Had we made another few free throws, say Jake made his late and it allowed us to win in regulation I would indeed be less upset with the coaching. However it's not because of the win or loss from that but because it would mean that those 5 minutes of overtime didn't exist which featured some extraordinarily questionable coaching decisions.
My absolute biggest problem was Brad going with Tomi in OT. Absolutely nothing in the game suggested that Tomi would be able to hold his own defensively and he was a minus player all game. Z however was a plus player defensively all game. And despite missing those wide open threes (Tomi missed most of his too), Z also had the higher offensive efficiency. He outrebounded Tomi 7-2 in less minutes. He effected and blocked more shots. He had less turnovers. And Wisconsin was nowhere near as effective when Z was in the paint. So why was that decision made? I said it in the game thread that that coaching decision would likely lose us the game. I stand by it.
Now to save you the trouble, the rral question you should ask me is if Tomi went bonkers on both sides of the ball in OT, would I be happier. And the answer to that is Yes. I'd have tipped my hat to Brad and said I would not have made that decision but that's why he's the coach. He clearly had a feeling and was right and I was not. But instead what happened was exactly what happened in the 40min of regulation where Tomi was in defensively.
But yes, Brad's rotations, substitutions, and use of timeouts have been subpar in my opinion. And his late game strategies over several seasons have been consistently questionable. 1st commercial break, doesn't matter if a player is feeling it, consistently makes the sub. Z comes in and gives the team a giant spark of energy and great defense? Doesn't matter, next commercial break he's back to the bench. In past seasons benching your best defensive players late in games like say Ty or Morez or this year, Z when you have the lead and just need to defend and rebound and you win, it's silly.
There's a reason we can't hold leads late- it's because we can't get stops because our best defenders are out of the game and so we give up easy buckets. And despite having better free throw shooters out there, we settle for tougher quality shots and can't get foul calls. It's a strategy that Brad consistently employs and it hasn't really worked. So that's why I'm upset. Because games like this have been a broken record the past several seasons.
