Cory Joseph Jumps: Another One Done in Austin

Jeff Beckham - are you Dave’s lil bro, and more importantly can ya bend it like ’im, mate ? ;)

Is there enough money to be made in the foreign leagues now (I guess the NBA would actually be the foreign league for him though?) to make it worth it for NBA 2nd rounders to go ahead and take the risk of jumping early? I mean, if I had a shot at making ~300k to sit the bench or play in the D-league, or in the ‘worst’ case scenario go play for 100k (and probably room and board) in Europe, I’d jump. Hell, I’d go now if they want 5’81/2 (the half counts) slow white guy.

I don’t see this as his best move at all.
 
He was going to be the featured scorer at a major university program in a guard oriented offense with another year of physical development under a great S&C guy. Every year, college basketball has guys who weren’t projected high who grow into their game in a feature role and end up in the lottery and/or vastly improving their stature.
 
Coming as a possible 2nd round draft choice in a shaky labor market is a bad throw of the dice. The idea is not to get into the NBA. It’s to also give yourself a chance to remain there.

It’s pretty clear that Joseph had one and done set in his mind, whatever the situation.
 
Barnes needs to figure out a blended model of elite one and done talent paired with four year guys soon. Of course, one could argue that he has missed on his four year guys over the last couple of years and that’s what makes these early departures particularly painful.

ut-06 -
 
There is good money to be made in Europe and if it were you or me, we’d be happy to carve out a ten year career in Greece and Spain if the NBA didn’t pan out. But many of these guys aren’t happy living in Europe and labor conditions can be a bit primitive.
 
A lot of these guys live in pretty narrow worlds.

Wangmene, Chapman and Brown are your returning schollie players.

somewhere ipowers is both laughing and crying.

would have been nice to have had shawn williams and varez ward, or two warm bodies that aren’t freshmen coming back next year.

As a Longhorn consumer I’m not feeling much brand loyalty to our basketball team with a revolving door of free agents.

I’ll expand on Scipio’s “it’s not just about getting there, it’s about staying there” point with something I wrote on another board:

Your first NBA contract will not set you for life (although it’s a lot sweeter if you’re a lottery pick). If you’re in the second round and staring at a non-guaranteed deal, things are even shakier. On the flip side, even NBA JAGs can land $25 million guaranteed deals on their second contract. From the second you get drafted, you’re in a race with everyone in the league and everyone who’s going to enter the league over the next few years to hang on to a roster spot at your position somewhere in the league and land that second deal.

Guys who can truly run the point at the NBA level are rare, and will get a lot more latitude to figure things out. Cory isn’t one of those. Guys with the size and athleticism to be effective at the 4 or 5 are rare, and will get a lot more latitude to figure things out. Cory definitely isn’t one of those. Cory has the size and athleticism to hold a spot as a combo guard in the league, but he is absolutely nothing special as an NBA athlete. He owes it to himself to be as polished and skilled as possible before he starts that race with ALLLLLL those other guys to earn a second NBA contract. If he declares this year, he’s not giving himself that chance.

I wish him all the luck in the world, but I think this was a bad decision for Cory as well as for Texas.

I’d love to know what Barnes said to Cory when discussing the wisdom of a jump to the league I’d REALLY love to know what Cory said ABOUT Barnes when discussing the jump with others.

Since when does a third/fourth scoring option with minimal athletic skills on a college basketball team go one and done? Something’s not adding up here and I’m not talking about CJ’s decision making process in and of itself. Good article material. After researching some things and talking with some folks I’ll write it.

maybe his parents want to act as his agents too. Weird decision.

I like what nobis60 said there — Joseph has the physical profile of a combo guard, but those guys are a dime a dozen. If that’s going to be your role in the NBA, your skill level better be maxed out.

Suddenly feels right why The Drum sounds like a fucking mausoleum for home games. No loyalty from players= no loyalty from fans. Revolving door……

hogwallop, that’d be an interesting theory if there was any evidence of the Drum being loud when we had more consistency in the teams.

Scipio I had the same thoughts in regards to blending one and dones with program kids, it may just be that he has missed on several of the program kids that has left us in this mess.
It took 5 years for Hill to even be serviceable. Meanwhile, Duke and Butler’s success has come primarily from playing a core group of 3* level players who can function well as a team.

Ball movement and team defense beat the hell out of reckless NBA talent.

I watched almost every game of John Wall’s rookie season. As good as Wall is, he had his hands full most, if not all, nights against grown men of greater size, experience, and skill … not to mention the grind of 82 games compounded by all of the travel. That said, John Wall would run circles around Cory Joseph in every aspect of the game.

After growing up watching the Weltlich teams, it’s hard to believe that we as a fanbase are now actually asking for Texas to recruit less talented players.

Bingo Art. I bleed burnt orange but have no interest at all in the basketball team and why should I? Some of these guys could become legends like Earl and Vince but cant seem to see past next yrs. $$. Coming back to the 40 at middle age to celebrate anniversary of a natl. title is something that money cant buy. Real question is how does coach K keep them in school.

Elite players who go to Duke want to accomplish something in college basketball

Elite players who go to Texas want to put themselves in a position to get drafted ASAP

Barnes is running a glorified NBA prep school, not a college basketball program.

Scipio sez: “Barnes needs to figure out a blended model of elite one and done talent paired with four year guys soon.”

The incoming class would seem to be a great example of this. Kabongo is probably the only real threat to leave early, but the rest aren’t exactly scrubs.

Maybe focusing on getting Texas talent a little more would help. Gibson, Aldridge and CJ are all counter examples but it seems worse. I don’t consider DJ from Texas btw

NO BRAINERS
TJ Ford
LaMarcus Aldridge
Kevin Durant
DJ Augustine
Tristan Thompson

FLIP A COIN
Jordan Hamilton
PJ Tucker

SHOULD HAVE STAYED
Maurice Evans
Daniel Gibson
Avery Bradley
Damion James (JR)
Corey Joseph

Barnes is running a glorified NBA prep school, not a college basketball program.

Findlay Prep Austin Campus

Barnes is turning into a poor man’s Calipari. What happened to his ability to develop 3-4 year players, was that just a mirage? We’re recruiting at a level higher than at any other time in the program, yet we’re producing some of the shittiest teams of the Barnes era. Good look making the tourney next year. I hate you Rick Barnes.

He will not be drafted. He will try out for a team, make the D-league, give up after 2 years and go make some dough in Europe.

Cheerleaders on their period have left more of a mark on the floor than CJ did this season.

I think the Big Jerk’s prediction is a likely scenario.

Saying “this was really the best decision for Joseph” was essentially the same as saying “this was an inevitable decision for Joseph”. He knows he was never going to be a lottery pick, but he appears to have been set on one-and-done before setting foot on campus. Coming out of high school, he was projected as a second-round pick. After recent workouts, his best hope is that he’s a still a second-rounder, helped by the dearth of point guards in this year’s class. If he stays another year, he’s facing a deeper draft class and even with improvement, he’s still a second-round choice. Rather than work on his skills here, he’s chosen to work on them in a professional environment with longer hours and better coaching. There’s no personal ties or loyalty to keep him here. Texas was just the latest stop on the Cory Joseph Development Course. This, by the way, isn’t necessarily bad – it’s just the current nature of the business.

JihadiHorn –
My uncle’s name is David. Unfortunately, neither of us bend it as well as our better-known namesake.

Barnes needs to figure out a blended model of elite one and done talent paired with four year guys soon. Of course, one could argue that he has missed on his four year guys over the last couple of years and that’s what makes these early departures particularly painful.

He actually did put together a pretty good mix. Between last year’s team and this one, he had eight four-/five-year players, plus the two transfers. What he failed to do was to properly mix those talents last year, and to develop Balbay, and Hill, Wangmene or Chapman. If the latter two were thought of as close to being statistical replacements for Thompson and Johnson — that would be 25 points and 15 boards, good but not great stats — we wouldn’t be sweating things that much.

Maybe I’m grasping at straws, but I’m thinking that because they are the main options, they’ll be worked into the offense better and actually produce significantly more next year than what they’ve done in painfully limited time up to now.

As for Joseph, he wasn’t going to be the main ball-handler. Not next year, probably not the year after. In terms of marketing, It may be better for him to get what he can now as opposed to waiting a year or two and being proven not to be a PG — or at least, not good enough to play the role at Texas.

But, in any event, this is the Barnes’s model, and he is constructing it again with this class, and the possibility of re-snagging Daniels and the commitment of Ridley for 2012.

We’re recruiting at a level higher than at any other time in the program, yet we’re producing some of the shittiest teams of the Barnes era.

Say what? This year’s team is easily the fourth-best Barnes has had, and it was incredibly limited in some ways. Despite that, he came in way ahead of expectations.

Last year’s team reached No. 1. It’s what happened after that that was so dreadful.

The last month of each of these seasons has stunk. That’s what people remember.

That’s the part of the season that counts. You think Butler fans give a shit that they had a forgettable regular reason this year?

Expanding the tournament to include every team with a pulse has made the regular season almost pointless, it’s only purpose is seeding – it’s like qualifying for the Indy 500, no one gives a shit after the race starts. The fact that we reached #1 two seasons ago just made that collapse even more humiliating as we were bounced by another shitty team in the tourney.

Who says that preseason rankings determine whether a team has overachieved? It’s obvious TT was a much better player than people had given him credit for, that point was obvious by the second game of the season. It’s not like Barnes molded him into a great player. We all saw what that team was capable of in February, it was Barnes’ job to sustain it, and of course, the team fizzled again and we couldn’t even make the second weekend.

We haven’t done jack shit since 2007, the year where we got to play in Houston against an overrated Stanford club that sucked ass outside of the brothers Lopez.

“We haven’t done jack shit since 2007, the year where we got to play in Houston against an overrated Stanford club that sucked ass outside of the brothers Lopez.”

agree

I think next year’s team will be impossible for Barnes to “lose”, not enough superstars to piss off and not develop any chemistry, so I think we’ll be ok. His Final4 team basically had that 1 superstar and a bunch of blue collar guys, so all we need is a dream draw in the tourney like that year, we’ll be really happy come end of next March.

If the regular season is prologue, Barnes gets no credit for retooling the offense (even though that offense pretty much disappeared late in the season), no credit for having one of the best defenses in the nation, no credit for winning at KU for the first time and breaking the long losing streak at A&M.

If they had lost those games, which would not have been that big a deal at the time, then they would have come in at 11-5 in the B12, tied for second, or third alone (which was where they were predicted), with a seed pretty much what they got (as they got a bad seed), maybe lower. Then they would probably would have gone out in the second game with a strong effort.

The results wouldn’t have been nearly as devastating. That’s why I will not concede that the regular season means nothing — without it, people wouldn’t be as ticked off. There’s no question that Barnes screwed up last year and this year. His record is still stellar compared to 97 percent of the coaches out there right now.

The loss of Thompson without adequate backup is the big problem for next year. He’s still working to remedy that, as best I can tell, and if not, for 2013. If next year is the NIT, well, that’s hardly a program killer, as Jim Calhoun, Jim Boeheim, Billy Donovan and Thad Matta can tell you.

As far as Butler goes, of course they were excited about making the FF again. Brad Stevens had everything to do with Old Dominion missing a boatload of layups, or Pitt committing a bonehead foul with less than a second to go, after his star player did the same thing, or Florida jacking threes in last-shot situations not once, but twice.

People just don’t understand that the tournament is where luck plays a huge part. Talent puts you in position, but the tournament doesn’t confirm what your coach has accomplished; it only tells you about the two teams that played that day. It makes no sense to judge a coach solely on one game when they play 35.

Hear, hear!

I can’t wait to read Trip’s thoughts on this, but Barnes definitely needs to reconsider recruiting kids from these basketball factories because it’s obvious they don’t a give a shit about college basketball or Texas, this is just something they have to put up with.

Which is fine, and they can still be major assets but you can’t build a program around them, unless you’re willing to sell your soul like Calipari (although we may be leasing our’s – who’s to say).

 Would like to see us focus more in-state, and hopefully humoring John Lucas’ kid will help with that. I’d also like to see us focus more on kids that are outstanding basketball players but aren’t necessarily dream NBA prospects (you know, like most Duke players).

Also, I know that our fans suck and the FEC is a piece of shit basketball arena, but Barnes just received a $200,000 raise, which puts him at $2.4M a year and the 8th highest paid coach in the country. Our money spends as well other programs’, right?

It makes no sense to judge a coach solely on one game when they play 35.

Three years ago there was an impressive stat for UT basketball, we had FIVE Sweet Sixteen appearances in seven years, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2008. THREE Elite Eights during that time, and one FF in 2003.

2009 – Win vs Minn, lose vs Duke
2010 – Lose first game to Wake Forest
2011 – Win vs Oakland, lose vs AZ.
2012 – unlikely to make the tourny
2013 – If Kabongo stays for year 2, lots of potential, but recent trends predict not

If you’re going by trend lines, Barnes may have peaked in 2003. I love the guy, but the vibe I’m getting is that we’re not going to sniff the FF again with him unless he pulls a rabbit out of his hat in brings in some transfers so 2012 is not a bust.

meant to add at the end of my sentence, “and we don’t lose momentum as a program.”

wasn’t saying we could make FF in 2012 with transfers, unless it’s Kevin Durant and Aldridge.

Karl Willock and Bill Wendlandt, where are you?

Texoz, wins per season is up as tournament performance declines. He did an excellent job this year getting this group to No. 2. Recruiting since the FF has steadily improved and remains good. Unless you focus on the tournament, there’s no way you can say 2003 was the peak.

I’m as bummed about the mercenary nature of Texas basketball now as anyone but I think the quick write-off of next years’ team of not even being likely to appear in the tournament is unwarranted and hasty.

Let me remind everyone that with J’Covan Brown in year 3 and Myck Kabongo we could still have one of the best backcourts in the conference and it wouldn’t be the first time Barnes and Wright got significant improvement out of some forwards.

I see next year’s team as a likely high seed (thinking around 6) with the possibility of making noise in the early rounds.

That said, I agree with everyone who thinks we need to do a much better job of targeting and developing program players.

We’re going to need to score a shit ton of points next season because our defense is going to be atrocious, 2006 worthy. We still have a good shot because elite PG play can take you a long ways, even with serious warts. If you put a gun to my head I bet we make it as an 7-8 seed and lose in the first game.

I’m always a pessimist. Unless they get Daniels, a tournament bid is gonna be a struggle, and that doesn’t fix the frontcourt.

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