Rick Barnes: 2007-2008 Big XII Coach of the Year

Way to go Coach.

Take the Horns to the Final Four!

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There might have been other coaches that could also be considered "deserving". However, I don't think that takes away from the fact that Rick Barnes did a damn good job this season and deserves recognition for it.
 
***** when we lose something, ***** when we win something. Anyone could rip anyone apart for whatever subjective award is given.

Barnes just won the Big XII coach of the year award and for that I say
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Still not sure I buy the 'Drew is hated by all Big XII coaching staffs' dribble. Pun intended.

Dare I say none of the staffs are really fond of one another- they recruit a lot of the same players, attend the same AAU tourneys and somehow along the way have to convince an 18 yr old their school/program is better than all the others.

EVERY program participates in negative recruiting. It is what it is.
 
There is a fair chance that Texas will have beaten three of the four 1 seeds going into the tourney.

Being underwhelmed about this season is revisionist history. If ANYONE on this board predicted Texas as conference champs and a 2 seed [possible 1] this year I dont remember reading it.

Best regular season in UT history after losing the player of the year = Coach of the Year.
 
I said they'd finish second in the league with around a 13-3 record, and felt they'd earn somewhere around a #2 or #3 seed.

And that's not revisionist.

I can't help it that no one else saw the many aspects of this team that would allow them to improve as much as they have. I found it to be simple common sense. And now the team and Barnes are being rewarded for this conventional ignorance.

Again, I do think it helps make up for the ridiculous criticism Barnes endured last year, which represented a much better coaching job than what he's done this year.
 
Yeah, SLX did post that they would finish 2nd and around 13-3 for conference.
I saw it anywhere from 14-2 to 12-4 and 2nd in conference. I thought that we would lose to UCLA and Wiscon. but never MIzzo. Some wins were surprises and a couple of losing games came as bigger surprises.

In reply to:
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Atchley has exceeded my expectations. Completely. And I liked the guy.

I figured Texas would lose to Tennessee, UCLA, and Michigan State, but beat Wisconsin. Of course, I didn't think Wisconsin would be this good, even after the start of conference play. I've been called out by AustinBadger for that pick and rightfully so.

In reply to:
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A lot of the responsibility for how poor the production inside has been is because they can't pass the ball to themselves.

Rogers is a very good basketball player. He's not a back to the basket player. Point production and rebounding are not direct indices of low post production. Damion James' stat line is better than Rogers', but I'm not putting him in the low block player list...because he's no more a low post player than Rogers is.

I'm not referring to anything about anyone's overall game, therefore Pittman's problems with defense or fouls don't enter the equation. I'm specifically referring to their ability to play with their back to the basket in the low post. Pittman is better suited for that than Kevin Rogers. He's better suited for it than Josh Lomers or Mamadouke Diene as well.

Chapman and Wangmene are better suited for a back to the basket game than Rogers as well. I'm not talking about 2 years from now. I'm talking about this year. Wangmene showed what he could do in the low post early in the year, then Barnes motherfucked him into oblivion, and decided Ian Mooney was a better option coming off the bench. Chapman hits a sweet turnaround jumper against Oklahoma State in the first half, then doesn't get another touch in the game...doesn't even play again.

That's not to say that the front court guys haven't had any problems this year, because they have, but the overall point that Texas has better low post players than Baylor still stands.
 
Pittman's problems are not limited to the defensive end. Dexter has a bad propensity for picking offensive fouls when he's posting up. It doesn't matter how good his moves are when he's practicing if, in live games, they're negated by him running over a defender in order to execute them.

Wangmene might have showed you what he could do down low, but the guy I watched had trouble finishing around the hoop and holding on to balls. I hope that someday soon, he'll justify the confidence that you have in him, but he was a tentative, somewhat undersized freshman in the low blocks this year.

Chapman has a turnaround jumper. Other than that, I have not seen him be a low post threat.

Both of those guys have showed some nice moves in flashes, but nothing to come remotely close to being a consistent low post threat. Yeah, I saw Wangmene's move across the lane at the end of the 2nd A&M game. I took note of Chapman burying a turnaround jumper over a defender. Those, unfortunately, were the exceptions to the rule.

Your overall point that Texas has better low post players is like pointing out the difference between bad and horrible. Yes, there's a difference...but at the end of the day, bad is bad. And, since you're willing to credit Drew for helping Baylor overcome this weakness, why not credit Barnes to a lesser extent for dealing with a similar problem? At least stop detracting points for it.
 
How many points am I detracting for it, exactly?

Again, I'm not saying Barnes should be fired. I'm saying he hasn't done as good a job this year as he's done in other years as the coach at UT, and that I think the job Drew did at Baylor was more deserving of conference coach of the year status.

Compare what Pittman does to what Diene and Lomers do, and get back to me.

Wangmene was fine in the early going, then became tentative after his confidence was shot by Barnes and his conference coach of the year coaching.

All Chapman needs is a turnaround jumper to be a low post threat. It's certainly all he needs to be a better low post threat than what Baylor had this year.

I maintain that if given more opportunities, and more patience from the staff and from their teammates, the low post game could have been much more productive than it was this year. Your stance seems to be that what we saw is all that these players could have possibly accomplished. I fundamentally disagree with that. I especially disagree that Barnes and the team got all they could out of the low post in the last three games, when they seemed to go out of their way to neglect it, and looked like **** in large part because of it.

It's not like I think Drew is the better coach. I don't. It's not like I think Baylor had a better season than Texas. They didn't. It's not like I think Baylor had no talent on their team, or that Texas had no deficiencies. It's my opinion coming into the season Texas had a lot more to work with, and did a good job of utilizing what they had. Baylor has almost no history of success, with a program that was rebuilt pretty much from the ashes. I think what Baylor accomplished is more deserving of conference coach of the year honors than what Texas did.
 
The sanctions levied against the Baylor basketball program were about as close to the death penalty as you can get. In four years, coach Drew has this program back on the fringes of the top twenty and NCAA tourny bound. Its been twenty years since SMU's issues, and they have yet to regain a position of relevance in the world of college football. You simply cannot understate the magnitude of what Coach Drew has done. If the criteria for winning COY is that you must also win the league, than that should be stated up front and there will be no need for any suspense.

I won't complain when Barnes wins any award, because I think he is a great coach, and generally under appreciated on the national scene. But that doesn't mean I think he is the most deserving of the Big XII COY award. Coach Drew has resurrected Baylor to a level NO ONE would have predicted 4 years ago. Recruiting is a huge key to success in college hoops and both coaches (Barnes & Drew) have recruited great talent on their teams. But the fact that Drew was able to recruit that talent to Baylor (**** location, **** athletics budget, **** campus, and a program prohibited from playing non conference games for a season) far outweighs any recruiting successes Barnes has had. I don't think most people realize the hurdles Drew had to clear. If I thought Drew was going to stick around Waco for the long term, I would pencil them in as our biggest BIG XII South threat year in year out. However, I don't think Baylor will be able to afford the guy, once the inevitable big schools come calling. IMO his accomplishments the last several years dwarf those of Barnes (and Barnes were pretty damn good).
 
the main thing I have problems with is the dribble around and jack **** up offense that we fall into when our team gets lazy, never feeding the ball inside and it seems like the coaches let it happen without chewing ***.
 
I can agree with every single point of that post, other than maybe Rogers is as good an inside guy as James Augustine at least at this level.

It's not like I look at Scott Drew or Frank Martin and go, "Whoa! Watch out for THESE two!" I just feel like given where those programs were coming from, this year was a much better year for them than it was for Texas, given where the Longhorn program was coming from.

Honestly, based on your last post, it looks like whatever differences of opinion we have is more like splitting hairs than anything else.

I think you make perfectly legitimate points.
 
I've been a little surprised, but Barnes is sweeping the awards.

This tells me that a lot of people who don't post on this board actually believed the bile that Bill Simmons was spewing last year. The idea that Texas possibly could have a top-10 team without Kevin Durant automatically would mean he did a great job.
 
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