Shaka Smart to Texas?

[jerbob36]

See Louisville. Their style is similar to Shaka's and West Virginia in that they spend a good chunk of the game pressuring you beyond half-court. Hard to argue with the success of Pitino and Louisville. National title, Elite 8s regularly. Bill Self just saw his string of consecutive titles end. It may take a couple of years, but they will be tough.

Shaka has been at or near the top of the list of coaches most targeted in the last few years by P5 ADs for a reason. 163-56, a Final Four appearance as an 11 seed. I would also argue the A-10 is a better conference than the Missouri Valley. He's been coaching in a better conference that Gregg Marshall. I love them both as coaches, but I will stick with Smart if I had to choose.

 

[FSHawkeye87]

VCU under Smart:

2010: 27-9, 5th in CAA, CBI champions
2011: 28-12, 4th in CAA, 11 seed, NCAA Tournament Final Four
2012: 29-7, 2nd in A-10, A-10 Conference Tournament Champions, 12 seed, NCAA Tournament Round of 32
2013: 27-9, 2nd in A-10, 5 seed NCAA Tournamenr Round of 32
2014: 26-9, 2nd in A-10, 5 seed, NCAA Tournament Round of 64
2015: 26-10, 4th in A-10, A-10 Conference Tournament Champions, 7 seed, NCAA Tournament Round of 64

Overall, 137-46. It should be noted also that the last 2 tournaments VCU lost in overtime.

I'm sorry blockm, but I just think you're off when you say he hasn't accomplished much. That's a pretty damn impressive resume at a mid-major, especially that VCU was regularly advancing past the first round in the NCAAs until losing in overtime the last 2 years. Whether that will translate to success at Texas remains to be seen, but I think he's accomplished a good amount so far.

 

[HoustonREDHawk]

Texas can definitely attract players, and with the right coach, they could become a consistent top 10 team. I like Shaka a lot and his style is fun to watch. I think he can have success pressing, but against higher level competition, he will probably need to be able to switch up defenses to match the skills of the other team. I haven't watched VCU enough to really know how much they press under SS. My daughter goes to UT, but even with SS as their coach, I still can't root with the Orangeblood fan base.

 

[Hawkfreak2k15]

I think all of us hawk fans would love those outcomes the last five years if that was our team. I rarely heard of VCU before Smart took over. Look out Big 12, Texas is going to be scary scary good

 

[blockm2]

Originally posted by jerbob36:
See Louisville. Their style is similar to Shaka's and West Virginia in that they spend a good chunk of the game pressuring you beyond half-court. Hard to argue with the success of Pitino and Louisville. National title, Elite 8s regularly. Bill Self just saw his string of consecutive titles end. It may take a couple of years, but they will be tough.

Shaka has been at or near the top of the list of coaches most targeted in the last few years by P5 ADs for a reason. 163-56, a Final Four appearance as an 11 seed. I would also argue the A-10 is a better conference than the Missouri Valley. He's been coaching in a better conference that Gregg Marshall. I love them both as coaches, but I will stick with Smart if I had to choose.

When people mention Louisville and VCU in the same sentence I cringe. There is almost zero comparison between the 2. Shaka Smart had VCU play a high pressure trapping full court press defense essentially every chance they could of every game. Rick Pitino has Louisville play a very passive "press" with their 2 guards picking up full court most of the time but the other 3 players way back on defense.

The purpose of Shaka Smart's defense is to "heat up" the opposing team's guards (as he likes to say) and get them to play too fast and turn the ball over.

The purpose of Rick Pitino's defense is to make the opponent waste an extra 5 seconds getting into their offense so they have less time to run things in the half court. Pitino will very occasionally add a 3rd and 4th defender to the press and try to force turnovers but most of the game they don't even try other than just have their man to man try to harrass the opposing guard bringing the ball up the floor.

 

[blockm2]

Originally posted by FSHawkeye87:
VCU under Smart:

2010: 27-9, 5th in CAA, CBI champions
2011: 28-12, 4th in CAA, 11 seed, NCAA Tournament Final Four
2012: 29-7, 2nd in A-10, A-10 Conference Tournament Champions, 12 seed, NCAA Tournament Round of 32
2013: 27-9, 2nd in A-10, 5 seed NCAA Tournamenr Round of 32
2014: 26-9, 2nd in A-10, 5 seed, NCAA Tournament Round of 64
2015: 26-10, 4th in A-10, A-10 Conference Tournament Champions, 7 seed, NCAA Tournament Round of 64

Overall, 137-46. It should be noted also that the last 2 tournaments VCU lost in overtime.

I'm sorry blockm, but I just think you're off when you say he hasn't accomplished much. That's a pretty damn impressive resume at a mid-major, especially that VCU was regularly advancing past the first round in the NCAAs until losing in overtime the last 2 years. Whether that will translate to success at Texas remains to be seen, but I think he's accomplished a good amount so far.

So he probably had either the most talent in his conference (in the CAA) or at worst 2nd most talent (in A-10) and he never won the conference. Since his miracle Final Four run, he's gone 2-4 in the NCAA tournament and failed to advance out of the first weekend in 4 tries.

And let's look at how he's done against major competition the last few years. Here's all his games against P5 conference opponents going back...

2015: Beat Tennessee, Beat Oregon, Lost to Virginia, Lost to Villanova, Lost to Ohio State
2014: Beat Virginia, Lost to Florida State, Lost to Georgetown, Beat Virginia Tech
2013: Lost to Duke, Lost to Missouri, Beat Alabama, Lost to Michigan
2012: Lost to Georgia Tech, Lost to Alabama, Lost to Indiana

That's every game against a P5 conference opponent they've played since their Final Four run. The only top 25 team they beat was their upset last season of Virginia. The only other win over an NCAA tourney team was their early season win over Oregon this year (and Oregon had 4 new starters).

I like Shaka. He's a nice guy, very energetic. His style works well at a small school. But there is mountains of evidence that his all out defense cannot work at a high level.

 

[littlez]

Those 137 wins in 6 years are the 2nd most of any coach in the history of the NCAA. The CAA is a pretty darn good conference, I believe they had at least 4 teams in the Field of 64 last year. The teams you show that he played the last 4 years, there's basically not a bad power 5 team in the bunch, especially at the time they played them. Also, being a mid-major, guessing not 1 of those games were on their home court. Might have been lucky to get a neutral court game. This year they also lost their best player late in the season to a broken leg I believe. So, say Ohio State loses Russell late in the season. How do you think they would have fared against VCU? And the game went to overtime. If you don't think he's going to succeed, fine. Do you see a better candidate for Texas? Basically, every big job that has opened up over the last 3-4 years his name has been the guy that every AD wants. They must all be idiots as well.

 

[littlez]

blockm2, the whole "His style works well at a small school" is absolutely b.s. as well. How many years was Beilen at Canisius and Richmond before he got a shot? And of course Richmond is in the same conference as VCU. A good coach can coach anywhere. I'll throw Fran in there as well. He's been a mid-major coach his whole career. I think he's done just fine at Iowa and will continue to grow and do very well.

 

[blockm2]

Originally posted by littlez:
Those 137 wins in 6 years are the 2nd most of any coach in the history of the NCAA. The CAA is a pretty darn good conference, I believe they had at least 4 teams in the Field of 64 last year. The teams you show that he played the last 4 years, there's basically not a bad power 5 team in the bunch, especially at the time they played them. Also, being a mid-major, guessing not 1 of those games were on their home court. Might have been lucky to get a neutral court game. This year they also lost their best player late in the season to a broken leg I believe. So, say Ohio State loses Russell late in the season. How do you think they would have fared against VCU? And the game went to overtime. If you don't think he's going to succeed, fine. Do you see a better candidate for Texas? Basically, every big job that has opened up over the last 3-4 years his name has been the guy that every AD wants. They must all be idiots as well.

For what it's worth, VCU's previous coach Anthony Grant won a higher percentage of games at VCU than Smart has.

And their games vs power competition was almost all neutral site games except for a home and home with Virginia. Also can't say there wasn't a bad power 5 team in the bunch. 2015 Tennessee was 7-11 in a bad SEC. 2014 Virginia Tech was 2-16 in the ACC and possibly the worst power 5 team in the country that season. It's mostly Virginia, their NCAA games, and a bunch of mediocre opponents they played in preseason tourneys.

I'm not saying it's their fault they couldn't get a bunch of tough opponents, I'm saying Shaka's reputation is nearly entirely based on 2 things:

1) hot 3 point shooting taking them to a Final Four (in their sweet 16 and elite 8 wins, they were 24-51 behind the arc)
2) beating up lesser opponents that didn't have the guard play to handle his press defense

When faced with actual good high level opponents, his press becomes more of a liability than an asset and since they spend so much time in practice working on it, they aren't nearly as well schooled in other areas of the game which comes back to bite them.

 

[ichawk24]

Smart has been a very successful coach, and has as good a chance as most to succeed at Texas. I'd love having him for my coach.

 

[Hawkfreak2k15]

I'd take Shaka over Fran any day of the week. I hate to say it

 

[Arbitr8]

Highly overrated coach that is what he is.

 

[Hawkfreak2k15]

Judging by his record and tournament experience at VCU of all schools, I'm not sure how you came up with that conclusion... Everyone has their own opinion I guess. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

[littlez]

Arbitr8, please explain how a guy that has won the 2nd most games in the history of college bball in his 1st 6 years is overrated? He's never had a bad season and has taken a mid major to the Final 4. Our resident Michigan man claims it's luck, but I'd like to hear what you actually have to say vs just calling him overrated.

 

[jerbob36]

When people don't think Louisville and VCU are comparable it makes me cringe.

2013, Louisville ran a ton of run and jump full court defense with Russ Smith usually being the one to pressure the other PG. The deep guys took away the next pass.

Pitino has been known for running a match-up press as well. Some 2-2-1 (see 2007). I could link quite a few articles about his pressing over the years (google if you really want to). Pitino has also run some 1-2-1-1 with Kentucky in the day.

He also was one of the first coaches to use the "cut and double" trap. Look it up if you are curious.

I don't mean to get into a pissing match here, but to imply that Pitino is in no way comparable to Shaka because Pitino uses 2 guys to softly pressure opponents is laughable. He didn't use as much pressure this year, but he has implemented a ton of things similar to HAVOC over the years. The systems are very similar.

 

[littlez]

Oh c'mon , don't you know that block em considers him a mid major coach and lucky? Most of those wins probably shouldn't even count.