Texas Basketball: Overwhelming majority favors firing of Shaka Smart

It feels like beyond time at this point that Texas basketball program finally parts ways with sixth-year head coach Shaka Smart. The talk of the town for a while, not just on the Forty Acres but around the college hoops media landscape as a whole, surrounded Smart’s recently found scorching hot seat.

Following the embarrassing loss for Smart and the Longhorns in the Round of 64 last weekend at the hands of the 14-seed Abilene Christian Wildcats and head coach Joe Goulding, the hot seat for this head coach really started ramping up. Few head coaches around the entire college hoops landscape at the moment sit on as hot of a seat as Smart.

Texas fell short to ACU back late in the night of March 20 by the final score of 53-52. It was last-second free throws made by the Wildcats junior big man Joe Pleasant that officially sealed the upset win for them.

Where Texas basketball can go from here with Shaka Smart’s hot seat?

A lot of outcries from the Longhorns fan base since the loss to ACU first occurred back on March 20 were heard loud and clear in the media. But what really matters is whether Texas athletic director Chris del Conte and the rest of the administration feels the same way and wants to part ways with Smart this coming offseason.

Smart now owns a record of 0-3 in the NCAA Tournament during six seasons at the helm as head coach on the Forty Acres. And none of those three losses came to a team that was higher than a seven-seed. In fact, two of the three losses in the “Big Dance” came against teams that were double-digit seeds.

Granted none was worse than the upset loss to ACU for the three-seed Texas this year.

Big-time voices in the Longhorns media such as the Austin-American Statesmen/Hookem.com and Horns247 have given their opinions on the matter. Even the likes of Darren Rovell of The Action Network and the Dallas Morning News threw their voices into the mix that Smart should be let go this offseason.

We also ran our own poll on social media from Hook’Em Headlines to see what Longhorns basketball fans themselves were feeling about this situation with Smart’s hot seat.

It feels like the big push at the moment is for Smart to be bought out this offseason. There is a clear ceiling that he’s set for the postseason if he continues to be the Texas head coach, and first round exits should not be the standard over the long haul.

Texas wound up finishing up with a record of 19-8 (11-6 Big 12) following their Round of 64 loss at the hands of the Wildcats. While Smart and the Longhorns did have a successful regular season and won the Big 12 Tournament for the first time in program history this year, the end result for the season was not good.