AEX
- Danger Zone
You hear people say that a certain player needs to play within themself. That doesn’t mean being passive but recognizing your strengths and playing aggressively towards them.
Brad’s lesson from this year needs to be to coach within himself. Brad is a culture guy and the last four years he has run a coaching clinic in terms of building a culture around everyday guys. As someone who teaches leadership in higher ed, I have really enjoyed watching how he accomplished this and turned around a program with zero identity. And, being honest, some of that involved jettisoning guys that did not fit the mold in terms of attitude.
This year, Brad didn’t coach within himself and he lost control of his culture. He brought in multiple guys with considerable talent that were never going fit this culture and gave them prominent roles without earning it through work ethic or buy in to the system. One defected early, the other - Mayer - did enough positive things to make matters worse. That’s nothing against Matt. He seems like a fun dude to hang with and he had plus moments, but overall he was a deficit to this particular team. TSJ is a dog, and maybe without the other wildcards around him, the team might have gelled around him more.
It’s not about sacrificing talent for work ethic. Ayo had the right mentality. So did Kofi and Trent. Ty has it, and I think Sencire and Luke have it too. There’s a core here, and I hope Brad leans into that core moving forward. And I hope he can build around it with talented guys who get that you can be talented and be a workhorse at the same time.
It seems highly unlikely that we will be ranked from start to finish next year. So short of that, I would much rather watch an average team find its swagger and become roadkill assassins over the course of a big ten season rather than watch fools gold shine in November and then fade. And that takes commitment to culture and to the process.
Underwood is an amazing coach, and I think he course corrects from here. Fingers crossed.
Brad’s lesson from this year needs to be to coach within himself. Brad is a culture guy and the last four years he has run a coaching clinic in terms of building a culture around everyday guys. As someone who teaches leadership in higher ed, I have really enjoyed watching how he accomplished this and turned around a program with zero identity. And, being honest, some of that involved jettisoning guys that did not fit the mold in terms of attitude.
This year, Brad didn’t coach within himself and he lost control of his culture. He brought in multiple guys with considerable talent that were never going fit this culture and gave them prominent roles without earning it through work ethic or buy in to the system. One defected early, the other - Mayer - did enough positive things to make matters worse. That’s nothing against Matt. He seems like a fun dude to hang with and he had plus moments, but overall he was a deficit to this particular team. TSJ is a dog, and maybe without the other wildcards around him, the team might have gelled around him more.
It’s not about sacrificing talent for work ethic. Ayo had the right mentality. So did Kofi and Trent. Ty has it, and I think Sencire and Luke have it too. There’s a core here, and I hope Brad leans into that core moving forward. And I hope he can build around it with talented guys who get that you can be talented and be a workhorse at the same time.
It seems highly unlikely that we will be ranked from start to finish next year. So short of that, I would much rather watch an average team find its swagger and become roadkill assassins over the course of a big ten season rather than watch fools gold shine in November and then fade. And that takes commitment to culture and to the process.
Underwood is an amazing coach, and I think he course corrects from here. Fingers crossed.
