Texas Basketball: Shaka Smart’s seat has to be heating up after OU loss

What is the status of the Texas basketball program as we’re nearing the 15th game of the 2019-20 regular season, with Big 12 play off to a poor start.

A really bad start to Big 12 play for the Texas basketball program saw an inexplicable loss occur on Jan. 8. In the second game of the Big 12 slate this year, Texas fell short against their rival north of the Red River on the hardwood on Wednesday night. The Oklahoma Sooners got the best of Texas in the Red River Rivalry game on the hardwood.

This moved the record of the Texas Longhorns basketball program to an increasingly mediocre 10-4 (0-2 Big 12) on the season. The second loss in Big 12 play compounded with the 59-44 defeat in the conference opener on Jan. 4 against the Baylor Bears for a devastating start for this Longhorns team.

Head coach Shaka Smart is taking a talented and deep Texas team that he has in store this season and floundering them in the Big 12 standings. Texas is sitting with a group of winless teams in the Big 12 standings, also with two losses, that includes three other teams. Those three other teams are the Oklahoma State Cowboys, Iowa State Cyclones, and Kansas State Wildcats.

The solid guard combination of junior Matt Coleman and sophomore Courtney Ramey isn’t coming through consistently. Either Coleman or Ramey comes through for the Longhorns, but it never seems to happen at the same time.

And the breakthrough junior center Jericho Sims isn’t getting enough usage to make his insane rebounding and efficient low post scoring to make a big enough impact to win games. Sims is about the most efficient player on this Texas team.

The talented freshmen trio of forward Kai Jones, center Will Baker, and guard Donovan Williams also isn’t making that much of an impact. But there’s only so much you can blame on Smart when Baker has a player efficiency rating below zero.

But there’s a common theme that is mounting with Smart that is why Longhorn basketball fans are getting so impatient. He’s trending in the direction of missing out on the NCAA Tournament for the third time in the last four seasons.

Smart is also yet to manage a winning record in conference play. The best Texas has done under Smart’s direction in the Big 12 is 8-10. Texas is also trending in the direction of yet another losing record in Big 12 play.

Compound all these factors along with losing to a rival on the hardwood like Oklahoma and you get a ton of impatient and angry Texas fans. Losing to Baylor is one thing, but falling short against a borderline NCAA Tournament-caliber team is something that might not be forgivable with all the past struggles Smart had.

All in all, I’m not saying that the Longhorns should consider firing Smart already. That is a big jump, and this is still an easily salvageable season. Get on the right track, and the Longhorns could easily make it into the NCAA Tournament for just the second time in the last four years.

But questions are starting to be asked about Smart’s job security, and there is validity to that.