Smart looks for more than .500
Third-year coach owns 50-49 record heading into NCAA Tournament
On the eve of his 100th basketball game at Texas, Shaka Smart says he’s happy.
He’ll be much happier if his Longhorns can make it past Nevada and post the program’s first NCAA Tournament victory since 2014.
Smart is 50-49 in Austin after going 163-56 in six seasons at Virginia Commonwealth. It goes without saying that he would love to enter the 201819 season with a winning mark at UT. After 100 games here, the importance of Smart being above .500 — even if it’s just one or two games above — cannot be overstated.
OK, he has endured some turbulent times in this, his third season with the Horns, and that’s saying something after the 11-win no-show that was last season.
“I love coaching here,” Smart said on this week’s “On Second Thought” podcast. “My family loves being here. Obviously, you’re never all the way where you want to be. Have there been some unforeseen challenges? Absolutely. Have there been even, at times, some unlucky breaks?
Absolutely. But as we tell our guys, the key is to respond and to focus on the next important thing.”
That would be the 27-7 Nevada Wolfpack, who have won eight more games than the Horns and have a coach in Eric Musselman who once directed the Golden State Warriors, six seasons before Stephen Curry arrived.
It’s not an easy matchup since the Pack excels at two things Texas doesn’t do well: making 3-pointers and scoring. It seems like forever since Cam Ridley beat the buzzer with a put-back to defeat Arizona State in the opening round of the NCAAs four years ago.
Now, it’s time for Smart and Co. to make some new memories.
UT women ready
It’s become a running joke how the Texas women’s basketball team has been able to play station to station this season and not think too far ahead.
“We’re not very good if we think about anything but what’s in the moment,” Texas coach Karen Aston told me Monday. “The leadership on our team has learned a lot along the way. Last year, we got on that win streak and started listening to talk about us being a (No. 1 seed) and this, that and the other. I think they learned from that.”
Senior leaders Brooke McCarty and Ariel Atkins refuse to allow any Longhorns to get away from the goal of taking each game as it comes. I actually asked McCarty — who watches about as much television as a potted plant — if she checked the bracket for the other two teams (Arizona State and Nebraska) playing a game at the Erwin Center on Saturday.
“No, I haven’t,” said McCarty, whose team tip off the NCAAs against Maine. “I just saw the team that we play first.”
Are you even going to look at an NCAA bracket?
“No, I probably won’t look at it,” she answered. “Just focusing on the team ahead of us.”
It’s worked so far.
Tiger’s back
Tiger Woods appears to be back, but we’re not sure if he’s back back.
It all depends on that surgically repaired back.
For one weekend, Tiger’s magic returned. He knocked down clutch putts, hit fairways like nobody’s business and gave us a reason to reflect back on how intimidating that final-round fashion choice of red shirt and black pants was back in the day.
The PGA Tour has missed Tiger. In the near decade since he won his last major, the sport has produced a bevy of young stars — Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Jon Rahm come to mind — but none brings Woods’ electricity to the course.
Woods will never again be the wunderkind who won 14 majors by the age of 32, but he can still move the needle in his sport. Since that U.S. Open victory in 2008 — his most recent major — he has endured four back surgeries, a scandal that led to the end of his marriage, rehab for sex addiction, rehab for pill addiction and a fall from grace that cost him untold millions in endorsement greenbacks while the world watched. That’s behind him now. His tie for the runner-up spot behind Paul Casey at the Valspar Championship last week gives golf hope that it can return to the mainstream, with bigger crowds and higher television ratings. With Woods in contention through the last round, the NBC telecast earned a 5.11 overnight rating, making it the highest-rated golf telecast outside the Masters since Spieth reclaimed the No. 1 world ranking with a victory at the 2015 PGA Tour Championship.
Golf is not a sport in which one can just hit the switch and suddenly be back in championship form, although Tiger made it look that way at times. You could feel the energy coming through the flat screen when the Big Cat knocked down a 44-foot putt to pull to within one shot of Casey on the 18th. Now, Woods will be the favorite at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
“I’m excited to see him play again,” Casey told reporters earlier in the week. “I so want the young guys to see what we saw for such a long time.”
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