Agreed that a coach sometimes can’t win with fans, especially a coach that falls short of expectations or can’t seem to deliver any consistency. I know that sounds harsh... and I’ve been an ardent supporter until this season. But I think this example actually highlights Karen’s shortcomings as opposed to hard-to-please fans.
Even when I was supporting Karen, I often complained about her rotating door at the substitution table. Honestly, I believe she would still be doing it if she had a deeper bench. Even with the shorter bench we see shades of it. But the “freshman” not playing was also an issue and one that caught her off guard when injuries required her to utilize freshman at the end of the season who had not gotten any good playing time experience early on. Most of us couldn’t understand why freshmen didn’t come off the bench when we had large leads late in the game.
But that is really not the issue. Karen, admittedly a great recruiter, seemed to have no rhyme or reason with her recruits. And it became apparent when the transfer portal became a thing and she lost not just one or two players, but an ENTIRE recruiting class. How do you get it wrong with that many players? How do you not better understand who will be a good fit and who won’t? How do you not better manage who you need now vs who you will need two or three years from now. I can understand one or two but an entire class plus, plus, plus... Players who have transferred recently are now playing for top programs including currently ranked #1 and #3.
As someone who really wanted Karen to succeed, I have very little good to say about her after these last three seasons. She couldn’t get it done with a long bench of top recruits and she doesn’t seem to be able to get it done with a short bench of top recruits. And make no mistake, she has had plenty of quality top recruits to work with.
I celebrate the TCU win. I celebrate every win. But we don’t seem to get enough of them consistently. We lost to the worst team in the conference two weeks before beating the second best. It’s maddening.
If fans seem to be a bit unforgiving, or even unrealistic, I honestly feel Karen has created that environment. With the players we’ve had, we really should have seen at least (at least) one conference season championship or at least one conference tournament championship or at least (at least) one final four appearance. We’ve seen none of that.
Maybe not with this coach, but certainly with these players, we should be living in the Top 10 or at least the Top 25. Karen is good, but just not good enough especially with a $800k price tag. Too many late season meltdowns. Too many cold starts or late game meltdowns. We see flashes of greatness because we have had and still have great players. Why hasn’t she been able to get the best out of them consistently? That is what good/great coaches do.
The Stanford game shouldn’t be the exception to the rule. It should be the rule. The TCU game shouldn’t have been a 20 minute comeback. It should have been a 40 minute blowout.
(Edit: I would relish eating crow this season. I just don’t see it happening.)
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Winner x 4
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Like x 2
Last edited: Feb 28, 2020