Morning Coffee Rolls With The Praise
by Peter Bean on Dec 5, 2007 7:52 AM CST
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Maybe we are a basketball school. Sticking with yesterday's theme of getting ahead of ourselves, ESPN.com's Andy Katz throws DJ Augustin's name into the national Player of the Year discussion ($):
Rick handled the question the right way, of course, but that won't keep the rest of us from discussing it. For a bit of trivia fun - were Augustin to win the Naismith Award, he would join TJ Ford and Kevin Durant to give the Longhorns three national Player of the Year winners since 2003. Only Duke (7) and UCLA (3) have won as many since the award's inception in 1969, and the Bruins haven't had a winner since Marques Johnson in 1977. In any case, it should be noted that Rick Barnes has done a remarkable job transforming Texas from an afterthought in college hoops to one of the nation's strongest programs.
I'm not done with the praise yet. Thanks to you-know-who at ESPN.com's "Page 2," Rick Barnes took a ton of heat last season for not advancing deeper into the NCAA Tournament. By the time Texas was eliminated, those who don't follow Texas basketball closely were characterizing Rick Barnes as a guy who'd done a nice job assembling talent but had no real clue how to direct it.
We begged his critics to take a more nuanced look at Rick's work, to little avail, but we also conceded (as AW and I always have) Rick's weaknesses. What we didn't appreciate was the unwillingness of his critics to recognize his strengths.
But so far this year, Rick's showed real development as a coach. The win over UCLA was not a case of Rick putting a good team out on the court, letting TJ Ford run the show, and getting out of the way. It was not a case of a team standing around and feeding the ball to a superstar like Durant. No, there was real coaching throughout that game, without which Texas loses. Three quick examples:
- After back-to-back UCLA buckets in the second half put the Bruins up four, Rick called a timeout, told DJ Augustin that Darren Collison was defending him with his hands down, and instructed him to raise up for the three as soon as he brought the ball down. Augustin buried it and pulled Texas within one.
- After UCLA scored again to regain a three-point lead, Barnes used another set play with Augustin and Atchley that saw Texas' big man roll to the top of the key for an uncontested, game-tying three pointer.
- Throughout the game, Rick did an excellent job of neutralizing the Bruins' size and defensive advantage by spreading the floor to the extreme, allowing Augustin and Mason to use their quickness to break down UCLA's perimeter defense. The spacing on offense was by design, and it was exactly what Texas needed to do.
On top of all that, this year's Texas team is playing much better defense than last year's group. We've always known Rick could coach defense, but the work he and Todd Wright did this offseason is already noticeable. You have to grade Rick with an A+ through the early going.
Don't take my word for it. The Statesman has a nice feature on the coaching job Rick's done so far, including high praise both from Fran Fraschilla and a scout for an NBA Eastern Conference team. The article notes that Barnes' terrific start has come even as Texas has opened the season with a roster far thinner than the coach had hoped. Injuries to Dogus Balbay, Gary Johnson, and Matt Hill have made Texas' accomplishments all the more impressive.
Who's your Draddy? Congratulations to Dallas Griffin for winning the Draddy Trophy, better known as the "academic Heisman." Griffin wasn't the best center the Longhorns have fielded during the Mack Brown era, but he's the kind of Longhorn that's helped give the program a good name. After an offseason of bad news and questionable character stories, it's nice to be able to applaud some kids on the other side of the spectrum.
More later today; I'm late for an appointment.
--PB--
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Fight! Fight! Fight!
The lone time I've ever nearly come to getting in a fight at a bar was during the Tourney last year. Some random douche in a bar in Tampa tried regurgitating Simmons's nonsense about Coach Barnes to me, and I flat refused to converse with the guy until he quit forming his opinions based entirely on what he read on Page 2 that morning. And then I made a shoo-ing motion towards him.
Good times.
Coach Barnes
Good stuff on Coach Barnes. I've been saying for a while that he's the best coach on campus. Amazing recruiter (can you believe that KD came to Texas?), and a great coach. Rarely does a team full of freshmen, regardless of their talent, make a deep run in the tourney, so last year's criticism was for the most part, undeserved.
I have always been impressed on how his players almost always show vast improvement over their careers (think Royal Ivey, James Thomas, Kenton Paulino, Jason Klotz, etc.). Not all of these guys had superstar talent, but all became major contributors over the course of their careers and a lot of credit goes to Rick and his staff. Looks like we are already seeing the same with Conner and Damion as well.
Also, he has done a pretty solid job of advancing to at least the sweet 16, and I'm getting really getting excited what he has in store for this years squad.
Page 2
Good lord! Don't waste your time with that idiot Bill Simmons. He doesn't know anything about college sports and hasn't written anything good since he arrived at ESPN. His only good articles have been recycled stuff from his Digital Cities days.
Rick Barnes is a brilliant coach. Bill Simmons is a bad writer.
by rabbi on Dec 5, 2007 10:03 AM CST reply actions
Coupla things...
- Coulda swore that O'Bannon won the Naismith at UCLA (1996?). Guess not.
- Simmons isn't a terrible writer. He's polarizing and a LOT of his opinions and analysis are WAY off base (*see his NFL picks record; his wife routinely hands him his ass). That said, he's actually a pretty good writer. I hate his Papelbon blowing, Belichick diddling, "I bailed on the Bruins" because I was never really a fan in the first place" arrogance as much as anyone, but when wants to be he's the most talented columnist that ESPN has.
simmons
He's gotten soft in his old age. Having a kid will do that to you I guess, but his columns no longer have that young guy in his 20s bravado that made muhc of his earlier work entertaining.
Simmons is basically worthless outside of NBA analysis, though I agree, he still can write quite well, even when he's totally whiffing on his analysis.
by Michael Bean on Dec 5, 2007 12:00 PM CST up reply actions
Praise
Focusing on individual awards is not real healthy for a team. Kids tend to press when they get in these situations.
UT's exit in the 2nd round last year was not impressive so it is understandable that Barnes was criticized.
The impressive thing about Augustin's very deep 3 at the end of the game was not coaching, it was that Augustin hit such a deep shot under extreme psychological pressure. I did not understand Barnes' comment about defending with the hands down. doesn't everyone defend a dribbler outside with the hands down? You defend with hands up when you are guarding a defender who does not have the ball or when you are defending inside.
The impressive thing about Atchley's shot was that he was a power forward who hit the 3 under extreme psychological pressure without having had many shots the whole 2nd half to get him in the shooting groove.
If you play 3 guards, a power forward, and a small forward against a team of big bruisers, of course you are going to space the floor. 99% of college coaches would have done the same.
UT's offense is give the ball to Augustin and let him make a play/pass. The half court offense is completely unimpressive from a technical perspective. Let us remember that UT scored 26 points the whole second half.
Where UT impressed against UCLA was on D and rebounding (and offense the 1st half).
Barnes is a good recruiter who is an excellent D coach but only an average O coach.
The following comment by Fran Fraschilla seems absurd to me:
"When you play against a team like that, you can't rely on set plays. You have to rely on players' ability to make plays on their own. Nobody does that better than Rick right now".
So when you play an excellent defensive team, you abandon your offense and rely on players to make plays on their own? When you play an excellent D team is when you need a sound offensive strategy the most (i.e. to create mismatches and exploit the least strong part of the D).
Also, exactly how much coaching talent does it take to rely on players' ability to make plays on their own? Zero. So basically Franchilla is saying that Barnes is the best at making his players succeed without help from the coach (on offense). How is that a positive?
UT is doing great this year but Barnes is not yet an A+ offensive coach. UT did a remarkable job of rebounding against UCLA and their defense was also excellent.
Don't have time to rebut all this right now
But you're not giving Barnes enough credit. And believe me, Andrew and I have long held that Rick is an average-at-best offensive coach. He's doing a better job this year; you're not giving him enough credit.
More later.
Less than A+, right?
You "...have long held that Rick is an average-at-best offensive coach.". Why do you think he is an above average offensive coach this year? I'm willing to be persuaded but I just don't see where the horns have a great offensive strategy this year (but I have only seen the UCLA game).
Rick plays 3 guards, a power forward, and a small forward. 4 of these guys are legitimate 3 point shooters and the other guy looks to be pretty deadly from mid-range on in. One of these guys is a world class penetrator/finisher with a pretty good outside shot. With this crew, you should be able to run a pretty slick offense. the challenge comes in playing defense and rebounding.
It seems to me that Rick has not demonstrated that he is a such a great offensive coach but is just coaching to his strengths by playing good offensive performers who compensate for his average offensive coaching ability. He then coaches them up on defense and rebounding (their collective weakness and his coaching strength).
This approach is probably wise but does not indicate that he has suddenly become an offensive wizard.
I'll get to this in this week's TBR
But: Start here. Then go here. And finally, try to dissuade yourself from the idea that putting talented guys out there and hoping for the best magically produces good offense. If it were that easy, we'd see a lot better offense out of many more teams with great talent.
"Hoping for the best" and "magically"
don't know where this comment came from:
"try to dissuade yourself from the idea that putting talented guys out there and hoping for the best magically produces good offense.".
I guess that you must be responding to somebody else (since it doesn't seem to have much relevance to my comments).
I do think that a college coach with average offensive coaching abilities will be able to produce a good offense with the UT starting 5 (with no magic required). Anytime you start with a truly outstanding point guard, constructing a good offense gets much simpler.
It is much greater challenge to produce a good defense/rebounding team with this same 5 (which was Rick's greatest accomplishment against UCLA).
I look forward to your explanation of how Rick has turned into a superior offensive coach this year (after being at best an average offensive coach prior to this year(according to you)).
Anyway, you seem to have lost your patience a bit so maybe we should terminate this particular exchange until your next article about Rick's offensive coaching improvement.
I apologize
If I sounded testy.
I think I was responding to your suggestion that we're painting Rick Barnes as a "wizard." If you can point to me saying anything of the sort, I'd like to see it.
What I said is that he's actually coaching offense. And that's a step up from many of Rick's seasons, where we've stood around in the half court, with no plan at all.
So when I point that out, and people say, "Whoa, whoa!", I thought it fair to note - perhaps too emphatically - that he is doing a nice job coaching offense. Wizard, he is not. But he's doing nice things, and things we haven't always seen from Rick.
That's why I was miffed that there are objections.
I was kind of a buzz kill
I don't think there is probably much of a difference between what we think of Rick's offensive coaching abilities. I never thought he was a bad offensive coach in previous years, just average but I lump everyobdy within one standard deviation of the mean into the average group (just like grading on the curve). I should also point out that my biggest issue with him was his half court sets, not his player development.
My timing wasn't real great since everybody is really excited right now about the biggest win in UT's bball history.
My wizard comment was referring to your A+ grade for Rick so far this year. I think the horns are doing great but there is still lots of room for improvement in the half court offense. It looked like the horns were running an offense last night against UNT (even saw some back door plays) so it's all good.
I wish Mack Brown
Sucked this much.
Seriously, this is the wrong time to bash Barnes. We've got the best resume in the country, and a candidate for POY. You look silly.
Any specifics?
What were the specific "bashes" of Barnes that you disagree with or think are silly?
I wish...
... for example, that Mack Brown (or his staff, I don't really care) recruited players that were naturally talented where he was weak, played his players to their strengths, and coached them up on things at which they weren't naturally awesome. That's pretty good coaching. In fact that's exactly what I would want from a coach. I think knowing his own weaknesses, and improving on them, is the biggest sign that Barnes is a good coach.
Of course, since we could just go out and buy one of those coaches with no weaknesses, it doesn't really matter if Barnes makes up for his. You know what? You're right. He's not perfect, so let's not praise him for running a fantastic basketball program that is currently fielding one of the better teams we've ever had at Texas. Doesn't deserve it at all.
Any specifics?
What were the specific "bashes" of Barnes that you disagree with or think are silly?
Please see my above statement...
Seriously. You should be able to figure it out from my reply, but here it is in a rubber-covered spoon if you want it that way...
You say Barnes isn't (wasn't) coaching the offense so much as letting his super point guard make plays. I say that, while you are exaggerating, and he definitely is coaching the offense at least somewhat, Barnes' recruiting players that can naturally generate offense through their considerable skills is exactly what a coach with his skill set should be doing. Why recruit a bunch of defensive monsters when you're good at coaching defense? He takes the talent and pumps it up where it is weak and lets it play where it is strong. What part of this do you have a problem with?
Also, you say that 99% of college coaches would have run the same game plan. Um... k? So you're saying that if he was a real genius he would have done something else? I understand that you're trying to say we shouldn't go crazy about him for doing what makes sense, but it's very different from what we're used to with football, where GD comes out against A&M with the opposite of the game plan that had worked against Tech, and that had saved our butts against NU and OSU once we started running it.
You really needed me to say all that?
Still no bashing examples
I did not say Barnes is not/was not coaching the offense. Please cut and paste where I said that. My point is that there was nothing above average about Barnes' half court sets/plays. The original discussion was whether Barnes is displaying above average offensive coaching ability with his offensive sets. I did not see anything exceptional and wondered what it was.
Actually I was the one to point out that Barnes is recruiting and playing players who are already good offensive performers that he can coach up on D. I also said this was a good strategy. again, this means Barnes does not have to be an above average coach in devising his half court sets. Again, not an example of bashing Barnes.
My point that 99% of coaches would spread the floor given the same starting 5 is just to point out that it is an obvious strategy, not an exceptional strategy. Again, not bashing Barnes.
I think where you are confused is that you think I was bashing Barnes when in fact I was just pointing out that he has not suddenly improved to an above average play designer (which was the thesis of the original post in this thread).
I asked you to be specific because I did not see any Barnes bashing in my original post and wondered if you could provide an example. The worst that I said was Barnes is an average offensive coach (I was referring to his half court sets/plays). I don't see that as criticism since average includes about 2/3 of the coaches. Average is a normally competent guy.
If you can not find any examples of me bashing Barnes in my original response, you should just admit it.
Blah blah blah...
UT's offense is give the ball to Augustin and let him make a play/pass.
I know this isn't word-for-word "Barnes is not/was not coaching the offense" but that's what it means.
Also, exactly how much coaching talent does it take to rely on players' ability to make plays on their own? Zero.
More rubber-covered spoon for you. This is unnecessarily negative. Barnes has done a good enough job recruiting talent that he essentially balances any failings he may have as an offensive coach.
I already told you this in my last reply, again.
Also, the "A+" grade that you have this huge problem with was an overall grade, not an offensive grade, if you're going to be pedantic. And I think that any shortcomings on offense have more than been compensated for with good recruiting and defensive play (not to mention whatever we're doing on the glass).
On top of all that, this year's Texas team is playing much better defense than last year's group. We've always known Rick could coach defense, but the work he and Todd Wright did this offseason is already noticeable. You have to grade Rick with an A+ through the early going.
There's the quote, since you're going to ask for it.
I'm done. Feel free to disagree with me, but I've made my point clearly, and then again, and then again. Please don't expect me to continue this pissing match.
Be nice, ladies
I think you guys are talking past each other. Actually, I'm sure of it. Make nice and shake hands.
The guy made a cheap shot
and never admitted his cheap shot. He could not ocme up with a single quote to back up his cheap shot. Of course I am going to call him on it.
My last response
"UT's offense is give the ball to Augustin and let him make a play/pass."
is simply an accurate description of UT's offense (for the most part) against UCLA. I did not say that Barnes is not coaching offense. His offense that night was simply to put the ball in his All American point guard's hands. Why you think that is bashing Barnes is beyond me.
"Also, exactly how much coaching talent does it take to rely on players' ability to make plays on their own? Zero."
this quote was in response to a statement by Fran Franchilla (which I said was absurd) about Barnes' offense. You obviously did not read what I wrote very carefully because you did not understand it.
To say somebody is not A+ is not bashing. Saying they are D or F is bashing.
You never proved your point but did demonstrate that you are not capable of admitting when you have made a mistake. In general insulting people anonymously is cowardly and childish.
I apologize
PB made me rethink myself somewhat. I'm sorry for getting flustered, that's on me. I can understand that you didn't intentionally bash Barnes, but you have to look at it from my perspective. Saying that a game plan was giving the ball to DJ and letting him play is saying that the coach is not coaching, as far as I'm concerned, especially when you follow that by saying that it takes "zero" coaching talent to do so. I know you didn't intend that, but that's what you wrote, and that's how I perceived it.
I did read what you wrote, and I comprehended it. The problem we have had is that I interpreted it differently than you intended, and that is both our faults. Again, I apologize for losing my temper, but I ask you to understand my frustration.
No problema
Clearly you understood what I wrote far differently than what I thought I wrote. I don't think there is any point in arguing about whether the problem is how I wrote it or how you read it (my impression is that we disagree on those details but I would like to not argue anymore about it).
The key thing is that we are both horn bball fans and there are only so many of us so we need to focus on trying to get along in this fine message board. I think it is fine to have disagreements but all of us need to be civil in the way we express our arguments.
I agree with some of that
Rick Barnes is an excellent at coaching defense, developing players, getting the best out of a given group of guys (adjusting to the players he has), but is not quite as good at coaching offense. That's OK, though, as his strengths more than make up for his weaknesses.
I think we came out with a great (albeit simple) strategy in the first half. However, this team could use more movement without the ball and a little more perimeter passing, and there needed to be a change made in the way the offense was being run in the second half when they adjusted by putting more pressure on us.
Playing defense on the perimeter, usually one hand's up (for challenging shots) and one hand's down (for getting in passing lanes, ball pressure).
What's amazing about Barnes is his ability to adjust to any group of 6-7 guys and adjusting his game plan to maximize their talent. For example, last year he had weak rebounding, so he taught Durant to play in the middle of the zone while not picking up fouls, and Durant ended up getting us 11 boards a game. And he didn't sacrifice his perimeter scoring.
I'm going to pay more attention to
how guards play D.
I just watched some replays of UT-TSU (it happened to be on right now) and did not see any guards with their hands up while they were guarding the ball outside. All the guards guarding somebody outside with the ball had their arms pretty low or out to the side.
I always played forward or center (where it is pretty normal to have your hands up). When I had to guard somebody outside who had the ball, I always tried to stay as low as possible while they still have their dribble.
Half-court offense
One note about the offense on Sunday. Did you notice how many times the guards were running off screens to get open on the wings and not getting the ball from Augustin? It seemed Augustin wouldn't give them the ball unless they were WIDE open. I don't know if that's what he was supposed to do, but I wish he would have made that first pass to get into the offense a little more.
Except for the Atchley 3, the offense was brutal in the second half. The whole spread the floor thing worked great in the first half, but Barnes did little to adjust when UCLA was able to stop the penetration better in the second half.
This isn't to take away from all the great things he does as a coach. I just think right now we're giving him a little too much credit for the few good things he's done on the offensive end.
How did UCLA stop the penetration?
Did you figure out how UCLA stopped the penetration in the second half? The announcer said that it was because the other UCLA defenders stopped helping out so much so it was more difficult for Augustin to pass. I am not sure. Did UCLA switch the defender on Augustin or anything that you can put your finger on?
Yeah I'm not really sure
Honestly, it just seemed like they were moving quicker to stay in front of their men. In the first half Augustin and others were blowing by their men without much difficulty. In the second half, Collison kept up with him much better it seemed, so UCLA didn't have to help out as much. I don't know if UCLA came out slow at first or Texas started to get a little fatigued towards the end. I didn't notice too much switching or creative defense looks. Maybe I missed something.
I'm also curious as to what other people thought was the reason UCLA slowed Texas down so much better in the second half.
2nd half UCLA defense/Texas offense
In the interest of full declaration, I was born in Austin to two Texas alums and followed Texas sports religiously growing up. I am also a graduate of UCLA, and was rooting for UCLA at the game. Make of it what you will.
by clydeb on Dec 5, 2007 3:15 PM CST up reply actions
personally
I think y'all are full of sh*t when you say Barnes has "grown" as a coach. I think Barnes is the same coach he was last season, y'all just didn't give him credit for it then.
Those who wanted to criticize him for the team he had last season, and say he "just rolls the balls out and lets the talent play" ignored the fact that he was starting 4 freshmen and one sophomore last year.
I've long held that Barnes is by far the best coach on the campus in Austin. He's made a school obsessed with football actually take notice when basketball season rolls around (although you can't tell that from the attendance, but that is another issue for other posts, I know the Drum sucks for fans as a basketball venue). He's getting world-class talent to come to a football school, and then teaching them the game.
Anyone who says he just relies on talent to win, and isn't a good coach, is just someone who's opinion you can ignore from that point on.
Oh, brother
We praised Barnes last season, too. Anybody who's paid any attention to AW and I at this site for a long time knows that.
But he's doing some things better than before, too. Quit being a contrarian all the time. It's tiresome.
Let me just add
To those who are applying the brakes or suggesting the tune has changed around here: this is the best I've seen a Rick Barnes team play.
This isn't wishy washy, pie-in-the-sky praise. I've probably seen 95% of the games Texas has played under Rick Barnes, and I'm not sure that any of our teams, with the lone exception being 2003, would have won that game in Pauley.
He deserves this praise he's getting.
and btw, i saw this in the Stateman article
Reserve post player Matt Hill, recovering from offseason surgery on his left foot, fell down some stairs, injuring his left heel.
Everyone knows that just a euphemism for abuse; no one ever really falls down a set of stairs.
So, which girlfried kicked Hill's ass?
injured a HEEL falling down stairs?
Thats odd. You'd think it was an ankle, wrist, shoulder, or hip. Or face.
Any of them, the kid's so skinny.
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