Patience has already run out for many here in Austin--including some very influential Texas Exes. I'll still renew my season tickets next year to create the daddy/daughter date night opportunities, but there's plenty of clamoring around here for shakamustgo and Chris Beard. The biggest problem is that two former ADs gave him massive amounts of guaranteed money (initial deal followed by a one-year extension through 2023), with four years and $13.8m currently left in the deal. Even with a giant donor base and a very lucrative athletics program, that's a hell of a lot of money to eat.
Shaka can clearly recruit, and/or the school itself exerts a powerful field of gravity, especially for a football-first institution. But if you think you see a lot of freelancing and pounding the ball around the top of the key at SU, tune on in to one of the UT games so you can put things into perspective. I don't know if he's lost the team, but I think he had abysmal senior "leadership" in Kerwin Roach this year. I have been dying to see him go. My guess is that we'll suffer through one more underachieving year under Shaka, with a firing during the conference slate in 1Q 2020, and then the new blood will sail in as we prepare to open a brand-new hoops facility in 2021. (It's badly needed. I grew up in the Salt City and spent plenty of time in the Dome, and the Erwin Center is like a smaller, similarly-dated concrete tomb.)
SU hoops will always come first for me, no question. But access to 20th-row seats aligned at the free throw line here has been a great way to cultivate a college hoops aficionado in one of my daughters. Here's to better times for both programs.
