Like the great Bugs Bunny said: “That’s all folks.”
I could talk about this loss to OU, but what’s the point? It was ugly – Jordan Pope was really good, Kaluma was solid, Tre Johnson was a good distributor but horrendous from the field going 0-14, Shedrick is somehow the softest 7-foot human in the history of the world, the bench was almost non-existent, blah blah blah.
Congrats to Porter Moser for winning the “who gets canned” matchup. Congrats to OU for retaining their Shaka Smart (minus actually making the tournament multiple times).
I think this should kind of be a “sky-high” pre-conference tournament review. RT will say some bullshit about how he believes we could get a bid by winning the SEC tournament. The chances of that are the same as the chances that Bobby Petrino rides a motorcycle with another woman of the night on the back (not 0%, but close).
Turning to the season overall, put bluntly: this season sucked.
This season was a horrendous disappointment. Every sport on the 40 Acres has been, to one degree or another, successful. This Texas Men’s Basketball Team was the lone exception. Tre Johnson was the lone bright spot (outside of tonight’s game). Tre was the only thing that constantly kept this team afloat.
Tre Johnson was the only good constant but not the only constant.
The other constant was Rodney Terry. Rodney Terry was constantly outcoached, at every single point, Rodney Terry was the lesser of two coaches in almost every single matchup. Rodney Terry could never identify any sort of offense that would allow for any other than Tre Johnson to find success (i.e., iso offense). On the opposite side of the court, Texas’s defense was soft, switches felt late, too many wide-open layups, transition defense was lazy, etc. Put simply, the regression of this program’s defensive identity from 2 years ago to now is shocking.
This next point is maybe my most important: RT lost the team.Texas looked flat. You would think that a “win and in” game against your greatest rival at home would light something under this team’s ass. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. If you can’t motivate your guys to play essentially what amounts to a tournament game, why even go out there?
Look, I know this isn’t any sort of in-depth blog, but I’m just frustrated. March Madness is arguably the greatest sporting event on the planet. There is nothing I love more than tuning into the 11:00 A.M. games on TNT and TruTV on Thursday and Friday and watching until around midnight. It’s one of life’s greatest simple pleasures.
But I don’t think it’s controversial to state that March Madness loses some luster when your guys aren’t in. Most people know that their guys aren’t going to be the last team standing, but that’s really never the point.
The point is you want your guys to have a chance to make history. Honest to God, I had to think about who won the whole thing last year, but I distinctly remember Jack Gohlke and Oakland beating Kentucky. Can’t tell you won in 2018, but I can tell you Virginia lost UMBC that year. I don’t remember who won in 2022, but I can tell you St. Peter’s was in the Final Four.
Am I saying that Texas would have been any of those great Cinderellas? No. Nor would Texas ever be considered a Cinderella. Everyone hates us and Texas actually had expectations. However, Texas could have been this year’s 2021 UCLA who made the Final Four as an 11 seed and barely lost to Gonzaga. Is it likely? No, Cronin is like 20 times the coach RT is.
Nevertheless, what hurts is that Texas won’t have the chance to make history – that’s the real shame.