for injuries, blowouts, and dog house time), Balbay averaged 4.5 assists and 1.8 TOs a game. Brown was worse on TOs (2.3), and his assists were much lower (2.5).

Balbay wasn’t THE reason we went down in flames. Obviously we lost 6 games before he went out. But I don’t think it can be over looked. I also don’t think you can over look losing last year’s tournament MVP 5 games in.

GigoloJoe:

Those UT fans “who do not care about basketball very much at all” will not create a basketball culture anywhere.

DeLoss realizes that football is supreme at UT and is unlikely to get rid of Barnes anytime soon. He might tell Barnes to get a new assistant coach but I wouldn’t bet on it.

How long Barnes stays is harder to answer. He must be financially set by now so he probably stays as long as he enjoys it and his wife does not rebel.

I don’t know what shoorting is. It sounds a little gross though. Maybe some combination between snorting and shating

thanks for yer restaurant quality commitment, Trips. great as always.

I have no clue what Brown was thinking. Well, I do, but I hope it’s not true.

I think he was fine until the trap. Having given up a somewhat bogus charge, he was not confident of getting a foul and afraid of being tied up. So he passed the ball. He could have called time out, but he didn’t.

Thing was, he could have jetted out of the trap after passing and gotten the ball back. He didn’t. That leads to my unfortunate Occam’s Razor conclusion that he did not want to shoot those free throws.

If RB was to leave in the next 3 years who would we get? A coach at a successful, elite program doesn’t want to come somewhere where the arena is half full for 90% of the games.

Turn off the sound and watch the replay of Johnson’s setup and motion shooting the free throws. They never had a chance of going in. After the first one, he sighs heavily, looks up at the ceiling (?), moves his feet nervously and generally gives off the body language of wishing the earth would open up and swallow him. Brown’s motion on the two he missed was not much better.

Barnes may burn himself out ya know. Its not like he enjoyed this season either

I don’t think I’ll be going back to watch his free throws or any other part of the game.

I did not see a replay of any part of the NC game against Bama until about a week ago. Couldn’t do it. Still don’t think I’m to the point of being able to rewatch more than a few minutes of it. It was too dissapointing.

Basketball was the same this year, but instead of the train wreck being in the last 2 hours of the season, it was over the last month+. It was ugly, and I am ready to move on.

BiH,

I actually agree with you. I think the charge and missing the two FTs earlier got in his head a bit. Also, he passed to Mason on the possession earlier which I didn’t think made sense. Mason had his pass knocked out of bounds, thankfully, but it seemed strange to me when JCB should have dribbled into the middle of the court (if I remember right). I do know that looking at Gary’s face, he wanted nothing to do with those FT’s. Damion wanted them, but had fouled out. Gary, not so much…..

the ball have been advanced to half-court? Or was that rule changed?

Only in the NBA, never in college.

DJ fouling out on a BS call sucks. Even if they still lose I wish he could have been on the floor. The only guy worth watching the second half of the season.

Guys, I have been booked solid today and am running out the door again here, but pleaes accept my condolenceses. Too much to say and too little time. I’ll come by tomorrow.

Just glad its over. I’m not sure if I should be looking forward to next season. NIce write up as usual, spot on.

Hook’Em

Trips,

Great work all year long. Love the passion. The fact that you kept writing these (even around the birth of a child), is fantastic, shows your commitment, and is a little freaky. :-)

I think you showed great restraint in this post. It would have been easier to “go off” on Barnes. I think we could hear you biting your tongue as you typed this Post Mortem.

I am curious about your paragraph below. Do you think we can never be consistently elite as basketball program because of multiple reasons (too focused on football as a fan base, etc….), or that we can never be consistently elite with Barnes? I know how I come down, but I want to hear your opinion.

“Unfortunately, any higher level of expectation or emotional involvement beyond that point is folly in my humble opinion. As a fan if you’re okay with that, then good for you, because that’s where we’ll continue to be as a basketball team. We’re not ever going to be bad, but after watching this season, it’s doubtful we can ever be consistently elite.”

All of you couch sitting coaches trying to berate Rick Barnes’ coaching need to shut the hell up. Their are some things that all the x’s and o’s in the world or the greatest coach in the world can’t fix. Their were simply too many square pegs trying to fit into round holes. Sometimes the pieces just don’t fit, plain and simple.

Don’t have time to address each and every comment now, but I wanted to say thanks to everyone for contributing to the site this season. It’s made it a lot of fun to follow a team that’s tough to watch at times.

Also, I wanted to thank you for the kind words as well. It really means a ton to me. It truly makes doing these worthwhile.

Thanks.

Trips / you rock.

I hate to say it but as a Kentucky fan said about Texas yesterday: “Texas is never even a thought in the minds of the elite basketball programs.” Maybe we Texas fans should quit kidding ourselves and just be happy that we’re a National power in football.

Fuck that Kentucky fan. What Texas fan pays any attention to what a UK fan says? They went from Billy Gillespie to the dirtiest coach in any collegiate sport. They’re an afterthought in EVERYTHING other than basketball, and once Calipari leaves them in a cloud of NCAA violations it will be horse season 365 days a year.

A very frustrating end to a very frustrating season. We all jumped on the wagon after they beat traditional powerhouses who turned out to be also rans this year. and we did play well. I think we should have known better though because this level of basketball is all about guard play. And even with the two who got hurt, we didn’t have the point guard we needed to win at the highest level. Add to that, the Big XII was ridiculously good this year. Also agree with many of you that this was Barnes’s worst defensive team. Fundamentals were completely lacking. It was hard to watch because we’re used to so much better.

Barnes was no better or worse than he always has been. He wasn’t seen as anything other than average in the tournament before he got to TX and he hasn’t been any better than that in his 9 years here. I think we would do well to give him some solid bench help. I’m not sure how that works in college basketball, but it’s obviously helped in football. Clearly, Barnes has put us on the map in a way no one previous to him has come close. For whatever reason, he has been able to recruit top players in a way his predecessors were unable to. There may be credence to the fact that his benches aren’t always very solid though.

one other thought about the game last night. it’s baffling that any team could blow an 8 point lead in OT. one mistake after another, epitomized by Mason’s foul under our own basket after they rebounded a miss, taking 0 seconds off the clock and putting them at the line. of course there were other BIG mistakes too, but those kinds of bonehead plays were all too common down the stretch.

Trips -

Thank you for the time, effort, and professional anaylsis all year, doing so while challenged by your personal family commitments (birth of child, Congrats!) Look forward to the season wrap-up analysis. Hook ’Em!

Great stuff Trips. In evaluating Barnes, its remarkable to me how many players seem to regress while under his watch. Off this year’s team, I’d definitely put Mason, Chapman, Wangmene, Dex (at least from last year’s Dex), and Hill on that list. And of the freshmen, only Hamilton seems to have improved much through the course of the season. Barnes needs to go back and do a serious re-evaluation of his program, starting with player evaluation (hello Jai Lucas) and ending with his own systems, particularly on the offensive end, where there is essentially none. Amazing how far we, as a program, have fallen in such a short period of time.

Well, I have a bit more perspective now. Hello, Kansas, meet Northern Iowa. Maybe it is true that misery loves company.

On to the freshmen:

JCB loses focus. He gets caught up in the action (or the crowd) when he is on a roll, then a couple of things don’t go well, and he loses concentration. He wasn’t concentrating when he missed the FT’s, and why does he look into the crowd when he blows a play?

Is his lack of focus a sign of immaturity, personality, or incomplete basketball development?

I really like Avery Bradley. He may be young, but he was a valuable contributor this year.

Jordan Hamilton came on so strong toward the end of the season. He was simply two different players, from the beginning to the end of the season. I really enjoy watching him, as well.

We lost two players that would have contributed a great deal to this team. That is hard for any team to absorb, and we are no different.

lawdog – on the topic of regression, this crew can’t compare with the senior seasons Thomas and Atchley put up. Something ain’t right in this scenario. Mason topped out his sophomore year and Pittman last year.

Wangmene is ‘Manos de Piedra’ redux, so that was really never going to work out. Being able to catch the ball and hold onto it is kind of valuable in basketball. I still don’t know if Chapman and Hill would have turned into contributors, but it’s obvious as hell that they should not have come to play for Barnes. Those kids would have been better served in another program.

It is just amazing to me that most posters think that Jordan has improved so much in the last half of the season.
The one thing I will say is that Jordan has just started to show his ability with a basketball. The reason that he did not show his talents is up to all the talking heads to put together. I have watched this kid from a 10th grader and he always played an all around game with a good handle, he does not have the lateral quickness to be a trully great defender but he does give effort and his length does save him alot. A lot of power slides will help him be a better defender.
Avery is a great defender but to go to the next level he has to be more aggressive with the ball , if he developes his handle he would be a great PG but I fear that he is doomed to be a SG under Barnes made to the image of Mase. Avary needs to water his onions a lot over the next 4-5 months.
JCB is a known commodity with all the warts to go along with it. Texas and Barnes knew what they had before he qualified. Like a 2years old that gets into everything he needs to explore but under a watchful eye to keep him from hurting himself.

Black , “Those kids would have been better served in another program.”
About 80% of the players are not suited for Texas type of play.
Made few bucks on UNI yesterday did not cover the spread but the straight up win was great.