Shaka Smart entered this, his fourth season at Texas, with a “perfect” .500 record – 50-50 in his first three seasons. Now there’s a popular debate topic in Austin: Does he have a 50-50 chance of returning for his fifth season?
While Burnt Orange Nation has considerably more patience – or apathy – toward basketball because it isn’t football, there’s considerable angst about hoops being stuck in neutral. As is often the case, there can be trigger points that increase the fans’ bile level.
That occurred in the Longhorns’ final Big 12 road game. UT followed up an impressive victory at home over Iowa State by getting stampeded, 70-51, in Lubbock by Texas Tech. In the Longhorns’ previous road game, they frittered away a 19-point second-half lead to lose at Baylor in overtime. Those outcomes don’t win or please fans, and the home attendance is “meh” even with Minister Of Culture Matthew McConaughey trying to all right, all right, all right what’s going wrong.
This is what veteran Austin American-Statesman columnist Kirk Bohls wrote this week: “Did Shaka Smart’s blowout loss to Texas Tech on Monday night signal the beginning of the end for the fourth-year Longhorns basketball coach? Does a 31-40 Big 12 record, an overall UT mark of two games over .500 and zero NCAA Tournament wins to this point show he’s not the right guy for this job anymore?”
The fact that the Red Raiders are a victory away from a Big 12 title — Texas last finished on top of the league in 2008 – is galling to UT fans. But the tortilla tossers also have a contender for national coach of the year who graduated from UT. There’s already talk that if Smart is dismissed, Chris Beard will be the first solicitation call made by athletic director Chris Del Conte.
In three seasons, Beard has led Texas Tech to a regional final (last season) and this season guided a team picked to finish seventh (after losing six of its top eight scorers) to the top of the conference. By comparison, it doesn’t look like Texas made a smart hire when it replaced Rick Barnes. (And, no, Barnes’ success at Tennessee doesn’t factor into the current conversation; his departure and resulting success is a function of the need for changes at both schools.)
UT is synonymous with big money, and making a change in basketball will cost a wheelbarrow of dead presidents.
In August of 2016, Texas extended Smart’s contract through the 2022-23 season. At the time he was earning $3 million per year with an automatic $100,000 raise each season. It is fully guaranteed, and Texas will owe Smart nearly $13 million if they fire him after this season.
The man who made that sweetheart (for Smart) deal was former athletic director Steve Patterson. His reign of error on The Forty Acres may never be matched by another sports administrator. After Smart’s first season with 20 victories and an NCAA Tournament bid with a roster made up of players recruited by his predecessor, Patterson for some unexplained reason wanted to put up a firewall to prevent other schools from poaching his coach.
Smart gained national attention when his Virginia Commonwealth team wore the Cinderella slipper all the way to the 2011 Final Four. VCU knocked off top seed Kansas in the regional final. The Rams were massive underdogs to one of Bill Self’s best teams.
With that headline-grabbing season on his resume, Smart spent the next four seasons (winning 96 games, but just twice in the NCAAs) as the speculative candidate for job openings at Big Time Schools.
Smart’s success at VCU was built around his “Havoc” full-court press. That’s been MIA during his time at Texas. Even with the opportunity to recruit to that style, Smart has been more successful recruiting talented front-court players than speedy perimeter players who could fuel pressure schemes. Perhaps the idea of 40 Minutes of Havoc in 18 Big 12 games is a concept that would never work.
The Longhorns also have struggled to maintain any consistency, which is reflective in their middling record. UT’s longest winning streak during the Smart Era was six in his first season. Some of that inconsistency could be attributed to losing the team’s top scorer in the middle of the last three seasons (Tevin Mack and Kerwin Roach II to suspensions and Andrew Jones to leukemia.)
To this observer, there’s been a lack of player development. Two years ago, Smart landed “his” point guard in Matt Coleman. After two seasons, the four-star recruit is producing numbers worse than his rookie year. This year’s recruiting class was ranked eighth in the nation. Guard Courtney Ramey and center Jaxson Hayes have displayed flashes but relying on freshmen to win Big 12 games is a faulty strategy.
“Brand” is important at Texas. The school itself ranks highly among public universities and the athletic department annually is one of the top money makers in the NCAA. UT also boasts The Longhorn Network, which produces a $15 million check from ESPN every year but is far more sizzle than steak. That’s because football and men’s basketball have failed to provide much in the way of victories.
What basketball is currently experiencing can be compared to what football went through following Mack Brown’s departure. Smart has failed to produce success as did Charlie Strong, who produced a 16-21 record in three seasons. The difference is that when he was hired, Smart didn’t have a billionaire blowhard booster suggest he’d make a good assistant coach. Plus, he’s lasted four seasons.
Since 2004, the year after T.J. Ford led Texas to the Final Four, the Longhorns have had 12 players selected in the NBA Draft. That equals the number of NCAA Tournament victories over that 15-year span. UT has made two regional finals and one Sweet 16 since 2004 but over the last 10 seasons, the NCAA record is a miserable 4-10.
By contrast, the little Baptist school 90 miles up the road has either equaled or surpassed Texas. In the last 15 years, Baylor has had seven players drafted by the NBA while compiling a 10-7 NCAA Tournament record. For sure, the Bears have suffered a couple of embarrassing first-round upsets, but they’ve also reached two Sweet 16s and two regional finals plus winning one NIT and finishing runner up in another.
Texas is 16-14 overall and 8-9 in Big 12 play going into Saturday’s season finale against TCU. The Horned Frogs are desperate to reverse their slide that has put them on the NCAA Tournament bubble. The loser could start thinking about the NIT. However, the Longhorns are still projected to make the field in most mock brackets. If Texas slips in as a 10, 11 or 12 seed – especially if it has to play in First Four – it won’t lead to a Selection Sunday celebration.
In a major sport at a big-time university, being just another program isn’t good enough. No matter how likable, intelligent or compassionate he is, Shaka Smart has yet to show he can move Texas out of the sport’s middle class.