Texas Coach Barnes not obsessed with title

Sorry Bob. I've looked and not been able to find the Rosner interview with Barnes.

Hook'em!!!
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Sorry, busterbrown16, but overstating a prospect's ranking while lambasting the coach for not getting more from a team with the player is not a trivial error. BTW, that first link was giving a composite score from several evaluators. I don't know of anyone other than ESPN using Scouting, Inc., that had Bradley as #1. Please let me know who did.

What is clear is that you overstated Bradley's ranking. Maybe you honestly and incorrectly believed he was some kind of consensus #1-2. Maybe you were deliberately overstating his rating. Either way, you are showing that you simply making stuff up to argue Barnes is a bad coach.

Which of course shows why you are unwilling to consider other factors, like how freshmen usually aren't nearly the players they become later in their careers, how recruiting sites sometimes get it wrong, how players who had a year away from competition might need extra work to get ready for games, etc.

Do you consider any of these things? Do you bother to analyze the indivual players' skills and physical attributes?

No, it's just "Barnes pissed the season away."

Well, the season isn't over, dude. I don't think any of us are happy with the results so far, but I would suggest a lot of people here were completely unreasonable in their expectations, when they were talking about undefeated conference seasons or even going 15-1.

I don't understand why Chapman and Hill have not developed into effective options in the post, but I can't tell you anything that might have cured it, can you? Having watched them play this year, I don't see how giving them increased playing time would have led to more wins. But I've said for weeks that I don't understand how the same coach that could turn Jason Klotz into a 29 minute a game player hasn't been able to get more from Chapman and Hill.

I don't understand why Brown can't concentrate and make better decisions all the time; how would you fix that problem? With him playing "who cares" defense and being more interested in making behind the back passes than moving with the ball to open up a passing lane, was keeping him on the floor when he made a mistake going to lead to more wins?

I don't understand why the team didn't play full court pressure a lot more, using depth and athleticism to overcome shooting deficiencies in a half court offense, but with Balbay and Ward out, that's pretty much a moot point, since Texas probably doesn't have the man power to play that way now.

Two or three weeks ago, I wrote something about each player's abilities, showing their strengths and limitations.
So I invite you to tell me what Barnes should have done with this team to get better results.

I don't mind constructive criticism. I hate unsupported rants about how the coach sucks.
 
Well Barnes certainly doesn't have to worry about winning the Big-12 tournament or March Madness with this team. First or second round exits in either case.
 
busterbrown16, I am serious; are you? I pointed out several things that I feel merit discussion/criticism of how Barnes has managed the team and developed players and invited you to add something. Instead, you quibble about whether I am a Barnes apologist and try to feign innocence for overstating a freshman player's credentials.

C'mon now. I've invited you to give us some constructive criticism about the team/Barnes. Are you utterly unable to do so?
 
bierce - again, over-stating a freshman's rankings by 2 spots. If we are going to generalize, at least add the modifier on there to paint the whole picture. It is not like I said the guy was #1-2 and he was #10. No, he was ranked #1 by ESPN and you picked out three publications that had him #4, #6, and #4. Well done, sir. Well done.

I will address your points because you obviously want to continue this discussion. I am not sure why as we clearly differ on where this program is and who is at fault for its current status.

I really can't explain the under-development of Chapman and Hill. Maybe it is too much reliance on Pittman and these guys never got ample opportunity. College is a guards' game. When Pittman comes out, we typically go with James and Johnson and sometimes that is still a bigger lineup than our opponent. I don't understand why you bring up Chapman and Hill anyway as they were never going to be any more than role players on Barnes' teams anyway. Or maybe it has to do with Barnes' inability to develop his big men. I mean, how can one explain the Pittman demise as the season has gone on? Is it Pittman's fault after building him up since his freshman year? Or could it be the lack of an offensive scheme to develop your big men?

With regard to Brown - Well, now you are taking info from my other posts and putting it in here. That is fine, because I stand by those comments. I just feel that it is impossible for a player to get into the flow of the game if he is constantly getting yanked for every mistake. When the season started going downhill, I think Barnes could have let the kids fight through their mistakes. I do agree that this cuts both ways. I truly believe that Barnes left Hamilton in the OU game @ OU (after Hamilton went nuts @ Okie State) and let him shoot 3-15 to show all of his critics that - this is what you get when you leave the kid in.

Not playing full court pressure sounds like a coaching mistake to me, so not sure what your point is. It is obvious that Bradley's on the ball defense got worse as the season went on. This has to do with the fact that guarding James Anderson is different than guarding the SG at Texas-Pan Am, but I also think the kid let the offensive side mess with his defensive side of the game. Barnes tried to get Bradley to take a leadership role and take more of the reigns on offense. Maybe that is not who Bradley is. Maybe he is just a stud defender and servicable on offense.

How I would have fixed this team? I am not positive how to answer that. I am not a basketball coach at a Division 1 school and do not claim to be. I am allowed to question the coach at the school I follow. I have provided some ideas in this thread and throughout the season. For example, not play Mason, let Brown and Hamilton work through their issues and grow as players, limit Pittman's minutes and go with Johnson and James in the middle, do not force Bradley on offense.

One thing I am almost certain Barnes needs to do is to get an offensive assistant coach in to the fold (an offensive coordinator, if you will). Barnes has always relied on one player to guide his offense (Ford, Durant, Augustine, even Tucker at times). If he did not have that one "go to" player, then the offense suffered. That is because Barnes is a very weak offensive coach and always has been. He is an excellent recruiter, a good defensive coach, and is great with the players (although this year has been a bit rough). Barnes' offensive sets (or lack thereof) this year have been the downfall of the team.
 
Thanks, busterbrown16, I do like hearing some reasonable critiques in lieu of "Barnes sucks" posts. Funnily enough, I share a lot of the concerns, which is why I put out some areas in which I questioned the handling of the team. In every instance I noted I wasn't sure of anything that could have been done that would have translated into more wins this year, because I don't know if we can point to anything as a solution other than to say the coach should have gotten better results. I agree with that. I'm just not sure how much better things should have been or could have been.

Yep, my comment about Champman and Hill was mainly a question about player development. They haven't shown sufficient improvement throughout their stay here. Hill does seem to be less mobile than he was as a freshman, but Chapman is kind of a head scratcher. I would have thought making him play ten minutes or so every game or redshirt would have been a better way to handle him, but I don't honestly see how that would have necessarily translated to more victories at this point, but I would thin the former would have better prepared him to contribute at this stage in the season.

On Hamilton and Brown, I don't know if there is any good answer there, either. While we might want them on the floor due to their offensive upside, neither plays defense well, though Hamilton has greatly improved since the beginning of the season, and both do completely idiotic things on offense at times--Brown with bad passes and Hamilton with bad shots. I don't think those things are due to them not being in the flow of the game because of rotational problems. I think it's just them.

Brown's defense has been pretty awful. Go back and look at his first 5 minutes in the OU game in Austin or the second half against Missouri. He doesn't have lateral movement to stay in front of his man. Hamilton is getting better, but too often he is late in reacting and is playing from behind.

Regarding their minutes, Hamilton really only had one stretch in which he was on the bench more than not (A&M 1 through Baylor 1). During that stretch, Texas's +/- was horrible with Hamilton on the floor, he wasn't playing defense worth a damn, and he was jacking up crap faster than he ever had before. I don't think Barnes had a good option at that point other than to take Hamilton out because he wasn't working in the offense at all. In the last ten games, he has looked a lot better in the offense, showing that he is willing to pass out of coverage and wait for the return pass to have an open look instead of forcing things.

On the press issue--a lot of us looking at this team preseason wondered about outside shooting or any kind of shooting for that matter. Going into the season it was a real issue. To me, the only way to minimize that kind of deficiency is to take the game out of the half court as much as possible. With 6 guards available, 4 of whom seemed to very, very accomplished defenders, I would have thought the natural tendency would be to press, run, trap, scramble as much as possible.

Early in the year it seemed like the team looked its best in playing that style. Even when it wasn't forcing turnovers, Bradley and Balbay would harrass opposing guards to the point where it took them 20 seconds to get the ball near the three point arc. That sort of stuff really limits an opponents' options on offense. But it never really seemed like that was going to be the regular strategy, as it was something done intermittently in games, and less and less as the season went on.

I don't get that at all. If your team has better athletes but the other team has better shooters, why aren't you doing more to to turn the game into a track meet?

So, yeah, I am not happy with this season, and I am not happy with the coaching job. I just don't know if any of us can lay it all on Barnes and not give some credence to the notion that we all got a little giddy with expectations and we all overvalued our players.

Now with regard to Bradley, not that I want to resurrect a fight here, it's not that I found a site that had him fourth. It was a site showing consensus evaluation, referencing over a dozen recruiting services and tabulating results from 6 or so. Yes, Bradley was a top 5 recruit; however, it should be noted that he was there primarily on the strength of his defensive game, and most scouts had a lot of questions about his offensive game. They saw he could dunk, he could finish at the rim, but he wasn't extremely adept as a ball handler or a shooter. He came here as a defensive stalwart/athlete, not as an offensive force. I really kind of think he's pretty much delivered as advertised.

Anyway, here's hoping for a win against ISU, some revenge against Baylor, and better things in the future.

I generallly like Barnes as a coach. I question what he's done, but I tend to try to look objectively at what he was working with. I don't think he did a good job this season, but I think expectations were too high if one expected a Final Four. Still, another season like this and I'll probably join the camp thinking there is a need for a coaching change.
 
bierce - thanks for the thoughts. I generally agree with most of what you say. And again, for the record, I don't want to get rid of Barnes. Not by a long shot. I just want to make sure he is not comfortable and understands that what he has done for the program is great, but we can do so much more. I want him to be the coach to do those things, but we can't wait forever. I think Barnes is too comfortable and he never has to worry about coming in one day and having a pink slip waiting for him. I would rather have a coach like this, because it means you have done well as a program, but we could do better.

I do think Barnes has done a bad job coaching this season (thus the pissing away the season comments). This team could have been special if the right moves were made (we will never know what the "right" moves were). All I know is that the moves Barnes made did not work. At least Barnes tried to make changes and did not just sit and watch the season go down the drain, but it really appeared every decision he made just made the problem worse (a little snake-bitten, if you will).

With regard to Bradley, he is an enigma. The guy has a great stroke and great extension and he takes good shots that a coach loves seeing a guy take. I have never seen a guy hit more shots off the rim in a seaon. It seems like the Colorado game from so long ago is the only game this year where the guy actually hit those shots instead of them clanging off the rim. I really hope he stays and works really hard on his game. I see some really special things out of the guy. He just needs to translate that into the games, game in and game out.

Can't really argue with the rest of your thoughts. This season has been very frustrating and I think we are all scratching our collective heads to figure out where it went wrong.
 
Of course, I've been suggesting at the beginning of each season that Texas will go to rotation of big bodies inside with a ten-deep all out bone crushing man to man defense formula like what got them to the Final Four, so what do I know?
 
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