The sky is really not falling

[Coug4life34]

I shouldn’t be amazed at how fans go from 100 to zero on players, coaches, and teams so fast. Here I am however bewildered that in a span of just 1-2 months, we have a coach who can’t coach, all pac 12 players who can’t play, and dooms day on the horizon…Am I disappointed, absolutely!
Does this version of our team currently look inept, for sure. Is the offense abysmal, damn straight!! But anyone who has ever coached at a decent level before understands that sometimes as a coach, you have a team that you have to figure out and help grow.. It takes time. The measure is not now. The measure is improvement going forward. Often times that comes with losses.
I am encouraged by some of the changes I’ve seen… For goodness sakes people. Not to make excuses, but we have 2 of our primary ball handlers and scorers in their first season with this coach and at this level… We have so many moving parts (new). It just takes time to get such a group to play together…. Can we at least allow a coach and team to get into the conference season before attaching labels? Relax

 

[Glad Cougar]

Such is the nature of fans reacting in real time on message boards and other social media platforms. I've been guilty of occasionally venting in a manner that can be seen as overreacting. I'm trying to give others the same latitude when they react in an extreme manner. I'm a Kansas City Chiefs fan and when the team started the season 3-4 and in last place of the AFC West, some "fans" were demanding that Andy Reid retire, DC Steve Spagnuolo be fired in the middle of a game, and– believe it or not– Patrick Mahomes be benched in favor of Chad Henne. Since then, KC has had an 8-game winning streak and are #1 seed in the AFC playoffs at this point with two weeks to go. The same fans are now wondering who the Chiefs will play in the Super Bowl. If the Cougs do reasonably well in conference play– which could very well happen– you'll see the moans and groans turn into oohs and aahs.

Your point is well taken. It's sometimes hard to be patient and to take a longer term view of a relatively young team. I want to see a better offense & better overall effort, but as long as the team improves from now until the end of the season, I'll be satisfied.

Glad Cougar

 

[cr8zyncalif]

You both bring up good points. I'll just add that I want to see a completely (or at least, mostly) healthy team on the floor for a couple of games in a row before I get too excited either way.

 

[SaveFerris]

We shouldn't be too surprised by the results so far this year. It's still a young roster that makes a lot of bad decisions. A couple weeks ago I ran into a podcast Dick Bennett did over a year ago. One of the things he talked about was why players try to do more than they are capable especially in late game situation. He said "It’s just out of pride, one guy will force a shot, one guy will go for a steal and be out of position or go for a block. It’s pride, it’s just stupid pride why people try things and then they come unglued." He also talked about the importance of sacrifice. Maybe not exactly earthshattering stuff but to me it described quite accurately the way we are losing most games.

Reminds me as a program when Smith took over, we were right back in the same spot as when Dick/Tony came in. A program that had done nothing but lose as Dick liked to put it. For different reasons but we seem somewhere in the middle of year 2 or 3 under Dick Bennett. There's a lot of the season left but ultimately, we might need some similar tweaking to get to year 4 under Tony. Regardless, I definitely believe Smith's the right guy for the job.

 

[Coug4life34]

We shouldn't be too surprised by the results so far this year. It's still a young roster that makes a lot of bad decisions. A couple weeks ago I ran into a podcast Dick Bennett did over a year ago. One of the things he talked about was why players try to do more than they are capable especially in late game situation. He said "It’s just out of pride, one guy will force a shot, one guy will go for a steal and be out of position or go for a block. It’s pride, it’s just stupid pride why people try things and then they come unglued." He also talked about the importance of sacrifice. Maybe not exactly earthshattering stuff but to me it described quite accurately the way we are losing most games.

Reminds me as a program when Smith took over, we were right back in the same spot as when Dick/Tony came in. A program that had done nothing but lose as Dick liked to put it. For different reasons but we seem somewhere in the middle of year 2 or 3 under Dick Bennett. There's a lot of the season left but ultimately, we might need some similar tweaking to get to year 4 under Tony. Regardless, I definitely believe Smith's the right guy for the job.

I agree with all of the points mentioned by posters above. I want to make a further statement, because everyone seems to point to Tony as some sort of gold standard of coaching. I too think he is a tremendous coach, but how has he fared over the last few years? Did he suddenly forget how to coach the PAC Line defense? Has the game past Him by? The truth is, “ it is simply the nature of coaching young kids”… Every year is a different team that comes with different struggles. Even if some of the players are the same..
There is one thing that still perplexes me however and some may remember I was calling for the same thing last year… It seems odd that we never run plays to get the ball inside. I would like to see us play great defense, pound the ball inside, and shoot 3’s when the ball is forced to come out. We have more talented inside depth then I can ever remember. It would seem to be our biggest advantage..

 

[Observer11]

Tony won a national championship the year before the world shut down and won the ACC regular season title last year

The game most definitely has not passed him by.