Shaka Smart was never a bad hire, but his tenure at Texas is likely about over
Those with good reasons for the University of Texas to retain Shaka Smart as its basketball coach are encouraged to send them via letter to 2100 San Jacinto Blvd., #104, Austin, TX 78712, in care of athletic director Chris Del Conte.
God created few better at sales and marketing than CDC. In turn, God created few worse at saying goodbye to employees.
The Texas AD would rather eat a bag of rusty nails than fire any employee, especially someone with a family. Shaka Smart has a wife and a daughter.
Although UT defeated TCU on Wednesday night in Fort Worth, 62-61, the Smart era at Texas hangs on by a string of ash.
To flush Smart will require a $10-million get-lost check, which Texas can write but doesn’t want to. Unless Smart can somehow reverse this season, his boss won’t have any choice this time. An NIT “title” is not enough.
And missing the NCAA Tournament, which looks likely, should make the decision all but final.
This was not a bad hire, but it has also not worked. If anything, what the Shaka Smart era at Texas has clearly shown is the idea that recruiting one-and-done NBA talent does not mean success.
One of the biggest knocks on Smart is that he has not won with NBA talent:
2017: Jarrett Allen was selected 22nd by the Nets
2018: Mo Bamba was picked sixth by Orlando
2019: Jaxson Hayes was the eighth overall pick of the Hawks
Unless your name is Calipari or Krzyzewski, your favorite college team is not going to win with one or two one-and-done kids. You need a lot of them, and they need to be on a conveyor belt into your program; the moment they arrive, all they want to do is leave.
The class of the Big 12, Kansas, has had limited success with one-and-done players. Notice KU’s best teams had upperclassmen.
Shaka has landed a couple of top-tier recruits, but the results in Austin haven’t kept pace with the potential.
Some coaches are simply better off on certain levels, and at a certain schools.
Shaka didn’t build a worthy resume at Virginia Commonwealth because he got lucky. After five years in Austin it’s evident that neither Texas nor the Big 12 are the right fit.
Since he arrived from VCU as the superior alternative to Rick Barnes, Smart’s UT teams have never had the look of his better VCU teams; those were relentless defensive squads that made life hell on opponents.
When I asked Smart on Wednesday, when his team is playing “right,” what they do well and what their identity is, he didn’t hesitate.
“Defense,” he said. “It’s all about defense. Being scrappy.”
He has tried to bring what he did at VCU to Austin, and it has not translated. Texas ranks fifth in the Big 12 in points allowed, and eighth in defense. They are last in the conference in rebounding.
That’s a good way to get your butt kicked.
Against TCU, UT was spirited defensively. The Longhorns also hit an unusually high number of bad percentage shots. In a long season, you can win a game or two like that.
You can’t win them consistently, which is why the Horns are 13-7, and 3-4 in conference.
As Baylor and Texas Tech enjoy national-level success, Texas is left to look at their rivals with envy and a degree of disdain.
No program meant more to college basketball in Texas than Texas, and specifically Rick Barnes. Every college coach says that since Guy Lewis’ Houston programs fell off in the ‘80s, it was Barnes who brought basketball back to the state.
UT created basketball relevance in the state, and now its program is suffering through the type of irrelevance no AD can justify for too long.
Smart has basically one month to push his creation back near the top of the Big 12.
If he doesn’t, all suggestions to retain him are more than welcome to be mailed to his boss at 2100 San Jacinto Blvd., #104, Austin, TX 78712.
