Frustrated college basketball coaches aren’t holding back on publicly criticizing their teams

The frustration was obvious for Vic Schaefer after the No. 4 Texas women lost by double figures at No. 5 Vanderbilt.

“We’ve got no heart,” the Longhorns coach said in a blunt analysis.

He hasn’t been alone, on the men’s or women’s side, when it comes to coaches angrily calling out their teams in the pressure-packed final month of the regular season.

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The list has included No. 21 Tennessee’s Kim Caldwell on the women’s side and Colorado men’s coach Tad Boyle. Then there was Kansas State’s Jerome Tang, whose postgame comments after a lopsided loss at Cincinnati stood out in their intensity — and were ultimately cited by the school’s athletic director when Tang was fired Sunday night.

It’s a delicate dance for coaches, finding the balance between tough-love motivation and a softer-touch inspiration. Look no further than Schaefer, who went from letting his players have it after the loss to Vanderbilt to praising their response when they beat Tennessee three days later.

“I do think there’s some motivating factors when you get in front of a microphone and talk about … individual standards and program standards,” first-year Florida State men’s coach Luke Loucks 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 this.

“If it were easy to do, we wouldn’t get paid as much as we get paid. So we have to find ways to squeeze the orange, so to speak.”

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Vocal criticisms

Indeed, it’s a long-running test for coaches in finding the right message to reach their players. Their team might need the firmer assessment that challenges pride and even embarrasses, then the next year’s group might need a lighter touch.

That was true even before today’s transfer-portal era creating more yearly roster churn with fewer holdovers. But in any era, saying it publicly rather than in a team meeting or a closed-door practice magnifies the spotlight and potential blowback.

This month has offered plenty of examples:

—Caldwell after a 93-50 road loss to No. 3 South Carolina for the worst loss in program history on…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/frustrated-college-basketball-coaches-arent-203925157.html

Author : AARON BEARD

Publish date : 2026-02-18 20:39:00

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