As Longhorns Swoon, Coach Faces More Questions

Rick Barnes is a dream candidate for NC State fans to be Sidney Lowe’s replacement. As coaches stay longer and longer in one place, expectations rise and criticism grows if results don’t continue to trend upward. It happened to Tom O’Brien at Boston College and it happened to Herb Sendek at NC State. Will it happen to Rick Barnes at the University of Texas as well?

Link to article.

There is no way anyone can call Barnes a bad coach. He has won more than 500 games and will lead a team to the N.C.A.A. tournament this year for the 16th consecutive season, a stretch that dates to his days at Clemson. That ties Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski for the longest active streak. Texas is one of six colleges to advance to the Round of 16 in five of the past nine years. Included in that run is a trip to the 2003 Final Four, the first time since 1947 that Texas advanced that far.

But the ghosts of N.C.A.A. tournaments past still haunt Barnes. He is 0 for 5 coaching in first-round N.C.A.A. tournament games between No. 8 and No. 9 seeds. In his 12 N.C.A.A. tournament appearances at Texas, eight of his losses were against teams with lower seeds.

Some of those were forgivable, like when the No. 1 Longhorns lost to the eventual national champion Syracuse, a No. 3 seed, at the 2003 Final Four. But some losses still make Longhorns fans grimace, like the first-round losses to Temple, a No. 11 seed, in 2001 and to No. 10 Purdue in 1999.

“I don’t care,” Barnes said late Tuesday of the criticism. “I’ve been in this so long, I could care less about what other people think. I quit a long time ago worrying about that.”

Barnes is worried about his team, which showed that it had Final Four potential in victories over Kansas, North Carolina and Texas A&M. But Texas has also shown enough flaws lately to be the prototypical office pool head-scratcher.

Will their N.B.A. talents and once boundless promise translate to March success? Much will depend on whether Barnes has any magic stored up his sleeve.

General

106 Responses to As Longhorns Swoon, Coach Faces More Questions

  1. Wolfy__79 03/03/2011 at 10:43 AM #

    ^not really, i just like the guy. i don’t feel 100% confident that he could compete at the top of the league but is a good coach imo.

  2. Prowling Woofie 03/03/2011 at 4:37 PM #

    “So basically you were OK with Sendek, he was well on his way to losing early in 12 straight NCAAs.” Jo2g5

    You’re kidding, right ? Herbie skipped out just ahead of the train wreck. His incoming recruiting class was dog crap. Chris Wright took four years to develop and the other two were barely serviceable Div I players. No way he would’ve continued the ‘squeek streak’ in the NCAA’s.

    His great recruiting coup in Tempe has been to hire Harden’s coach and ride him into the prairie dust.

  3. VaWolf82 03/03/2011 at 4:46 PM #

    Herb’s 2006 class was Horner, Davis, and Werner. Chris Wright would not have enrolled until the next year. The 06/07 year was going to suck no matter who the coach was.

  4. Wolfy__79 03/03/2011 at 5:15 PM #

    Engin Atsur, Sr.
    F/C Andrew Brackman, Jr.
    G Gavin Grant, Jr.
    C Ben McCauley, Soph.
    G Courtney Fells, Soph.
    F Brandon Costner, RS-Fr.*
    G Trevor Ferguson, RS-Fr.*
    G Dennis Horner, Fr.
    C Bartosz Lewandowski, Fr.
    G Farnold Degand, RS-Fr.*

    .. it could be argued either way with this roster. it really doesn’t matter, not many pack fans then or now wanted anymore princeton offense.

  5. ADVENTUROO 03/03/2011 at 5:34 PM #

    I am sure that AD Yow had a list of BB coaches that she prepared for Gary Williams’ replacement. We all know how THAT worked out.

    Some of the comments here makes me think that Charlie Sheen has become a closet state fan is and not getting enough media time so he is ranting here….

    The “poll” that the N&O and WRAL is running is fueled (funded) by a liberal group…..it was done to create contraversy…..which it has.

    The other “monekees” are buring up their keyboards…..to what end.

    Coach Lowe needs a good run in the ACC. The Fab Four are still playing erratically. When good ole Huck Roy can’t pull together a bunch of prima donna’s (and I really love them all, but they do have their own agenda…) in a year, why do we expect Coach Lowe to do the same. Now Cauldon Tutor is flipping a coin for ACC COY between Mikey and Roy. Roy started off the season really ROUGH….the boys did not fully understand team play. Now they are highly ranked.

    Things could be the SAME for us next year with Sid at the Helm…

    Without Sid, we will probably end up with a coach that will be worse than HWWNBSOHA……and drop a quarter of a Million on a “new offense”.

    Get serious….GO LOWE….GO WOLFPACK.

  6. VaWolf82 03/03/2011 at 6:23 PM #

    Without Sid, we will probably end up with a coach that will be worse than HWWNBSOHA

    With Sid we definitely have the worst coach since before Case. So what’s your point?

  7. Wolfy__79 03/03/2011 at 8:20 PM #

    ^^come on man? that’s rediculous, i have alot of appreciation for sid lowe as a former player for us and still have that.. his coaching tenure should be terminated. he, statistically, is our worst coach in a very long time if not ever. the bad thing is, he’s got vision.. but doesn’t have the slightest on how to teach and get that out of his players. it’s really bad..

    in the mean time, we are getting pasted and serving as a confidence booster for everyone else in the conference…and that’s not just limited to unx and dook anymore. at this point it feels like watching fsu in bball their first decade in the acc!

    there are alot of coaches out there that can do a better job.. i hate to say it but, at this point i have to be honest.. he is not a good head coach and i’m seriously doubting if he’s even a good assistant coach. i’ve played for good and bad coaches before, and he is neither…

  8. ADVENTUROO 03/03/2011 at 8:23 PM #

    VaWolf82,

    Perhaps you need to check my math, but here is what I came up with….

    Won Lost % Won Lost %
    Valvano 209 114 64.7% 71 69 50.7%
    Robinson 79 98 44.6% 28 66 29.8%
    Sendek 191 132 59.1% 72 88 45.0%
    Lowe 86 76 53.1% 25 54 31.6%

    Robinson’s record is worse than Sidney’s….and we kept HIM for 6 years….I started going to the ACC Tourney because you could find tickets to the Les Robinson “Invitation” Thursday night game very easily…and have been going every since.

    SO THAT IS MY POINT. I think that Lowe’s 6th year will be MUCH better than this year. If not, then I will be the FIRST to say, as Al Gore did, IT IS TIME FOR HIM TO GO….

    The Women were down 14 points in the second half and now have the lead over BC. Don’t know if it will last…but let’s hope so.

    If Sidney is fired for underachieving, then Kelly Harper will have been fired FIRST….and I certainly don’t want EITHER to happen.

  9. Wolfy__79 03/03/2011 at 8:28 PM #

    … heck, i even appreciate him in what i see as kind of taking a bullet after a really poor coaching search by our former ad. he was on the committee but it appeared like we backed into it.

    i will be rooting like crazy once again come acc tourney, unfortunately we could very likely play a unx or duke early and get severely blown away.

    i know he’s well paid, but i don’t think i could survive being an nc state head coach and taking the hanus whippings we’ve taken in the last few years… it’s hard enough as an alum! my hat’s off to him for not losing his cool with the situation.. but can we please move forward DY????

  10. Wolfy__79 03/03/2011 at 8:35 PM #

    the comparison took me off subject a bit. if your numbers are accurate i still say neither robinson or lowe should have been the head coach. they are two different scenarios wouldn’t you say?? that’s more my point.. sid lowe has proven through five seasons that he isn’t the right fit. the acc is “down” … or so i hear. in year five, we should be a factor not a part of the reason why the conference is down.

    i include all the coaches above as a part of our trend downward. last conference title in the eighties, since then we’ve been inching, crawling, diving and now floundering at the bottom of the barrel. it’s quite painful you know. we’ve basically seen the program hit/approach rock darn bottom!

  11. Wolfy__79 03/03/2011 at 8:55 PM #

    aside from the record speaking for itself.. what about the player development issue, or in this case the lack thereof?

    in five years we’ve seen our players almost tread water in comparison with the rest of the league’s player development. f.e. why is jordan williams beasting our senior tracy smith.. please no injury argument. it’s also an attitude thing. what about a senior pg javi gonzalez? he’s yet to show any maturity in four years. even on miami they have mature acc seniors like mcclinton or clemson’s stitt.

    i’ve made argument after argument for what sid lowe is doing up to this season, in here and with other alumni. and there are still a few instances where i could spin some of the body of work.. but that’s getting thin now.

    forget the record, watching the games i know that there are better options out there at this point.

  12. VaWolf82 03/03/2011 at 9:12 PM #

    Robinson’s record is worse than Sidney’s….and we kept HIM for 6 years….

    If you don’t already know why that comparison is hopelessly flawed, then I’m sure that I can’t help you understand.

    If Sidney is fired for underachieving, then Kelly Harper will have been fired FIRST

    O-2. I think you should pass on lottery tickets this week.

  13. Wolfy__79 03/03/2011 at 9:48 PM #

    harper isn’t anywhere near failing to me.. she’s trending up. acc women’s hoops is pretty competitive and it will take time for her to show her full hand..

  14. 61Packer 03/03/2011 at 10:16 PM #

    Low is not only a worse coach than Les Robinson, Low is a worse coach than Bob Wade. Many people on here just don’t understand the depth of men’s basketball coaching ineptness we’ve seen at NCSU for the past 5 seasons. It’s undisciplined sloppiness at a level of ugliness not seen in the RBC Center since Clyde Drexler coached here once for almost an entire game (he was ejected near the end).

    Only a cupcake home OOC schedule has kept Low’s overall record above .500. Last night’s 16-0 deficit at UVA ranks right up there with the awful loss at ECU a few years ago. We’ve got a coach who has managed to coach equally bad with or without talent. He’s never publically taken the blame but has often thrown his players under the proverbial bus. His teams have QUIT more than once vs UNC, and we’re at 10 losses in a row to the Heels and counting. God forbid we face them again under Low.

    And now we have people on here who not only defend him but want him back for one more season. They’re insane!

  15. ADVENTUROO 03/03/2011 at 10:27 PM #

    Kelly Harper and the Ladies played with poise tonight. They were down 15 in the first half and 14, if I am correct, in the second. I had watched them blow leads in two games, but they hung tough tonight.

    My hat is off to Coach Harper….I was using the “AD YOW SAYS….you might be top 25” sarcasism….if it went over folks heads, I apologize.

    The comments about Coach Lowe are legitimate criticism….but we have not allowed him to finish his job. Rightly or wrongly, he was hired because we were in a world of hurts.

    I followed, as many did, all the shenanigans….heck, I even learned how to track both of Wendell Murphy’s planes.

    Our former AD was played like a violin. We were and are still lucky, IMHO, to have hired Coach Lowe. There is a LOT more spirit in the arena….compared to Coach Sendek. Fans are generally behind him….when the team plays poorly, we lose some, but generally, there is more energy.

    Many of you do not remember the 1983 run. I do. I taped every game and have given Coach Lowe all the recently dubbed DVD’s. I also included all the special programs and the interviews and the Valvano shows. This team is not the 1983 team, but they have the potential to be.

    I have talked to a LOT of folks, in and out of the program and also supporters of and NOT supporters of Coach Lowe. There is NO uprising (like at Carolina when Dougherty was coach). These players believe in Coach Lowe. He is trying to make them function as a team.

    I think he deserves the opportunity to complete the task and I SHUDDER at the possibility of a NEW COACH hired by an AD who has not “proved” her ability to make good hires. The Gary Williams situation and the Ralph debacle (Coach in waiting) were HER ideas.

    I think that she is MORE than a capable administrator. She is NOT a TOP 25 AD….her MD Director’s Cup standings attest to that.

    The situation at MD became untenable (SP?) for her and she found a parachute….The name YOW carries a LOT of weight with the Administration and the big donors. She is a LOT like the TOB hire….HE came to us….SHE came to us. In NEITHER situation, did we do a full and thorough search.

    SO, I HOPE that AD Yow will REALLY evaluate what has happened this year and look at he upside, and downside, of keeping Coach Lowe…

    All this hype and hoopla about “her list” is about as useful as ME, as someone suggested, telling YOU what the winning lottery numbers will be tonight.

    I knew, VaWolf82, that Lowe’s record was BETTER than Robinson’s….I just made sure of MY facts rather than shooting from the hip.

    I ALSO understand WHY they both had such poor records. This is the FIRST year where we have TALENT for next year and also bringing in NEW talent.

    What TALENT will a NEW COACH bring in? What if ALL our Talent doesn’t like to play for him or if they walk?.

    I have put my money and contributions on HIM. I will not give up my LTR’s if he goes, but I will be the FIRST to expect a MIRACLE next year….similar to the one in 1983….and IF not, then I will be behind the pack, but I will want some answers from the AD.

    There are a LOT of WPC members that want Coach Lowe to stay…and, if my “poll numbers” are correct, FEWER that want him gone. Some that want him gone are big contributors….some that want him to stay are equally big contributors.

    Only AD Yow can make the call and I don’t envy her decision….but right now, I know how I would make the call.

    Randy Woodson did not ask ME to be AD, so my vote doesn’t count….but I shall continue to support the TEAM, which includes Coach Lowe….

  16. VaWolf82 03/03/2011 at 10:46 PM #

    I have put my money and contributions on HIM. I will not give up my LTR’s if he goes, but I will be the FIRST to expect a MIRACLE next year….similar to the one in 1983….

    So let me get this straight…..you expect absolutely nothing from Lowe after five years. BUT, you expect a miracle next year once a coaching change is made.

    That has to be the most bizarre line of reasoning that I have ever read.

  17. camel77 03/03/2011 at 11:11 PM #

    The 06/07 year was going to suck no matter who the coach was.

    With Lowe as the coach who to say that if he hadn’t lost his point guiard and senior leader for a third of the season, 2006-07 wouldn’t been better. He still was able to recover and get to the championship game of the ACC Tournment and still have a 20 win season.

    If Sendek was still coaching then, he would have his type players use to his style of playing and we wouldn’t have been staring with the players getting use to a new coaching style. You had Astur a good team leader and a quality point guard. Then you had Brandon Costner a R-Freshmen that should have been rookie-of-year except that he didn’t have UNC across his chest (he definally had a better year that Wright at UNC). All said, I think Herb would have had NC State back in the NCAA Tournment in 2007 and years after that.

  18. camel77 03/03/2011 at 11:28 PM #

    Chris Wright took four years to develop

    Do you call averaging over 30 minutes a game, 11 to 15 points a game, around 4.5 assits, and 1.5 steals a game since his Sophmoreseason developing?

  19. VaWolf82 03/03/2011 at 11:37 PM #

    Have you ever noticed how many times sentences used to defend Sendek start with “If” or “I think”? Sendek wasn’t good enough and Sid is even worse. I wish that both conclusions were wrong…but the evidence is overwhelming.

  20. Wolfy__79 03/03/2011 at 11:53 PM #

    i can be as high on sid lowe as anyone, i appreciate his contributions and stepping into the fire after a poor coaching search. however, to me he would need to have shown us something by this point. alot of people, myself included, thought with the new talent.. this year would be different. but in so many ways it’s been worse. our upperclassmen ride the pine. tracy is the only one who gets playing time and seemingly has taken steps backward in his development? javi has not grown an inch in respect to his maturity!

    i believe there are wpc members that want sid lowe to finish the job next year… i also believe that all of the wolfpack nation want to win. we have no legs to stand on! we are getting smeared in every frikkin statistical category in year five. i’m all for keeping lowe if he can win. what will make year six any different? as stated before, there is no player development. we’ve got acc freshman beasting our guys, some of them seniors??? what’s that all about!?

    there is still time for sid lowe to show a little genius. and that’s exactly what it’d take! i don’t see it happening b/c we have no evidence to say so… we aren’t even nit worthy right now? how can we think that there is any improvement? i’m listening and want to believe.

    nc state should win an acc title atleast every five years! well, it’s year five and it appears to be the longest shot of my 31 years.

  21. Wolfy__79 03/04/2011 at 12:01 AM #

    one of the problems for me is, and is a pretty big one, some of us and i’m guilty at times of thinking of 83! forget that, it was nice when sidney was hired but it’s a slap in the face in year five.

    ncaam’s hoops has changed so much since then and we have not! it’s great for nc state to take pride in our history but at this point it’s about what is next. for so long we’ve lived off of a miraculous cinderella run.. this time has passed. so who’s gotten it right? unx! how they have done so is disgusting to alot of people. but if you think for one minute that remembering the past other than in conversation is going to get it done then we are just spinning our wheels. at ncsu, we have been living in the past rather than remembering the past! don’t look now but it’s almost 30 years ago. do we need to join the dead five times over programs that are 50 years removed from relevance?

    to return to the throne you have to go through chapel hill and durham. beat them and you can do well, lose to them and you/we are only a platform for their championships. 1-11 vs unc is not cutting it!

  22. jo2g5 03/04/2011 at 8:48 AM #

    ^Capt

    “There is no comparison.

    Sendek took a bad State program and delivered a NCAA berth straight from the bubble starting year 6. Barnes took an equally bad Clemson team which had gone into the gutter under ellis starting in 91, and had them in the NCAAs in year 2 and on the cusp of the final 8 in year 3. And up to that point, it was Clemsons only 3 year run in the NCAA.”

    Barnes is a better recruiter than Sendek and he has gone farther in the NCAA’s then Sendek but he has also had way better talent than Sendek while at Texas and still has yet to win anything meaningful. There are 8 to 16 other coaches every year that get as far in the tournament as Barnes and a lot of them get there with less talent than Barnes. So I say again that Barnes will probably get you in the neighborhood of 25 wins a year but will never win a championship.

    Don’t get me wrong the day Sendek left I was relieved to say the least.

    The biggest problem in NC State sports over the last 10-15 years without a doubt was Lee Fowler. So let’s put a large part of the blame where it belongs.

    And check out the Sports page for the News and Distorter today they are hyping the REGULAR SEASON CHAMPIONSHIP. So apparently it does hold some significance out there. I’m sure when the NCAA goes to seed the teams out there they take no consideration of who had the best record in their conference. And I’m sure that means nothing to the coaches or players or a large portion of the fans out there.

  23. CaptainCraptacular 03/04/2011 at 10:46 AM #

    The biggest problem in NC State sports over the last 10-15 years without a doubt was Lee Fowler

    Yes, agreed!

    REGULAR SEASON CHAMPIONSHIP

    Espn also makes a big deal over it, going so far to imply incorrectly that it is the conferences true championship. I maintain that it doesn’t mean anything and anyone who believes it does is sadly mistaken. The ACC’s mens basketball champion is crowned at the end of the conference tournament, just like the conference or national tournaments (or postseason conference and BCS title games) of the other major professional and NCAA sports.

  24. Wolfy__79 03/04/2011 at 11:04 AM #

    the regular season “championship” is not a crown at all. it’s all about who runs the tables in the tourney! if the regular season championship was used as anything more than seeding then the nationally ranked #1 team would also receive some kind of recognition.. in this case, if it were any other team other than the blue boys then they wouldn’t be hyping it so.

    but, if i were a coach i would always look back at the end of the year and analyze the overall performance. that would include with taking different phases of the season, if any, which would include the entire regular season and compare it to tourney performances! that is where i would take into account if i won the reg season “championship” and how that translated into success/failure in the post season. …that being if there were any differences. but outside of its analytical purpose… it’s just eye candy.

  25. camel77 03/04/2011 at 11:22 AM #

    VaWolf82 Says:
    March 3rd, 2011 at 11:37 pm

    Have you ever noticed how many times sentences used to defend Sendek start with “If” or “I think”? Sendek wasn’t good enough and Sid is even worse. I wish that both conclusions were wrong…but the evidence is overwhelming.
    How can you say the evidences is overwhelming on Sendek? Did not after getting his type of player in, have us playing in the NCAA Tournament for five years straight. Granted not very deep in the tournament, very much Barnes like. He was also getting better recruits to play that style of basketball. You may say that his teams barely got in the tournament but they did, just like a lot of Valano’s teams. Sendek lack of success at ASU doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have kept it going at NCSU.

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