Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
In case you’ve been under a rock for the past month, the Texas Longhorns’ basketball season has descended into disaster. Seriously though. If you haven’t been watching college basketball in February, you may have missed it: Texas is not a very good team anymore.
Since ascending to the top of the polls and then losing to UCONN on January 23rd, Texas has gone 6-5 and dropped out of the Top 25. This from a team that most were calling the deepest, most talented group in the country.
So what does Texas coach Rick Barnes think of Texas’ suddenly fading National Title hopes?
“We would love to win a national championship, but we’re not obsessed with it because we’re obsessed with these guys trying to live their NBA dream. What’s happened to Kevin Durant, LaMarcus Aldridge, T.J. Ford — I’d give up a national title for all of our guys to be able to live their dream.”
Oof. It’s one of those unfortunate quotes that’s ripe for a bunch of reactionary sportswriters to rip apart. Can’t wait for Around the Horn today! But aside from the comforting hum of sports writer bile and fan uproar, there are two reasonable ways to look at this.
On the one hand… What Barnes said isn’t really that bad. He’s a college basketball coach. First and foremost, his job is to run a program that takes care of its players. By putting a good number of Longhorns in the NBA, Barnes has done that at Texas. “Not obsessing over a title” is different than “not caring,” mind you. Winning is obviously a huge concern, too—but if Barnes takes greater solace in the achievements of his players after college, then who are we to judge?
Or, to play the cynic… Is Barnes is just distracting us—and high school recruits—from his lengthy record of underachieving teams and shoddy coaching? His spiel sounds perfectly noble, but remember: nothing helps a senior like Damion James more than a deep NCAA tourney run. NBA scouts don’t just ignore the games, you know. And when they do, it’s usually to jump at a player like Lamarcus Aldridge, who was so athletic that Rick Barnes didn’t need to do a damn thing to get him to the next level. Mack Brown could have coached him to the NBA.
In any case, it’s interesting. What do you think?
(HT: Our old friend Eamonn)
2 comments
Comments
Given the fervor and dogmatism intrinsic to college basketball,
this guy just walked into a firestorm. However, it really isn’t to bad to say that you value your players more than barking fans or an institution whose investment in the team is predicated on their making a lot of money off of it.
I saw T2 at Walgreens in Deerfield he’s tall. if you’re wondering what his grocery list included: magnums, french vanilla ice cream and a 20 oz sprite
by Super-Structure on Mar 3, 2010 6:33 PM EST reply actions
Rick Barnes
Early defections to the NBA have destroyed college basketball. Fact. No Debate.
Where would the UCLA Bruins be today if Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook and Jrue Holiday were still Bruins and not raking in NBA millions? What would this year’s NCAA Tourney be like with these guys playing, plus the likes of Hasheem Thabeet at Connecticut, Tyreke Evans at Memphis, Gerald Henderson at Duke, Jeff Teague at Wake Forest, DaJuan Summers at Geogetown, etc., etc., etc.?
And Barnes has the audacity to say he cares not about success for his Texas team, so long as the one-and-out prima donnas get their asses into the NBA? Does he maybe collect a share of their contracts? How else can he insult not only his team and his school, but ALL OF COLLEGE SPORTS and expect to get away with it?
The lure of professional sports glamour and riches is poisoning not only college sports as a whole, but doing a horrible disservice to the student-athlete. How many of these young guys have given up a free education to follow little more than a dream into the NBA (and for some the NFL), only to see that dream burst with their future destroyed? Far more then the handful who succeed.
People like Barnes, the head coach at a major university, are feeding this disease, to the detriment of the NCAA, the fan, and primarily to the student-athlete.
Barnes is not fit to coach in a softball beer league.
theHounddawg
by theHoundDawg on Mar 4, 2010 7:09 PM EST reply actions
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