Change recruiting tactics

O

old65horn

1,000+ Posts
I am tired of these one and doners we keep recruiting.

Give me a Gary Johnson, Brandon Mouton, Royal Ivey, Brodicker and Brockman(if that's his name) and let all these phenoms go to Kentucky and Uconn.

At least Ford, Augistin(SP), and Aldridge gave us two years. And to the NBA, ".....and the horse you rode in on". I still have not watched an NBA game since Bill Russel and Wilt Chamberlain were playing.

If more people did the same, this crap would stop.
 
These kids fit into Barnes' main goal, which is to get players to the NBA. So he will keep recruiting these players. Winning championships is not as important to him.
 
So if Kevin Durant says he wants to come to Texas, you think we should say "no thanks"?

Gray Johnson, Brodicker? Brockman? You'd think if a player is here for 4 years, you'd learn their names...
smile.gif
 
I'm just sayin'. He fits Barnes' mantra of getting players to the NBA, but was not a great University of Texas basketball team player and certainly did not get us anywhere near a championship (or even a final 4). He played one year, scored a bunch of points, and took a team that should have made the sweet 16 (at least) to the 2nd round of the tournament.
 
I understand your point, busterbrown, and it's a fair one. But remember that aside from Kevin Durnant that was still a pretty young team. D.J. Augustin, Damion James, Matt Hill -- guys that stayed at Texas longer than one year -- were also true freshman.

As badass as Kevin Durant was (and I still think you take that kind of talent at Texas regardless of knowing he's a one-and-done), I don't necessarily agree that the 2006-2007 team should have gone past the second round.
 
I say take everyone you can get. Depth and guard play is what wins tournament games. The more the merrier, whether they're one-and-done or not.

You don't need year-to-year continuity to perform well under pressure... look at UNC or UK this year compared to last. But you do need depth, and that's something Barnes (well, technically his assistants like Ogden who recruited Bradley) has not done well at over the last 5 seasons. Our guards, none of whom were recruited for their abilities to manage a game, were overused and tired. When you have depth, that all changes.
 
Durant is still helping UT!! Recruiting, reputation, recruiting, reputation.

You need a blend of experience and fresh talent (maybe one and done, hopefully two year stars)

But you also need a coach who knows offense. (I got so pissed at Barnes during Durant's year because we seldom ran a play for him. we just tossed the ball to Durant and said go one-one.)
 
Durant has done a lot for our program by continuing to consider himself a Texas Longhorn despite not having a degree here. It's clear he considers his time at UT significant and that he was glad to be and wants to continue to be one of us, rather than just seeing it as an annoying stop he had to make on his journey to the pros.
 
Bob - I was not comparing apples to apples with Durant vs. Singler. I was just using an example. It was a hypothetical. You could plug in any great 4-year player into the example, regardless of when they graduated, where they wanted to go, etc. I am just saying, in a perfect world where I could choose between Kevin Durant or a really solid 4-year player, give me the 4-year player and let me build a program, instead of a NBA developmental team, which is what Texas has turned into.
 
That was not his only argument (that Singler was a top 5 player), but that is not really relevant to my argument either. Take Singler out of the mix and give me any 4-year college basketball player that improved over his career and he played on a team of players that was around with him (either upper classman that he played with for 2 years) or guys that came behind him that stayed for 3 years. I am sure you can find any number of guys that could fit into this category and that is who you could plug in instead of Singler. I don't have the time to look up that list right now, but I am sure everyone gets the argument I am trying to make (it is not exactly novel).
 
1. If you care about the players and not just the program, you can't begrudge any young man his chance to go pro. If they want to stay, by all means they should, but if they want to go and can, wish them godspeed. This is about their lives and the lives of their families for generations to come.

2. As far as benefit to the program, I agree that TJ and Durant have been huge assets to Texas basketball, precisely for reputation and recruiting. You can't win in college basketball without NBA caliber talent. And if you recruit NBA talent, some will leave early. The trick is to get a balance of superstars, probably a sophomore or two, with journeymen juniors and seniors. Just because we have never gotten that formula just right doesn't mean we should recruit only the journeymen.
 
Skeen. But even if by chance none gets drafted, I don't think we can take this VCU squad as a prototype for how to build a championship team. It's a fluke -- a fun fluke, but a fluke. I'd look at Carolina from 2005 and 2009 as better models for Texas.
 
With the level of parity currently, coaching matters. Being able to adjust on the fly against new competition (tourney format), and being able to manage close games are key to advancing in the tourney. Barnes weakness as an offensive BB mind coupled with his seeming inability to make quick offensive adjustments mean we are handicapped in the tourney. Any handicap in this age of parity (short college 3, and a lot of good talent), means that statistically it will be extremely difficult to advance far in the tourney.

We had the players this year to be in a final 4...we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, with a team that made the elite 8. We handily beat another elite 8 team (Kansas) during the regular season. And a final 4 team (Connecticut) had to make some miracle 3's to beat us during the regular season.

We still could have overcome all of it if Jordan had peaked during the tourney instead of mid-season. If Barnes would hire a great offensive assistant and delegate that side of the ball to him, I would be satisfied with everything else in the program and would feel we would have a chance for final fours and championships.
 
Given this random probability, shouldn't we have made it to the final game or won a national championship by this point? I guess Rick Barnes' coached teams are just unlucky.
 
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