Change recruiting tactics

Here's the actual history of how teams have performed:
The Link

#1 seeds are about 42%. #4 seeds are about 8%.

So if Texas played this year's tournament 12 times, they should make the Final Four about once statistically.
 
Well, that solves it, I guess. Rick Barnes is statistically a GREAT tournament coach.
bounce.gif
bounce2.gif


Wait. Why do I still feel like his teams have consistently underachieved?
 
There is a big presumption in the preceding analysis. That is that the teams arrived at their proper seeds. If the team underachieves during the season as well, it is seeded lower that it should have been with the talent. In that case, it is doubly underachieving if it doesn't exceed what it does at that seed.

Another presumption is of the randomness. Just like an individual shooter can get into a zone and for short stretches defy probability, a team can get into a zone as well. The elevated performance (peaking and/or streaking) may easily last for the duration of a tourney (6 games).

Also, I still stand by my thesis that coaching matters more when you have to game plan very quickly (only a day or two) between games against potentially new opponents. And coaching also matters more when playing teams of comparable talent.

Finally, we've made 1 final four, but we've been ranked in the top 10 quite a lot in the last few years. There is a disparity in that. Either we are constantly overrated during the season, or we underachieve. I don't think you can have it both ways.

One more post script is just watching our offense. I am a spurs fan and I can see the difference between an offense that generates good shots and assists and an offense that generates desperation one on one shots and turnovers.
 
Supporting my thesis is that the horns tend to start out of the gate well and fade towards the end of the season. Well, just like football, defense starts out ahead of offense. The level of coordination, and teamwork required for good offense tends to be difficult to achieve early in a season. Towards the end of seasons, offenses tend to start to peak in terms of execution and good offense will tend to overcome good defense.

Thus our pattern of late season swoons and failure in the tourney is not a coincidence with our emphasis on defense and our lack of improvement on offense over the course of a season.
 
Given the fact that we tend to fade late in the season, the probability that we are seeded higher than our talent is low, with the committees emphasis on late season performance. Frankly, I was infuriated this year to be seeded a 4 instead of a 3. I found no way to justify dropping us that low. But instead of proving the seeding wrong we tended to confirm it.

I also note there was no response to my subjective opinions of our offensive play. Basically, does are execution late in the season pass the smell test?

The original thesis of this thread definitely has some merit as well. We can't obtain the comfort level of an offense with players that have played multiple seasons with one another with the number of defections and freshmen replacements. Of course many other teams must contend with this as well. It is definitely one of the big coaching challenges of modern Div I. The need to install effective offenses that fit the players QUICKLY rewards coaching talent.

We all know that Barnes emphasizes defense, but in college ball the ability to shoot 3''s is huge. You need that ability to space the floor. That's one thing I've always admired about Duke, they virtually always have a number of knockdown 3 pt shooters that can also hit free throws. I think some more emphasis on recruiting shooters wouldn't hurt our offensive play.

I will say I think the combination of Joseph, Brown, and Hamilton forms the potential core of some great outside shooting (if Barnes doesn't suck the offensive life out them).
 
Funny thing, all the Duke fans complain about how unathletic the Duke team was (and how a really athletic Arizona team exploited that). So you can admire the 3 pt shots, but all of us Duke alums are complaining that we don't have any inside game nor any athletic wing slashers.

Again, it's the same tired "logic" from the same tired people in this thread. Damion James, Gary Johnson, Dexter Pittman are all 4 year guys. Johnson's been a steady guy for us, but you see more upside with him than with a Kevin Durant? Why are you using Singler as an example when he's an obvious outlier (and there are better examples in-house)?

Let's just say that Brad Stevens is having a CRAZY two years in the NCAA tourney for a mid-major.

As for your "feelings" that Texas is underachieving, I'm sure UCLA, Duke, Kansas, Pitt, Syracuse, et al are all feeling the same way. Currently, the only fans not feeling like underachievers are the 4 teams in the Final Four right now. Historically, based on recruiting, I think you can only point at UConn as consistently outperforming their recruiting classes. Kansas doesn't do it, Duke doesn't do it.
 
Yeah, fans of anybody that has a great freshman and some decent experienced depth thinks they're headed for the FF. It doesn't work that way.
 
1999: Texas (No.7) lost to Purdue (No. 10) in the first round
2000: Texas (No.5) lost to LSU (No. 4) in the second round
2001: Texas (No. 6) lost to Temple (No. 11) 79-65 in first round
2002: Texas (No. 6) beat Mississippi State (No. 3) in second round before losing to Oregon (No. 2) in Sweet 16
2003: Texas (No. 1) lost to Syracuse (No. 3) in the Final Four
2004: Texas (No. 3) lost to Xavier (No. 7) in the Sweet 16
2005: Texas (No. 8) lost to Nevada (No.9) in the first round
2006: Texas (No. 2) lost to LSU (No. 4) in the Elite 8
2007: Texas (No. 4) lost to USC (No. 5) 87-68 in the second round
2008: Texas (No. 2) lost to Memphis (No. 1) in the Elite 8
2009: Texas (No. 7) lost to Duke (No. 2) in the second round
2010: Texas (No. 4) lost to Arizona (No. 5) in the second round

Only once in 12 years, has a Rick Barnes' team defeated a higher seed in the tournament in his tenure: the 2002 win over Mississippi State in the second round.
Okay, statistically speaking what is the probability to almost never beat a higher seed? Obviously, you have to lose some time and it is great to make a final four or elite eight, but even when we make it that far, one always gets the feeling we have underachieved. Out of 12 years to not have overachieved significantly one time, is very telling to me.

Barnes has elevated the program with defense and recruiting. There is no doubt of that. But to ignore his failings is to embrace mediocrity.

To say the offensive schemes have been lacking just last year is to ignore the pattern that has been plain to many. Without some sort of super guard (DJ, TJ) to run the offense with unbelievable breakdown ability we become stagnant.
I was very excited at the beginning of the season when Barnes admitted the failings of last year's offense and had gone to a clinic to learn how to coach offense. We started off great with the new scheme, but when other teams adjusted, he could not readjust. That is the difference between a coach that is a great offensive coach and a coach that has learned a scheme.
 
bb16:

When I said you can't put 10 teams in the FF, what I meant was, each of the teams in the top 10 think, we should be there. I'm not saying that Barnes/Texas shouldn't think they can't be there if they're not a No. 1 seed. It's just that fans of a lot of teams think the same thing and they don't think any less of their programs than people on this board think of what UT should do.

You'd have a hard time finding someone more unhappy about how the Arizona game ended than me. I posted at length (not here) about just how bad I thought the design of the inbounds play was. IMO, Rick Barnes was the major cause of them losing that game. It still makes me angry when I start to think about it. But there's nothing any of us can do.

I don't know how you get from a general statement about how fans feel about their teams -- which is what both of those quotes are -- to believing that I am satisfied with just making the tournament.

Where I probably part ways with you is the amorphous "we should expect more." That's what I was getting at with the quotes you took out -- not only does everybody expect more, but very few ever are happy.

That was the upshot of a study I've mentioned here that a friend of mine did on a board of a long-time basketball school that has won NCAA titles. People who acknowledged that they were most critical of the program said they would be happy with two championships in ten years. They didn't say they would be happy the other eight years.

Of the teams that went to the FF with Texas in 2003, only Kansas has been back to the FF, one time. Bill Self should thank God every day for Memphis free-throw shooting and Mario Chambers. Otherwise, after losing to an 11 seed, the KU fans would be getting out the pitchforks. Syracuse hasn't gotten further than the S16. Marquette just made the S16 for the first time.

The tournament has random elements and it is hard to win, even for the very best coaches. It doesn't affirm your season. It just tells who had the better team that day, and even then, you're not always sure.

It's incomprehensible to me that Rick Barnes, having dragged this program on to the national stage over a number of years, suddenly has decided that it's time to coast. Staying within the guidelines, there just aren't that many coaches out there that aren't in destination jobs who would do better than Barnes has done at Texas. I know that I didn't believe him when he said he would do what he has done, but he did. But if you don't think a coach can win a NC, philosophically, would you keep him? That's a hard question, but if that's your goal, I suppose not. That doesn't make choosing the next coach any easier.

Barnes continues to recruit at a high level. That's what you need to be in the conversation every year. If that stops, then there may be something to worry about.
 
I said that Barnes had elevated the program. I don't want to go back. But if you base the decision not to go forward on current levels of success, we would've never traded Penders for Barnes, our most successful recruiter and tourney coach up to that point.

Barnes has great integrity and class. He has elevated the program to unparalleled success in the modern era. I don't really want to replace him. But as a parallel with the football program, I want him to grow as a coach, notice his shortcomings, and higher assistants to offset those shortcomings.

I don't really think it takes that major of a change, just a bit of delegation (to a fantastic offensive assistant), sharing of control and possibly credit. Just like Penders before him, Barnes has elevated the program and the outside awareness of the program to a point where fans can see the potential for more. In that sense, they were/are both victims of their own success.

If we can have championships in football, baseball, swimming, etc, then we can also have one in basketball. The prestige and publicity associated with playing for the University of Texas, is a sufficient lure to recruit at a high level, as long as the coaching also merits it.

I won't disagree with the fact that random events can have a huge impact on a one loss and done tourney like the "Big Dance." But I don't see just randomness in the unfolding of our tourney record. I see a consistent under performance of our game day coaching and our season long development of offenses.
 
It doesn't take a basketball expert to see that unless we have players that can create on their own, much of the time our offense is stuck in the mud.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top