Morning Coffee Loves March
by Peter Bean on Mar 18, 2008 10:59 AM CDT
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You get the feeling Rick relishes this... Win two games and Texas will find itself playing in front of a very friendly Houston audience. That won't be the case this weekend, however, when Texas visits Little Rock. As already mentioned in the diaries, Rick Barnes is had some fun with reporters in teasing Razorback nation, joking that "If the fans don't treat us well, we're not going to come. You can put that out there. I'm serious. We've got enough money here, we can buy our way out of it. [Little Rock fans] had better be good to us.''
One more Rick Barnes quote to add to the vault. Is there anyone left who dislikes the guy?
Depth a concern? The DMN's Kate Hairopolous (whoa) writes in a chat with readers that Texas' depth is the big concern heading into the tournament:
What's the suggestion here? That Texas will tire? Or that Texas needs bench players to play more/better? Or both?
Doesn't matter much to me, as I disagree with both points. On the issue of tiring, two games in two three days (with a four day break in between) isn't grueling like the three games/three days setting of the conference tournament. As for bench depth, having a 9 or 10 man rotation is only as useful as the ninth and tenth players are good. What's more important is having depth of quality, which Texas has. We've seen Texas win with Augustin slumping, with James slumping, with Connor slumping, and with Abrams slumping. Texas is by no means a one-man show.
Getting to the Final Four isn't going to have nearly as much to do with our bench as it's going to depend on whether our starting five are on top of their games. At our best, we're near unbeatable.
Hold off, Houston. The excitement surounding Texas' placement in the Houston Regional is understandable, but both Rick Barnes and the team are doing their best not to talk about it.
Though the match ups look favorable, I must admit it's hard not to think about. Actually, the real challenge is thinking about losing on either Friday or Sunday. Talk about devastating.
As suspected. Back in February I speculated that a graph plotting likelihood of success against a football prospect's star rating would result in a non-linear graph. SMQ has taken a closer look and confirms the intuition.
Coach YouTube. Chatting with Orson this morning, led to this exchange:
Orson: Go watch the video of Muschamp in the CI this am.
PB: Ooooh
Orson: And then go run through a wall
PB: I want to play football for that man. Or fight a war. Something.
Orson: He's such a fucking technician. What he did to Florida in the second half of the 2006 Auburn game was just brilliant
PB: Refresh my memory.
Orson: We had over 200 yards of offense and averaged 10 yards a play in the first half. We didn't have a first down in the second half.
PB: What are these "adjustments" you speak of? Like, coaches make changes between one half and the next? This is foreign.
Orson: You'll find out.
--PB--
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wait....
Was Orson/Spencer switching in between his multiple personalities during this conversation? Did he type some responses from his EDSBS account and some from his Sporting News account? I demand answers as to how bipolar he is!
Re:
On depth, A) Instead of "two games in two days," I think you meant two in three, and B) I think the argument about depth is valid, although I don't expect the bench to improve to overcome this problem. The Kansas game was a perfect example: with GJ unavailable and Connor in foul trouble, Dex and Wangmene were absolutely thrown to the wolves. It particularly hurt when we played zone, but the bottom line was that the guards were unafraid to either penetrate or entry pass their way into the paint, leading to easy kick-outs for 3 or finding the open man underneath. Anyways, I digress: the issue is not the ability to win if one of our key players has an off-night, but what if a few have an off-night at once? Teams like Kansas and Memphis can throw their 8-man rotation into work, but we've got GJ off the bench and that's it. We get excited when Chapman or Wangmene actually get ONE shot to fall in per game. So if Abrams and DJ combine to shoot bricks all night, I'm not too excited to look down my bench and see JD Lewis just itching to come in.
By the way
Does any team in the country have a 10 man rotation?
I read Hairopoulos yesterday
And I couldn't agree with you more on depth. We won't have any more three-day, three-game stretches, and this team has proved itself resilient all season long. Let's not forget 8-0 February, with road wins against tournament teams o.u., Baylor, and K-State, and home wins over o.u., Baylor, a&m and Kansas.
And...
All of February was 2 games in 3 days, with a 4 day rest.
I was concerned about our depth before watching the big 12 tourney. If Gary can get back on the court, I dont think depth will even be a glimpse of a concern, unless we get stuck in some 5 OT game on the first night.
Sounds like Kate is looking at the stats and not watching the games. Any team that can play with Kansas for as long as we did for 3 games in 3 days without their top bench contributer taking any minutes, will not have a problem with the tourney.
Is it game time yet?
by BoddickerIsClutch on Mar 18, 2008 11:36 AM CDT up reply actions
Depth and depth
There are two kinds of depth. One is to have enough bench to provide adequate rest for the starters, and we are fine there. The other, though, is to have replacement players in case a starter goes down, and here we are not so well off. Other than Johnson for James, there is really no position where we have that kind of depth, and even that is a significant loss.
Depth would be more of a concern
If not for our amazing strength and conditioning. Seriously, considering the pace we play at, it's ridiculous to me how our starters can play so many minutes without slowing down. I think Todd Wright deserves a helluva lot of credit.
Todd Wright Rules!
even with his prison buzz-cut. You guys mention him quite a bit but I don't think he gets enough credit in general.
I couldn't agree more
with you on this point. I was actually scanning to make sure no one had said this already and you had. I think we are one of the best teams around in terms of looking as rested in the first minute as in the last.
Muschamp is so intense
he doesn't even allow silly things like the English language to stand in his way. Needs a quicker way to say "in a state of upheaval"? Writes his own mf'ing dictionary and creates "upheavaled". BOOM!
The Agtastic Ones may have gotten the more entertaining public speaker for a DC in Joe Kines, but I'll take Muschamp's unstoppable force of a personality anyday.
Also, PB, don't pretend that our coaching staff hasn't been able to make in-game adjustments. I think that everyone here has recognized at some point that Mack and Greg Davis and our previous DCs have saved some games at half-time (it seems to be the only way we can play Oklahoma St.) and even later (ie against Nebraska). The real plus with Muschamp is that he might prepare the defense well enough that crazy adjustments won't be necessary against decent teams. Heck, maybe the defense will even be able to shut down some decent teams!
Aw, shucks, basketball's not even over yet and I'm already tearing up for football...
Not to mention
maybe getting our defense riled up enough before the game so that we don't start every game two or three touchdowns behind.
also, I can already tell...
the new term is going to be "multiple." I'm excited about football, and also about learning.
Muschamp is a multiple teacher.
Not so fast my friend
2 things:
- Being really deep is not a must, but you do have to consider what happens to Texas when a player gets into foul trouble. I think we have enough depth at big man to rotate and not lose too much, but if DJ, Mason or AJ get into foul trouble against a team like Memphis it will be hard to have enough quick players to cover their guard orientated attack.
- Before you get too excited about your star rating to success ratios, here is what SMQ's numbers look like:
Very close to what you showed right? Here are his numbers compared to yours:
Not so close any more.
He got the trend right...
Give the lawyer a break. This was impressive for a non-engineering major. Don't go raining on his little parade...
Oh, but just between you and me... High-five, bro!
I know it is basketball/baseball season...
but is there anyway we can lock up coach Boom for the next twenty years??!!
by BurnOut on Mar 18, 2008 2:19 PM CDT reply actions
Boom might be a bust!
Oh, would we be disappointed, sack cloth and ashes everywhere. What a mess.
But, if indeed, he turns out to be the inspirational defensive guru we're dreamed about, yeah, then we can lock him up. We'll buy it up and throw in Little Rock to boot.
NCAA Tournament Teams by Region
Posted the same link on the other post as well! Thought it was pretty cool...
by LonghornForLife on Mar 18, 2008 3:10 PM CDT reply actions
actually, I think the word Orson is looking for
is 'tactician'
If he was just a 'technician', all he would have done is switched the techniques of the linemenand LBs, maybe pinched them in from a 3 to a 2, and a 1 to a 0, maybe move Mike from a 10 to a 20, and that would have shut down their run game.
I doubt that happened, so it was probably a change in tactics.
He was probably just...
... trying to bring to mind the image of Will Muschamp crawling underneath the defense, tapping it in one or two places with a wrench, then sliding out from under and saying "that should do it." Then the defense fires up and starts making Gator boudin. Imagery.
Seth Davis tells us what we already know
Congrats to Justin Mason, who makes Seth Davis' All-Glue Team. Seth Davis is a terrible writer (Luke Winn and Grant Wahl are much, MUCH better), but I always enjoy the Glue team column. Kudos to Davis for getting this one right.
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