The frustration was palpable for Vic Schaefer after No. 4 Texas Women lost by double digits to No. 5 Vanderbilt.
“We don’t have heart,” the Longhorns coach said in a candid analysis.
And he wasn’t alone, on either the men’s or women’s side, when it came to coaches angrily criticizing their teams in the pressure-packed final month of the regular season.
The roster includes No. 21 Tennessee player Kim Caldwell on the women’s team and Colorado men’s coach Tad Boyle. Then there was Kansas State’s Jerome Tang, whose postgame comments after the lopsided loss at Cincinnati stood out for their severity — and were ultimately cited by the school’s athletic director when Tang was fired Sunday night.
It’s a delicate dance for coaches, finding a balance between tough love impulses and soft inspiration. Look no further than Schaefer, who went from letting his players get what they wanted after a loss to Vanderbilt to praising their response when they beat Tennessee three days later.
“I think there are some motivating factors when you stand in front of the microphone and talk about … individual standards and program standards,” first-year Florida State men’s coach Luke Lux said this week. “But I also think it’s our responsibility as coaches to get the most out of our group. That’s why we get paid a lot of money to do it.”
“If it were easy, we wouldn’t be paid as much as we are. So we have to find ways to squeeze the orange, so to speak.”
In fact, it is a long-term test for coaches in finding the right message to reach their players. Their team may need the tougher assessment that challenges pride and even embarrassment, then next year’s group may need a lighter touch.
This was true even before today’s transfer portal era which resulted in more annual roster changes and fewer player retentions. But in any era, saying it publicly rather than in a team meeting or training behind closed doors amplifies the spotlight and potential blowback.
This month provided many examples:
– Caldwell after a 93-50 road loss to No. 3 South Carolina for the worst loss in program history on Feb. 8: “We quit a lot tonight, and that’s been a consistent thing with our team. … I’ve got a team that’s going to quit on you.”
—Boyle after a 78-44 loss at No. 13 Texas Tech on Feb. 11: “I’m embarrassed by our performance. … We deserve to be on a 6 a.m. flight from Lubbock, commercial, Southwest — any airline you choose. We don’t deserve a charter plane back to Boulder tonight.”
—Tang after a 91-62 home loss to Cincinnati on Feb. 11: “These guys don’t deserve to wear these uniforms. There’s going to be very few of them next year.”
—Schaefer after an 86-70 loss to Vanderbilt last Thursday: “I thought they were tougher, they were more physical, they were more aggressive. We complained, we complained. We don’t have heart. … Probably the softest team I’ve had in years.”
Some ordered deliveries last for years.
It’s worth noting that Pat Knight didn’t hold anything back in February 2012 after the Lamar men’s team lost to Stephen F. Austin, starting by walking in and kicking outfielder Mike James out of a press conference by saying, “You have no idea what it takes to win.”
“We now have the worst group of seniors I’ve ever been associated with. Their mentality is terrible, their attitudes are terrible,” Knight said, even pointing to off-field problems like “classes, drugs, being late for things.”
Clemson men’s coach Brad Brownell recognizes the challenge of finding the right message amid the growing frustration. Now in his 16th year, he is the longest-tenured coach in the Atlantic Coast Conference after a multi-year sideline overhaul that included the retirement of Hall of Fame giants like Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, North Carolina’s Roy Williams and Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim.
“I think a lot of times it’s okay to talk about your guys in a way that you expect more from them, and we’ve got to do a little better,” Brownell said. “But at the same time, obviously our jobs are trying to inspire our players. We’re trying to bring out the best in them.
“So there’s a fine line with all of that. Obviously when coaches win, man, it’s tough love and we enjoy all the banter. But when coaches lose, everything they say is looked at more critically. And so I think as a coach, you better keep that in mind.”
Tang’s comments, in particular, stood out as a viral moment even before the shooting days later.
The Wildcats followed up the loss to Cincinnati by playing without names on the backs of their jerseys in Saturday’s loss to No. 2 Houston. Tang said he was pleased with the team’s preparations after the loss to the Bearcats, and said he had players Abdi Bachir Jr. and Nate Johnson take the lead in the Cougars’ scouting work.
“I thought it was the right message,” Bashir said. “I don’t think Coach Tang said anything wrong. I think people have forgotten why we’re here. I think we need to be reminded of that, like we’re here to play K-State. I think they responded the right way. No one had any hard feelings about it.”
A day later, Tang was out of a job, coming in with the Wildcats near the bottom of the Big 12 three years after Tang’s first team made the NCAA Elite Eight. Athletic director Gene Taylor said the school was firing Tang for cause — a hire that could reduce or eliminate Tang’s buyout — while citing contract terms regarding conduct that “may cause embarrassment.”
Taylor later said Tang’s comments about the players “really concerned me.”
“His comments about student-athletes and the negative reaction to those comments from many sources, both nationally and locally, is where I thought we needed to make a decision,” Taylor said.
Both Caldwell and Shaver have seen some positive reactions to their challenging assessments.
Caldwell’s Lady Vols beat Missouri by 45 points four days after the South Carolina debacle. As for Schaefer, the Longhorns regrouped after the Vanderbilt loss to beat Tennessee 65-63. The coach went from saying that he would call Chris Del Conte to apologize for his players’ performance to praising their response.
“This team has a lot of heart,” Schaefer said. “I want to make sure you all know that, in my opinion, we didn’t play any team on Thursday.”
Schiffer, who turns 65 next month, said he is “a long way down the road to changing” his belief that he must teach accountability.
“When they leave me, they go out into the real world, and they understand: You can’t go to work and put this effort into my job because I might get fired,” he said. “I think my kids understand that.
“I hope they do. I hope they know how much I love them and care about them. … Sometimes you just have to have those real conversations.”
Freelance journalists Al Lesar in Tennessee and Jeremy Rax in Texas contributed to this report.
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