In the same week Shaka Smart’s predecessor, Rick Barnes, brought another orange UT to No. 1 in the basketball polls, the Longhorns lost their eighth game of the season.
This won’t last, of course, but right now Rick Barnes’ University of Tennessee Volunteers are ranked ahead of Duke’s NBA lottery team. Barnes is doing at Tennessee exactly what he did at Texas, which is to make basketball relevant at a football-mad school.
Rick Barnes is the standard in Austin, and Shaka Smart isn’t even Tom Penders. Shaka may not even be Coach Matthew McConaughey.