NCAA Basketball: Illinois surges, Shaka Smart’s future, and more weekly takeaways
By Brian Rauf
Here are the biggest takeaways from the past week in NCAA basketball, including a look at Illinois’ surge, Shaka Smart’s future at Texas, and more.
The Big 12/SEC Challenge highlighted the weekend of NCAA Basketball action and, while there were some good games, there weren’t any real upsets. Tennessee and Texas Tech both provided stiff tests against Kansas and Kentucky, respectively, before ultimately coming up short.
All of this week’s results were mostly the same, too – devoid of upsets – providing a bit of stability in the sport.
Of course, that isn’t good news for some teams that were looking for upsets. Perhaps the biggest one of those was Texas and head coach Shaka Smart, whose struggles continued with a home loss to LSU. An update on Smart’s job status is where we start this new Rauf Report, breaking down my biggest takeaways from the week.
1) Shaka Smart is all but done at Texas
Barring an unforeseen turnaround over the next month and a half, I am hearing that Shaka Smart will no longer be the coach at Texas once the season ends.
It shouldn’t really come as a surprise. Smart entered the year on the hot seat after missing the NCAA Tournament, and everyone associated with the program basically acknowledged he had to win this year. Following a 9-1 start that included a victory at Purdue, it looked like the Longhorns may have taken that step forward under Smart.
Well, they haven’t. They’re 3-6 over their last nine games, are in the bottom half of the Big 12 again, and are out of the NCAA Tournament picture.
A home game against LSU was a chance for Smart and the Longhorns to make a statement, and it looked like they would as they erased a double-digit deficit to take a lead in the closing moments. However, they struggled to score late as Smart made a few coaching blunders and drew up some unsuccessful plays.
The worst part about it is that it felt inevitable because it’s the same thing we’ve seen from Texas since Smart took over. The school wanted to give Smart another chance but, right now, they’re preparing to go in a different direction come March.