There's a lot to unpack there with the two press conferences, but if you watch these things on a regular basis there's a huge rinse and repeat aspect to them.
I realize different people constantly want to focus on the offense and what they see as deficiencies, but watch what Beard talks about publicly when discussing his offense. It's never about "people not moving" or "taking better shots" or "I felt like we pounded the ball too much" or "needing to get more talented" or "who or who shouldn't be handling the ball" or "need to improve post entry passes" or "more scoring from the front court" or "need to be better in transition" or anything else that me or other posters want to complain about. I am NOT trying to delegitimize those complaints, nor am I trying to act as some kind of powerless posting tzar that tells people what they can and can't complain about. I'm simply trying to give those of us who actually read threads and follow the program closely on this board an invitation to set their expectations accordingly.
What Beard values is being efficient on offense. Which Texas, despite how it looks, is. He values not turning over the ball. Which, sometimes they do well, others, not so much. What is obvious is that this team doesn't handle full court pressure well. So that is going to absolutely have to improve. He'd like his players to be aggressive and force officials to call fouls, but I'm not sure how you do that with this group. At least more than they are right now. It's not really a "drive to the hoop" back court or "go strong to the hoop" front court. It's a bunch of jump shooters and pivot your feet post men. Nor do they focus on offensive rebounding as a team (more about getting back on defense). So not much of a chance for a foul on a second chance opportunity. Also, when talking about front court players he constantly talks about them playing facing the basket. I am absolutely positive this is a huge part of his recruiting pitch for big men, at least skilled ones.
He REALLY values his defense. He brought up how good the defense played, noting that as good as it was statistically, the half court defense was even better than that because so many of the Vol points were off of turnovers turned into transition points, which he thought was the real story of the game in terms of it being close.
Beard is virtually always positive. He's ridiculously effusive about the fans during every press conference. EVERY press conference. It's pretty much always the first thing he brings up. I've never seen any coach talk about fans as much as Chris Beard does. He's practically going to will a strong basketball fan base into existence. He never lets up. He never deviates from his message. He also has a seemingly Svengali effect on the players where every single one parrots his message about the fans ad infinitum. Compare that to Barnes, who's almost dismissive of them. He doesn't mean anything by it, but Beard is constantly in salesman mode, while Barnes is simply trying to be genuine in his responses. Beard is who we need at Texas (not a shot at Barnes, simply compared to any other coach) because Texas needs a gifted salesman to boost fan and student participation to a higher level. He's extraordinarily passionate about it. Which you have to have. Otherwise the ennui could get to you.
This is not a guy who's changing. He's convicted in his message and his approach. So fans either find a way to accommodate him in some way, or they're going to be frustrated with the Chris Beard Era, which would be a shame, because I think it's going to be special.
He also tends to do a good job game planning for the other team's best scorer. Not saying it's going to work every time, but consistently I see Texas make the other team's best scorer uncomfortable, and then you see opposing coaches talk about it, including Barnes here.
Anyway, this is a great win. I value conference victories at this point over the nonconference (really need to be .500 or above), but this is by far the best resume builder win on UT's season so far. And because it was a special game with Barnes there, it made the victory mean more.