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What this team's 9-1 (and a miracle shot away from being 10-0) start conveys is that Rick Barnes knows what makes for good team basketball, and the culture that had taken root in his program was one of "come here for the rssources to prepare you for the NBA" rather than playing basketball for the University of Texas. I think the roster, moving forward, will largely emphasize kids from Texas with that in mind. If you're thinking one-and-done, Texas likely will not the the place for you. Instead, come and meet the type of players we coach and see if this is something you want to be a part of while pursuing a college education.

I think last season was a HUGE wakeup call for Coach Barnes, and I think in him Texas has a really good coach who is showing he can learn and grow professionally even while sticking to the basics of good team basketball. Thank you, coach, for making the hard call to push reset. This in many ways that I suspect were not publicly visible.

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"What this team's 9-1 (and a miracle shot away from being 10-0) start conveys is that Rick Barnes knows what makes for good team basketball"

I'd probably slow down a bit with that statement, considering how poorly the team has done in some of the "team" aspects like zone defense and the transitional defensive areas. The #252 schedule in the country probably has more to do with the start than Barnes' ability to know what team basketball consists of. We could very easily get blown out by UNC and MSU, and go 4-14 in conference at this point, and that's not even an underestimation. The Big 12 is much better than pundits thought going in to this season.

I hope you're right about the type of recruits that we'll be pulling, however, you're not going to compete for NCAA tournament success without the type of players who come here for the resources to prepare them for the NBA. Heck, even Butler has had some NBA-types go through there in their epic tournament runs. Florida had stacked rosters in their championships. We're not going to win with high school gym warriors.
 
Play hard if you want to play. If you are not playing well you probably won't play as well. It really is that simple.

The competition this year has not been great yet. The team has played well enough to build on the early success. Maybe they will surprise and have a winning conference record!?! The bigs are playing better and the young guards might just be enough to make it happen.

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Horns11, where did you see that our schedule is #255 in the country so far? It is rated #105 by realtimerpi.com that basically uses the RPI formulas. That isn't bad. #105 doesn't look too wrong to me either. We have played some decent teams, though no top-20 teams yet (except may be BYU?) ...
 
I don't doubt that conference play will be difficult. But I like the direction things seem to be going, particularly in light of the drama from last year's team.
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Additional edit: I'm in no way against players coming to Texas and finding a career in the NBA. But I think that college basketball in a general sense is being held hostage to this overarching goal, and has lost a great deal of what it should contribute to the college experience for both students and student-athletes.
 
My excitement is tempered by the reality of our schedule to this point, but hey, I'm just happy to be excited about Texas basketball again.
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Realtimerpi only counts the opponent W/L record as part of their SOS formula. I was using Sagarin.
 
I'm not sure I'd say he's changed his recruiting philosophy - he's still gone after some stud players who were very capable of leaving after 1-2 years. But I do suspect that he's picked up on some guys that have been dubbed as "reaches". This certainly looks like a team that's being built for two years from now, and I suspect if it holds together and gets one or two pieces, it could be a really tough out.

Definitely refreshing to watch this group after the nightmare that was last season.
 
Hey, we could have played this schedule and lost several of these games - which we probably would have last year.
 
I'll gladly eat crow about last night's game. Holy cow... and with McDonald back too. Barnes picked yet another great time to show up Roy Williams... the "Mack Brown" of college basketball who lets other teams dictate the pace.

UNC's FT shooting was abyssmal, so at least it got the other team down for a change. Kind of like the Temple game all around, but much louder.

I'm a bit worried about two things: what kind of crowd will show up for the MSU game, and why we can't seem to stay in a defensive set. I think we would have ended up winning by 15+ last night if we had stuck with what was working by forcing hard transitions on the defensive side of the ball. Barnes slowed down the pace when UNC started to chip away at the lead, and it helped UNC more than us.
 
I was pleasantly surprised at the results last night. Just felt like a young team in a big time environment was a set up for a blow-out loss. Very proud of how the team competed.

I'm not sure I agree that Barnes intentionally slowed down the pace. The reality is that between them making more buckets and so many possessions ending in free throws, we just did have as many opportunities to push the ball after the rebound. So, I think both sides were 'forced' to paly more half court.

I stil thought our guards were very agressive at getting the ball into the paint. Something, we have been sorely missing in years past.
 
Updating the discussion on ratings and schedule strength, relatimeRPI has us at #20 with a SOS rank of #72. Sagarin has us at #50 with an SOS of #172. Looks like none of the measures are really figuring out where to place, us even after 11 games. We will see where it goes. This is so much fun, for the time being, as we keep winning.
 
Our latest RPI rank today is #24, with an SOS rank of #37
The latest Sagarin rank today is #50, with an SOS rank of #113
Average of the two is #37 with an SOS of #75.
 
One thing that should not be dismissed: while many moved on from last year's team to pursue personal goals, Jonathan Holmes stayed on and appears to be the better for his work (listening to the coaching, conditioning, etc). He appears that he is not only a pillar to this year's team but also may be playing at a level now that could earn him an audition to a professional league in the future. Way to go, Jonathan!
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For the first time in three years it is a team and not a bunch of guys who are out for themselves. Barnes has a group who will work and while they will struggle to do better than 9-9 or 10-8 in conference i like the potential and I like this team so much more than the last several.
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Updating the ranking and SOS discussion from above.

As of today, at 15-4, we are ranked 36th with an SOS rank of 38 in RPI. We are 45th with an SOS rank of 25, as per Sagarin. So, the average ranking is around 40 with a schedule that is about the 38th in strength.

Barring a serious 4-9 or worse collapse in the next 13 games (including the tournament first round), we are quite safely in the NCAA field. I think we will manage to finish at least 20-12 or 20-13.
 
This is the most fun Texas team to watch since Tom Penders left town. Barnes teams have always played ferocious defense, but to this layman's eyes the offenses were always chaotic and focused on getting the ball to the stars. Barnes has had more talented teams, but never this sort of team chemistry before.
 
Here are a few things I really love about this team. One, the average score totals per game of players with over 400 min...12.8, 12.5, 11.3, 10.8, 8.6. That's 5 starters battling as a team with no clear star carrying the offense.

Also, we have 7 more rebounds per game than our opponents. And finally, we have slightly less turnovers than opponents. All those things above tell me this team plays very hard, works as a team, and hustles to gain the little advantages. It's a very fun team to watch to say the least. About time we saw over-achievers in Texas uniforms in any of the 3 main men's sports. Last year was brutal all the way around. So refreshing.
 
No question for me that this team is the most fun team to watch in a while. The "clutch" shot can (and has) come from multiple players, anywhere on the floor and they rebound like bandits.

Love em!
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