Shooting From the Corner: (11)Texas Longhorns at (6)Butler Bulldogs

Texas' season is finally over after losing to the Butler Bulldogs 56-48. It's unfortunate that the effort outgoing senior Jonathan Holmes put into this game was wasted, because he's the only reason Texas was ever in this game. Thank you for all your work, Jonathan, you've been a hell of a representative for this program over the last 4 years. I hope you get to play for a paycheck somewhere this fall.

I'm not going to go into a full post-mortem on the season, but it seems pretty clear to me that this should be Rick Barnes' swan song as the Texas head coach. This is his 2nd worst coaching job since he's been at Texas, and he's losing the confidence & enthusiasm of the UT faithful. I don't see how Barnes survives this year if Patterson really cares about revenue, because next year's going to average about 2,000 fans per home game. Honestly, I don't even really want to write about a Rick Barnes team next year, it's just depressing.

Positives

• I get to watch games with friends at Lockhart Smokehouse on Saturday instead of worrying about writing another recap.
• Jonathan Holmes went down fighting, scoring 15 points and being basically the only spark on the offensive end for Texas. Kudos to him for giving max effort.
• Isaiah Taylor had a solid game as well, and were the refs not calling carrying rules from the 1950s he might have gotten Texas over the hump late in the game.
• At least everyone else in the Big 12 sucks, too.

Negatives

• Everything else. Seriously, that was some of the ugliest basketball I've seen all year. Everything Texas was doing well the last 3 weeks, they did poorly today. Some of it was Butler's doing, but a lot of it was self-inflicted. Cuts were round curls, wings & guards were tentative with their decisions, big men were being pushed around by smaller guys...it was bad all around.
• Until Patterson makes his decision, we're in limbo in every possible way and dealing with some of the worst perception this side of Syracuse. Maybe if Barnes cans his entire staff he gets another year, but I don't see that flying with the fans(especially given the recruiting pain that will cause with Lanier/Lucas getting dismissed).

I'm ready for baseball season.