This is Shaka Smart’s sixth season at Texas, which means I’ve covered hundreds of his media events. I’ve never seen or heard him like he was today.

“Not very enjoyable,” Smart responded bluntly to the first question when asked what it was like to be a spectator last week before answering a follow-up.

“I wasn’t at home. I was in isolation. I had to leave home to be away from my family. I’m not really going to talk much about that (what he was doing when his team played). I can talk about the game itself, but I’m not going to talk about myself.”

He said a lot, but the Texas head coach also held back and left a lot unsaid. And when he spoke, he spoke with a blend of frustration, anger, concern and excitement. Basically, he sounded like a head coach who was in isolation away from his team and family, missed an actual game the league told his program it needed to play, had a very tough battle with COVID-19 and emerged with an altered perspective.

“Not much other than I just recovered from COVID,” responded Smart later in the press conference when asked what’s up because he seems like a changed man. “I'll be honest with you, I had significant symptoms from it. So, this was not a walk in the park for me. Not saying it has been for anyone else. And I definitely… when you go through that kind of stuff, it certainly swirls some things around your mind. So that's a much longer conversation than we have time for now. I'll be happy to talk to you about it sometime, maybe after the season.

“But there's a lot up there for me, and I think just to sum it up: maybe a prioritization of what matters most both as it relates to our team and also as it relates to my family, loved ones. The one thing when you have this thing is, and I'm sure other people maybe went through this is, it certainly gives you a little bit of a second sight to see some things a little more clearly."

However, he also sounded like a coach excited and grateful to be back on the court with his team Monday. Yesterday was the first time in 19 days Texas practiced with no one in quarantine or isolation. 19 days. That’s a long time, and if testing goes well today, Smart says he’ll have his full roster available for tomorrow’s game against No. 2 Baylor.

“It's easy to take something for granted if you get to do it every day. But if you go 19 days without having a full group together, and then you get to be back, particularly for me it just happened to be my first day out of isolation. Yeah, it's a very emotional and like moving thing, even just to be out there trying to get better at guarding a ball screen or transition defense or whatever it may be. So yeah, extremely grateful for being out there with those guys and the chance to work towards moving forward,” said Smart. “And like I said, we're going to do everything we can to go after this game. And I'm so excited for our guys that the arena won't be completely empty.

“I know some of you guys have mentioned it, that, man, it really was a heck of a difference for the players over these past several weeks, however long that's been, where we haven't been able to have any fans. So, excited for guys that their families are going to be able to come and that some of our fans will be able to come. But yeah, the gratitude is something that again, when you've gone through having it and feeling the way that I felt, just puts it back at the front of your mind.”

When asked who told Texas it had to play against Oklahoma, this was Smart’s response:

“The Big 12 has a rule where if you have six players available, then you are supposed to play. We went through a stretch there, without divulging any individual information about any players, where we did have some positive tests over the course of about a little over a week,” he said. “I was the last of those. And, again, everyone has their own rules about how these sorts of things are handled. Kentucky just using them as an example just went on a what they called a 48-hour pause because they had a positive test. Maybe they had more than one. So yeah, we were far from being full strength, but according to the Big 12 policy and guidelines, we were we were set to play.

“I did not say that we didn't want to play. I wasn't there. I think you can tell that was a that was a very, very difficult day for me. And I'm not even really going to get… I'll talk about the game like I did about Kai played. But I'm not going to get into much more than that.”

As for more frustration, Smart’s answer about whether conference tournaments happen included some of that, especially the inconsistencies in which games get canceled and which ones don’t.“

“Yeah, it's a great question, and I think it's like a lot of other things in this debate, in this time period there's no perfect answer. I mean, one thing that I think we've all learned over this time, is that certainly the powers that be want to play these games. And the conference tournament is no different. So as far as I know, that's what our conference is planning to do.

“To me, I think that as always as I always talked about, there needs to be extreme consideration just given to kind of the total effect of everything on the players, student-athletes, where their minds are at. How they're doing with everything. And, I mean, let's be honest, the NCAA prioritizes the NCAA tournament; the conferences prioritize the conference games and the conference tournament. Individual programs prioritize what's best for them.

“A game like the Oklahoma game, we were certainly far from full strength. You certainly could have made an argument that it was a tough position for our guys to be in. But according to the conference’s rules, we were told to play. The other day against Kentucky, and again, I don't know anything about their situation. I don't know anything about their… how they handle things with their health department up there. But they had a positive and the game got canceled. So we're just we're trying to roll with the punches, man. We're trying to do the best we can. We’re fortunate and appreciative to be together back on the court together as a whole for the first time in a while. And then obviously we got an exciting game coming up tomorrow.

”Smart was asked if he’d consider opting out of the conference tournament.

“I’ll do whatever our players want to do,” he responded. “Those guys have done such a good job just hanging in there and navigating through some challenging parts of this, some of which you guys are aware of some of which you guys are not aware of. So, listen, I just had COVID. So, from my standpoint it's all about what's best for the guys, our staff. I'll go to wherever to play if that's what the guys want to do, and if that's what makes sense."

Later, he was asked point blank if college basketball should be playing at all.

“I don't know. I mean, I know a couple coaches whose teams were shut down earlier this season. And I can tell you just from talking to them, that that's not the simple solution either,” responded Smart. “And that has a whole host of mental and emotional problems for the players as well. So, I've always said from the beginning, we're going to defer to the doctors and what they think is best.

“I think it is a little frustrating, to be honest, that there is a wide variety of opinions, even amongst the doctors. And again, one thing that I've learned going through this myself, is that because COVID is relatively new it's not like we have years and years of experience dealing with this from a medical standpoint. So, they say it's safe to play the games, then we're going to give our guys the opportunity to do that. I think if you talk to the majority of our guys, they want to play. But that doesn't mean there hasn't been moments where for some of them, they've been like, you know, wow, this is really, really strange, and some thinking through what should we be doing?”

The test is, obviously, very real for Smart upon his return with No. 2 Baylor coming to town instead of a cupcake opponent.

“That's good… We're in a Big 12. Guys came to Texas to play in the Big 12, and ever since I got here this has been arguably the toughest league in the country. Everybody says that about their conference, I'm not being negative about anyone else's league. But this is what you sign up for when you come to play or coach in this league. Our guys are excited. We had a game scheduled against Baylor in December, and we were all set to go up there, and the game got canceled. And you know, kind of like the other day when guys were getting ready to go to Kentucky, guys were really disappointed. These guys were looking forward to playing. I know it's a heck of a challenge. Baylor's undefeated and has played terrific basketball and you know, first place in our league, all that stuff.”

If Texas matches the fire Shaka had at today’s press conference, it’s going to be in good shape tomorrow. He sounded like a guy who recently went through hell and back and is ready to take it out on something.