If your coach saying the team has tourney talent but still needs to make progress to make it there negatively impacts morale/expectations, then I don't think BU wants those players on his team (and neither would I). That should do exactly the opposite.
It's a fine line - but part of the job is to manage it.
So what's wrong with coach saying this is a tourney team and then expecting players to live up to and perform at that level....players believe that coach expects us to be in the tourney, then we need to step up our game and get there. I think we're saying the same thing