🏀 KuBuckets Archive

First, let me be frank.

What follows is not kicking Texas, when they are down, as they would likely kick us, if they ever had the chance.

What follows is just an honest description and assessment from this old fan's POV.

Texas blows.

They are maybe the worst looking 10-19 team I have seen.

At times they do not even appear to have practiced together.

Quite a deterioration from the last meeting, when I thought they looked quite a bit sharper.

I never saw a Shaka Smart team back east look, or play, like this one, even in losses.

Shaka Smart looked like Shell-Shocka Smart. Shaka looked like he had no clue how to make his team play like a team. He looked like a coach that knew his players had quit listening--quit believing he knew what he was doing.

While Shaka has rubbed me the wrong way at times--don't most opposing coaches sometimes?--I have always respected him for getting his players to play hard and getting them to run his system, whether I liked it or not.

Tonight's performance by his team was an embarrassment and a negative reflection on him.

Shaka needs to elevate his dobber and start demanding his players man-up. He needs to focus on seven guys that want to hold the court in maker take, not just relive their AAU salad days. He needs to start drawing up some stuff that will work, however simple it has to be for his troubled team. He needs to play who ever will play hard, even if it means going 0-fer the rest of the way. Shaka could be a good coach, but the has to quit thinking its him against the world. He's in a profession. Listen to Self. Get three guys that can make plays. Get some glue guys. Hope for a rotation of eight, settle for seven. Play good defense. Find an offensive scheme that doesn't take rocket scientists to figure out. Have a thousand page play book but only use 20 pages. Show the players how nauseated their mistakes make you. Smile big at the good they do. Think next. Indoctrinate them that they don't leave a buddy on the battle field. Team, team, team.

It looks easy, but its not. Better start now.

And thank Bill Self again for not running the score up on you.

Memo to Shaka: It was professional curtesy 2.0.

Zero doubt IMHO.

Coleby and Bragg would not have played 16 minutes combined otherwise. One of them would have gotten the minutes and it wouldn't have been the guy with the trick knee. He wouldn't have let Svi stink up the floor the way he did. And Bill would have given them some wrinkles to run instead of letting them labor. He would have given Frank and Josh something to do instead of just letting them stand out their and shoot clankers.

Notice how little they ran the weave, Shaka? That was to try to keep your hapless guys legs under them. A lot of weaving would have most o your perimeter guys spent and fouled up.

Those times when KU separated to plus 14? They would not have defended the lead back down to 9. He would have stretched it to 20 and kept it there, or just stepped on your throat and blown you out.

Self deftly modulated a respectable 11 point loss for your AD and your Chancellor to save face with. Self got some work for Coleby in the quid pro quo.

The KU impact players got reminded how hard it is to score, when the old coach is making you find a way to win on your own. For sure the KU players will be hanging on every word Self gives this week about wrinkles to work on for the post season.

Welcome to the big time, Shaka.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Self just used a little professional curtesy to keep from killing you.

So you'd get stronger.

He's collegial that way about fellow coaches.

Treat him right some day, if he gets sideways as he surely will sooner or later.

You owe him two just from this season.

Rock Chalk.!

Man, +1000! Nail on head. Your mention of the phrase "up his dobber", referring to Shaka himself needing to dig down within himself to pull out something more effective...made me think macro, and big-picture, and generational. That is an old colloquial phrase. My contention is that Shaka does NOT have anything else within himself. He was a new-cool coach 6 yrs ago, but now has been exposed as a flash-in-pan with 2 weeks of cinderella fame in 2011, but what's his trajectory been since then?

@jaybate-1.0 is perfectly right to call out TX as a VERY poor-looking product, especially at this point of the season. I would postulate to anybody that this current TX roster is more talented than anything VCU ever had. So one could counter that that 1 VCU golden lineup with Skeen, Rodriguez was an experienced, dangerous midmajor (which they were). But this only condemns ShakaTXedition, as not being able to integrate and use his talent in-season, especially after 25+ games? We see Jamie Dixon's and Chris Beard's teams play better. Eventhough they may also not make the Big68, they look FAR better coached, as 1-yr products. We know what Calipari does routinely with a whole stable of fresh-faced frosh almost every year.

It's also been said by another bucketeer on another thread that, OK, now that TX has Shaka, they can go hire whoever they want for the all-important football coaching hire, without taking more flak for firing Charlie Strong, then also firing Smart. OK, then we arent talking basketball, we are now talking appearances and PC stuff, and big picture stuff.

But, speaking as a college bball fan and observer, what we saw on the floor by TX makes you wonder if Shaka is talking basketball with his team? The soundbite from when he was mic'd in practice was that "if Josh is in the corner, something's coming..." Well, Josh was in the lower corner, and drove baseline and dunked uncontested, in electric fashion. If Shaka's team quit listening to him, kinda like maybe Brucie Weber's team may have quit on their season, then that is more damnation for Shaka.

Did TX look like they were defending their home court? Did they play & fight like cornered junkyard dogs?

Oh, and 1 final question: Just what the heck is Shaka Smart's "identity" as a coach? I still cant figure it out, between his lackluster last 6 years, his subdued sideline demeanor, and his uneven, poise-lacking/no-plan on-court product.

Professional courtesy? I think that is simply being polite and kind. For our OkieSt Cowboy (Self) has quick-drawed and shot Shaka dead how many times straight now? Last season, in Erwin Center, I think it was a near 30pt beatdown.

This game, since Frank, Devonte, Svi (gawd!), Josh all had subpar games, KU and Self only proved, that walking into TX home turf, you can still beat Shaka, armed with .22short. If KU only hit their missed layups by multiplayers, and hit only their season avg from 3, this would have been another 20+ point beatdown. That's with Self's same gameplan and substitution patterns. Im counting a lot of missed bunnies and 3s from the actual gamefilm. We would have went 90+ on poor Skunka Smarting...

Shaka has never had to rebuild a program before. He inherited VCU from Anthony Grant along with that style of play. He's in his 2nd year at Texas, rebuilds don't happen overnight even for coaches who do them regularly. They're probably losing Allen and Cleare and Yancy are graduating, they return everyone else so they'll be better next year.

Shaka has until theor new arena is completed to do something and with as long as that's taking, he'll be in Austin for awhile

I keep going back to @JayHawkFanToo's Shaka warnings … he never won a conference title. Ever.

@Texas-Hawk-10 Great information to know. Again, I agree that Shaka will be at TX for a while, for many reasons alluded to in other threads. There is a political component.

Personally, I am glad he'll be in conference, as I truly wanted Self to have a shot at him to prove whatever the facts prove, game after game after game after game...beyond a shadow of a doubt. So, while I do not hide my naysaying/doubting-Thomas perspective of Shaka's coaching cred, I relish KU facing his products for a few more years.

Other corollaries to this discussion: As @HighEliteMajor pointed out, Shaka has put a lot of evidence into the books now. And, regarding Anthony Grant, where is he now? Last I recall, didnt he get fired from Alabama a couple of years ago?

If I was to pretend to post like the legion of anti-KU fans out there in college basketball, I could say Self has given multiple evidence of Bucknell, Bradley, Stanford, WichitaState, UNI, VCU...But then, despite all that evidence, he somehow finds himself in the discussion for HOF? Gosh, how does that happen?

Hmm, is Shaka getting the short end of the stick? Or did he create his own short-lived schtick? Hey, lets wait longer and see what further evidence Shaka adds to his mountain, with another couple of years at TX. I was told that THIS year TX would be better. Cannot deny that BurntOrange Nation also thought TX would be a lot better this year. Their boards were speculating top 4 in the BigXII for this year.

Meanwhile, I'm very leery of 2 other Texas teams, as they very likely could get our goat, if we dont bring our A game next season. TxTech and TCU.

@jaybate-1.0 Absolutamundo!! I don't dislike. Shaka anymore, now that he has had Big 12 servings of humble stew.
This is Shakas chance to learn from literally the best coach in the conference.

I just f.inished watching the game cuz I was out last night Self would have pulled Svi after the first missed trey and the first turnover...well maybe second. Vick was having a great game and I'm glad Coleby got a chance to do some things out there.

Side note, Freeiking Bill Walton