>Folks are out here acting like he was Rick Barnes on offense.

... and I just made good money fading Rick Barnes in the tournament this year for this very reason, lol...

... but in the name of fairness, Rick Barnes, in his first six seasons at Texas, had four Top 20 offenses compared to Shaka's none. And won a Big 12 regular season title. And nine tournament games. And 73 conference wins to Shaka's 51.

Now, if you asked me to take a coach heads up, I take Smart over Barnes, because I like what Shaka did at VCU over anything Barnes has ever done. Like I said, I'm not a Barnes fan... but at a certain point, it's gotta be hard for Texas fans to ignore the results. Shit, it's been hard for me too-- I've been fading Texas against the spread gambling the last two years and have a winning record doing so.

As you said elsewhere, and as I agree with, it's a good time for him to move on. The cupboard would be fairly bare next year (transfer market pending), and next year wouldn't go well for him in all likelihood. So him controlling his destiny and going to get a fresh start will hopefully serve him well.

And I realize I'm not savvy to some of the recruiting pressures a job like Texas may carry, but hopefully Marquette will allow him to recruit system players and run a system that yields more efficient results than the ones he got at Texas.