Texas Basketball: Is Fran Fraschilla right about Shaka Smart?

A couple of interesting takes on the Texas basketball program and head coach Shaka Smart surfaced on the broadcast of last night’s game vs. Baylor.

In what turned out to be an absolute defensive struggle between the Texas basketball program and the No. 1 ranked Baylor Bears on Feb. 10 at home at the Frank Erwin Center, the broadcast team for ESPN stole the show for a bit. Head coach Shaka Smart had his work cut out for him against the top team in the nation, but he did have the chance to pull off a massive upset. Smart just could never get his team to take the momentum in that game and run with it.

Texas wound up having another down second half and falling short to Baylor by the final score of 52-45. Baylor actually held Smart and his Texas team to less than 90 points combined in their two meetings during the regular season. That also helped Baylor notch the regular season sweep over their in-state Big 12 foe in the burnt orange.

However, one of the commentators in the Feb. 10 win for Baylor on the Forty Acres over the Texas Longhorns basketball program reportedly went in on the coaching situation surrounding Smart. Fran Fraschilla had plenty to say in general about the Longhorns athletic department and how it’s not meeting the standard of success that it usually set in the past.

Here’s what Fraschilla had to say on the matter of the Longhorn men’s basketball coaching situation in the fifth year under Smart’s direction.

"I’d be shocked if they get a guy like Chris Beard to leave Texas Tech. He’s (Smart) got a young team, he’s had some injuries. You gotta tell me who you’d hire before you make a coaching change, especially if you’re going to pay the man 10 million."

Here’s what else Fraschilla had to say on the matter of Texas athletics at this point in time.

"Texas has been in the past about excellence, and let’s be honest: Most of their major sports are not very good right now. 7-5 in football doesn’t cut it. Women’s basketball is OK, baseball is horrible. That’s not Texas athletics."

That’s a rough set of quotes considering Fraschilla was just covering the Longhorns basketball program taking on Baylor in a Monday night showdown at home. Texas didn’t really get blown out by Baylor, but he still decided to give his take on how bad the women’s basketball and baseball programs are doing at the same time.

He was also wrong on the Texas record from the 2019 football season. That 7-5 record was what they finished up the regular season with, but they won the Alamo Bowl over the Utah Utes by the final score of 38-10 and claimed their eighth win of the 2019 campaign.

Baseball is coming off a rather bad season, but they are just one season removed from making a run to the College World Series and winning the Big 12. Women’s basketball has a top 10 finalist for the Nancy Lieberman Award too with point guard Sug Sutton.

It could be worse with Texas athletics right now.

But the bigger point this conversation from Fraschilla brought up was the coaching situation with Smart and the Texas basketball program. Texas is now 14-10 (4-7 Big 12) and on the outside looking for the NCAA Tournament field. They don’t have much time left to prove their case to get into the “Big Dance” either.

Is there a coach that the Longhorns could snag right now that’s better than Smart?

There’s such a large talent pool to draw off of in college basketball that Texas would be able to find someone that could get them into the NCAA Tournament in more than two out of five seasons. Fraschilla was wrong on that point that they couldn’t find really anyone right now that could do that while keeping his program in good shape off the court.