I think the team showed mental toughness coming back in so many games. They lacked mental preparation, which is more tied to coaching.
This is to me a really great discussion topic so kudos to montana for the way he presented it. I this this very topic may explain why things went sideways so often. I don't think it was just 1 single thing but a combination of things. I don't see it as a mental toughness thing, how can you be consistently less than mentally tough for as many first halves as we seemed to be and yet battle back so hard in nearly every game in the second half? If it is mental toughness it would be there for 40mins rather than 20?
It being pretty consistently a first half issue does scream preparation but how much of that is on the coaches and how much of it is on the players? Thru this season fans here have consistently laid blame for these poor first halves at Hubert's feet and he and his staff do deserve some of that. I suspect our film review breaking down both how we played last game as well as the tendencies of our next opponent is lacking, example a guy is far better when he drives left than right, then hedge him to take away his right hand drive. I recall one game where the commentator, may have been Cory Alexander, shared a guard was much better driving with his left hand and had just successfully drove and finished 3 straight times driving left to prove his point and wouldn't ya know on the very next set the very same thing happened? Our defenders should know, take away that guys left, hedge him right? You should not be learning this from being burned multiple times in the first half. That is on film review prep for a game, that is on the coaches for sure.
I am not convinced that the players always really understood what they were being asked to do and what they were being asked to do just kept changing. You must have consistency of message, consistency of a kid knowing exactly what he is supposed to do and yet we didn't even have a consistent starting line up til late season. It felt to often like our game plan was more let's try this and see if that works rather than this is our plan and it works as long as you execute it properly, perform your role, and trust your teammates to do theirs, the way Dean and Roy to a lesser extent coached. Some, far to many of those "lets try this" notions were just plain nutzs, just defied logic and common sense in my view. I mean come on now, starting a 6'6"205lb freshman at the power forward spot and someone on the planet Earth thought that would be a good idea? So one of the smallest teams in all of D-1 ball decides the thing to do to counter the fact we are so small is we start a 6'6" 205lbs power forward and a 6'6" wing, you don't solve a being small problem by getting smaller, you don't need any understanding of this game to realize how bat shit crazy that is. That is just 1 example of far to many that has to get handled this off season.
Yes, there is a lot of this on the coaches IMO but there is plenty on the players as well. First and maybe foremost, this team had very poor leadership on the floor, maybe the worst leadership I have seen since Matt was our coach. I watched a pod a few days ago with Theo and Justin Jackson, they look more at the players for these short comings than the coaches. They talked about taking their "vitamins" before practices, no not a pill, they were talking about players not doing the things they have to do outside of practice to be ready to play. Things like putting up all those shots a kid has to to over come poor in game shooting, to work on things like 2man games, passing to a sweet spot, ect. They spoke to showing up at practice a half hour before the start of practice and no player is out there on the court doing anything? This is poor leadership, that is on the players, specifically on the upper classmen but the freshmen should not have to be told, they should want to get better on their own, should have that kind of dedication already in them. The coaching staff is very limited in how much time they can spend with players in practice, the players have to take it that extra mile and that was not happening. 2 examples, both different but important, #1 Cadeau's jump shooting, was a major short coming for him as a freshman, you would expect last off season the kid would have lived in the gym putting up shots, like for example Joel Berry did after his freshman season of not being a great jump shooter, yet game 1 it was still the same Cadeau poor jump shooing? #2 JWash, was clearly in need of weight, dramatically needed to add bulk so he was not pushed around as much as he was his first 2 seasons and yet if the measure son this site are accurate he came in to this season at the very same weight be played at as a soph? Just a couple examples of sadly many that is completely on the players rather than the coaches. The ONLY player I saw this season that was to my eyes really improved coming in to this season was Seth, everyone else was about the same player they were the season before and even his jump shot was still very much lacking. That is on the players not the coaches. Gonna end this post on that note because the what to do about it has a ton of discussion points but you have to identify the real problem before you can fix it.
