A better question might be how did ATM beat Texas so soundly in C/S yet be unable to challenge for a top spot in the Big 12.

Texas took their worst loss of the season that night. However, ATM has not approached similar a level since that night.

Question: Why is that?

Balbay will be able to play the point fou Texas next year.

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Question: Why is that?

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Hmmmm ... let me guess

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As we've found with DJ, some of those highly touted, high draft picks don't amount to much in college.

Durant was a great talent, but, he was never a great college player. Give anyone that many shots and they'll score a good amount of points. Beyond shooting, he had a lot of flaws in his game.

It's how Durant is doing it in Seattle-he shoots so dang much he scores 19 or so per game.

Certainly don't equate Durant's role on last years Longhorn team to the role Acie Law, AK-47, and JJ had on last year's A&M team.

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Exactly which of those 3 guys filled the role of Naismith/Wooden Award winner?


Hookem

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Balbay will be able to play the point fou Texas next year.

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I'm glad someone mentioned that. Balbay should be very good next year for Texas. Not a great shooter at all but has amazing athleticism. The team won't be as good obviously but Balbay will be fine. He can drive the lane and will make some nice plays in the lane. He also distributes the ball very well. Augustin will hurt but not as bad as losing Acie hurt for yall. Sloan is obviously not a PG and that is what has hurt A&M this year.

Wow, AMC is really a tool. I think we are finding out that it wasn't Durant and everyone else. Losing 3 starters as oppose to one great one...torbusch.

Book em

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Yes tu graduated Durant and a few scrubs.

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How did Durant have time to practice taking 130 hours in 2 semesters?

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Barnes has learned to adapt his system to his players and knows how to read the team to push or pull back

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This is exactly why Barnes is so good. He adapts to the players instead of forcing a "system" on them.

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Durant was a great talent, but, he was never a great college player. Give anyone that many shots and they'll score a good amount of points. Beyond shooting, he had a lot of flaws in his game.

It's how Durant is doing it in Seattle-he shoots so dang much he scores 19 or so per game.

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Unbelievable.

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Still, when Augustin goes this year, who does Texas start at point next year?

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How many homers said close to the same thing when Durant left?

Not trying to cut Turg too much slack here but you are also having to teach a new system, team dynamic, chemistry, and leading personality to the team. If your point is that Barnes is a better veteran coach than an unproven (at a major conference level) Turg in his first year...well I would have to say...good argument?

I think looking at all of this, you have to be totally honest with yourself and not engage in revisionist, after the fact thinking.

So here's the way it was before:

For the most part, people here saw disaster for Texas this year with out Durant. There were too many games where he just absolutely took over.

I was worried, but I also thought we were best last year when he was not the only reason we won.

When it came to you guys, I may have even posted it here, I thought you'd be in a little trouble losing Acie and AK. But I don't think many people thought that. Even halfway through this season, Ags still thought of their team as head and shoulders above ours and plenty of people here told me that.

[This message has been edited by Theo (edited 3/9/2008 10:18p).]

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If your point is that Barnes is a better veteran coach than an unproven (at a major conference level) Turg in his first year...well I would have to say...good argument?

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Agree. Presently, Turge can't carry Barnes' jock.


[This message has been edited by sharpdressedman (edited 3/9/2008 10:36p).]

Seems to me that last year, A&M had 4 guys who could score. If one of them was having a bad game, the others would pick up the slack. Acie, JJ, Carter, AK. Usually 3 would be scoring, in good numbers.

Texas, last year, seems like it had 3 guys who could score, but usually only two did. Durant and Abrams or Augustin. I remember Abrams being either hot or cold, and I certainly don't remember much from the bigs. It's why USC was able to shut them down - Augustin fouled out with only a few points, and even with Durant and Abrams hitting shots, it wasn't enough.

This year, A&M has a few guys who can score, but never in bunches. Nobody ever has a big game, nobody takes over when it's needed.

Texas, on the other hand, has flourished without Durant. The bigs have gotten so much better. They have 4 or 5 guys who can score in bunches in every game. If one of them is struggling, the others will still pick up the slack.

Texas quit being a one or two man show and became a team. A&M doesn't have the explosiveness to flourish as a team, and so if our "scorers" go cold, the whole team suffers, a la 16-minute droughts.

That's my theory, at least.

Perhaps some of you guys should look back at some of the awesome talent Barnes brought in over the past couple years.

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Perhaps some of you guys should look back at some of the awesome talent Barnes brought in over the past couple years.

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Most of which left.

Augustin is a sophomore about as highly touted as Sloan coming in if I'm not mistaken. Mason was a solid recruit.

Atchley and Abrams are three stars.

James is a five star. After that, we're freshman.

You do have a point---we do have talent and we should be good. But we're always young. I know that happens a lot in college basketball, but we have no senior leadership (Mooney and Lewis are it). We have two juniors and that's it.

I think what Barnes has shown this year is that one year in his system makes a big, big difference.

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I was a third string guard on the 7th grade B team.

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i was starting pg on the B team at my middle school! i guess you could have called me a true point guard based on the number of assists and such few shot attempts. fun days

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Most of which left.

Augustin is a sophomore about as highly touted as Sloan coming in if I'm not mistaken.

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Your last couple of recruiting classes were ranked 3 and 21 nationally. Of those, only one player, Durant, has left the team. So you are almost 100% wrong on that part.

You were correct about Augustine/Sloan. They were ranked 6 and 8 respectively.

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Your last couple of recruiting classes were ranked 3 and 21 nationally. Of those, only one player, Durant, has left the team. So you are almost 100% wrong on that part.

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Okay, 2007 was this year's class coming in. None of those guys could leave yet, so forget that year.

From 2006 we have already lost one guy, the most talented guy on the team.

From 2005 we have Abrams and Lewis (zero stars)

From 2004? Atchley.

I don't know exactly what he meant by "past couple of years." If he meant just the last two years, the problem is that Balbay and Hill haven't even played this year because they've been hurt.

Maybe that's what he meant, but if so, then I don't understand anyone playing the "young" card for you guys. Our team is almost exclusively this year and last year's recruiting class and two three stars from 2004 and 2005.

Our entire senior class left two years ago, early.

Anyway, talent on the floor by stars we aren't that much different than what you guys have.

[This message has been edited by Theo (edited 3/10/2008 12:17a).]

A couple is two. When people say look at the happy couple, nobody asks "There is only two of them?"

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A couple is two. When people say look at the happy couple, nobody asks "There is only two of them?"

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I wasn't totally sure about how loosely he was speaking and when he was starting.

If you look at last year's class, a lot of you guys thought yours was better because of Jordan.

Going back the year before that, we lost a major piece of the class already, and another piece can't play this year.

I do think Barnes is working with more than Turgeon is. But none of you thought that until just recently, really.

If Texas had lost Augustin and returned Durant, they would be about where A&M is right now.

Augustin and Durant (as well as some of the other frosh from last year's UT team) are far from typical.

Not to take anything away from Barnes, but where would he be without Augustin? Probably where we are without Law.

You guys make it sound like we are a disaster. We are not. Will it be disappointing if we don't make the tourney? Of course it will.

Personally, I though Turgeon did a great job on Saturday. The guys came out ready to play and, outside of some poor decisions that led to turnovers, they executed well. The coach's job is the devise a way to get guys open looks. We did that.

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Anyway, talent on the floor by stars we aren't that much different than what you guys have.

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There is a 4 star disparity between our starting lineups.

Heh. I just realized now that poster was you '09.

So you meant the last two years classes?

Did you think our incoming class was better than yours? I really did think the consensus here was that you guys had the better incoming class with Jordan, alone. Did you think that, after losing Durant, we were still better from our class the year before?

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I wasn't totally sure about how loosely he was speaking and when he was starting.

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Understandable.

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If you look at last year's class, a lot of you guys thought yours was better because of Jordan.

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We including me, got proved pretty dang wrong.

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Going back the year before that, we lost a major piece of the class already, and another piece can't play this year.

I do think Barnes is working with more than Turgeon is. But none of you thought that until just recently, really

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I think many of us, including me, underestimated how weak we were at the point. Barnes is definately working with a more complete team.

You can win without a great PG. We went to the Elite 8 without one. I remember that year--just getting it in bounds and up the court was an adventure.

It was very frustrating how careless we were with the ball. I think that year nearly killed Barnes because we were truly a player away from something BIG.

We probably had more talent on the floor than you guys do this year, but we were younger.

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There is a 4 star disparity between our starting lineups.

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Not sure what you mean by this.

James and DJ are both 5*s.

Sloan and Augustin are both 4*s.

Davis and Mason are both 4*s.

And our two juniors are 3*s, like Carter and Jones.

We have the kids from this years class that are all 4 stars and Harrison Smith (and I don't know what has happened to that kid). And we got Johnson for half the year. But we've lost Matt Hill, who was supposed to start. And Balbay, our backup PG.

When you iron everything out, our lack of depth due to guys leaving or getting hurt probably comes close to making up for the talent disparity.

Looking back, everyone coming into this year thought we'd suffer because of Durant leaving. And thought you guys had a bigger impact player coming in than we did. I think what happened is that no one gave us credit last year for really developing our freshman class.

He is either very lucky or VERY GOOD.

What do you think?

Hmmm. 10 years at Texas, 10 NCAA tournament appearances, 3 conference titles, 2 national players of the year ... I think at some point you just have to give credit where credit is due. Rick Barnes is a damn good college basketball coach.

And don't be so sure that DJ Augustin is going anywhere. I pretty much knew that Kevin Durant was because he was clearly going to be either the #1 or #2 pick, and, for all the talking he did about how much he loved being in college, he never came right out and said that he was staying. DJ has said he's staying on multiple occasions. At this point, I think it's more about staying focused on the team, but it certainly not out of the realm of possibility that everyone returns for Texas next season.

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If Texas had lost Augustin and returned Durant, they would be about where A&M is right now.

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Extremely doubtful. Barnes has never gone just 8-8 in conference, never finished 6th in the Big 12 (lowest finish was tie for 5th), and has never been a bubble team at the end of the regular season. You are projecting that Barnes would have his worse season ever at Texas and that's with Kevin Durant on the team.

[This message has been edited by JTaylor (edited 3/10/2008 7:41a).]

Barnes won the Big 12 with seven players playing quality minutes in his first season in the Big 12.

Amazing, his players were able to adapt to a new system and improve significantly as the season progressed.

Barnes: top 5 coach in the country
Turge: extremely overrated based on what he's done as a HC.

Barnes won the Big XII in his first season without a full squad of scholarship players and advertising in the school newspaper for walk ons because they needed players to have a full practice. Now that is coaching.