1. Abilene Christian is who we thought they were.
As expected, Abilene Christian played defense the way piranhas consume their prey. Chaotically. Physically. Bloodily.
We knew this would pose problems for Texas. It was not surprising that Texas had problems with this style of play. We’ve seen it against Texas Tech, and Texas Tech is to Abilene Christian as saltwater crocodiles are to alligators. We hoped the Longhorns would be big enough, strong enough, good enough to handle the junior version.
They weren’t.
2. Hero-ball killed Texas.
The biggest legitimate criticism that can be placed on Shaka Smart is that he didn’t break his guards of the tendency towards hero-ball when the pressure rose. It wasn’t just last night. It happened again and again this season—one of the three guards (mainly Matt Coleman and Courtney Ramey) putting their head down and trying to create something off the dribble, often going one on five. Not only did this not work, but it disabled the best things Texas’s offense had going for it: transition baskets, catch-and-shoot threes, and Jericho Sims.
This is what killed Texas. And again, we saw it coming.
3. How predictive are tournament results of future tournament results?
The argument from the haters is that Shaka Smart hasn’t won a game in this tournament in his six years in Austin. To the extent that his teams haven’t been good enough to win those games, that’s a fair critique. But they’ve been good enough. All three have been painfully close, and basic sporting statistics remind us that if you’re playing a team within one possession, the game was pretty much a tossup.
Is this great? No, of course not. It implies one win in six years is the true output of Smart’s time in Austin. But basing the entirety of one’s opinion of a coach on three games, rather than the entirety of their work, is stupid. It’s just stupid. Phenomenally stupid. Can those games be a part of it? Sure. But there’s no magic difference between the Big 12 Tournament and this tournament, and there’s no magic difference between the regular season and single-elimination basketball. There are differences, yes, but they’re small. Small enough to be reasonably meaningless. This game was a low point, and it came at the worst time, but it’s one of three low points. If an argument’s going to be made against Smart, it should be that his best team in six years was hardly in the KenPom top 25. That’s a fair argument. Obviously, I would still recommend keeping him, because I love him and he’s cool and his teams have figured a lot of things out, but if you’re arguing to get rid of Shaka Smart, make that your argument: That even his Big 12 Tournament winners weren’t really one of the twenty best teams in the country.
It would be wild if Shaka Smart were fired. Could he leave voluntarily, having seen the Coleman class through? Possibly, but that too seems highly unlikely. There’s a lot of emotion right now (and that’s justified), and surprises do happen, but Shaka Smart is probably going to be here for another year. Which brings us to:
4. What’s the expectation for next year?
Kai Jones would be gambling in a big way were he not to go pro. Greg Brown, though likely no longer a lottery pick, is also probably still a first rounder, if what I’m finding online is accurate. Jericho Sims, Coleman, Jase Febres, and Royce Hamm are all seniors. I would imagine Andrew Jones is finishing a degree and is therefore a theoretical grad transfer candidate.
The best guess for all of this is that Kai Jones and Brown go pro, Sims/Coleman/Febres/Hamm all do move on, Andrew Jones comes back, and Texas is left with him, Ramey, Donovan Williams, Brock Cunningham, and Kamaka Hepa to go with one of the best freshman classes in the country, with three four-stars (Tamar Bates, Emarion Ellis, David Joplin) and a three-star (Keeyan Itejere) on their way in. It would be a small team—Joplin and Itejere are both forwards, but neither is larger than 6’9” or 215 lbs.—which implies Texas would probably need to pull in a transfer big man or two (here’s where they’ll miss Will Baker and Gerald Liddell). If forced to guess, I’d say the likelihood of the seniors returning goes, in order, Hamm, Febres, Sims, Coleman, so it’s possible Hamm could come back and start down low, but even then, Texas probably needs to hit the transfer market. Which means the rotation next year probably looks something like: Ramey/Jones/Bates/Hepa/Transfer/Williams/Cunningham/Ellis/Joplin, with maybe another transfer in there, or maybe a returning senior or two to fill some gaps.
With that roster, making the tournament isn’t out of the question, and that’s probably the baseline goal. Obviously, winning a game there is what people will be keyed in on, but paradoxically, if Texas makes the tournament as a double-digit seed and loses its first game, folks may be happier than they are this year.
Because as you may have realized, this tournament is very dumb, and is a very poor measuring stick for the health of a college basketball program, even if the ultimate goal is the success of said program in said tournament.
