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Forum nameOkay Sports
Topic subjectRE: I'm no fan of Rick Barnes...
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=8&topic_id=2733835&mesg_id=2734435
2734435, RE: I'm no fan of Rick Barnes...
Posted by MEAT, Sat Mar-27-21 08:05 PM

>... 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.

And then he spent the next ten years establishing himself as a man with good defense, shit offense, who's teams break from pressure at the end of seasons.

He also took over the program a year older than Shaka is now. Texas is a top 30 basketball program that's trying to buy their way into top 15, and it'll never happen. They NEEDED someone like Shaka to stick around and build and they seem fully invested in buying their way out of any problem.

>And I realize I'm not savvy to some of the recruiting
>pressures a job like Texas may carry,

There's not much pressure, stay in the good graces of the Lucas family, always talk to TJ Ford, find someway to get a foothold in Dallas and you're straight. That RB had to have a Canadian pipeline stronger than his Dallas one and it was just a givem exemplifies that the state is up for grabs. For hoops Texas is no different than U of H, Tech, TCU, SMU (when Larry Brown was there), A&M etc

The albatross isn't the system it's managing to build a team that can run with and close out Kansas on the perimeter, rebound with Baylor, and then have enough identity to avoid the rest of any conference traps so that you can make the 64. If you're chalking up 4 automatic in conference losses because you don't build against the top 2 programs you're a fool. So whoever gets the job better have a Kansas killer system, because you can't out recruit or out depth them, you have to build specifically to beat them.