[burger]

Average coach got some almost ready for prime time freshman that took advantage of weak teams, unprepared teams, and a lot of home cooking.  Now the conference coaches have enough footage to prepare for the players and are able to make superior game day adjustments to Haase.



The freshmen look tired.   The physical grind of a season against more mature college players, the travel, and the academic load probably are in the mix, but their body language lacks that swag they had in November and December.



Haase just doesn't seem to have the answers and over his tenure his teams have consistently faded late in games and seasons.   That's generally not the consistent with above average coaching.

You're making two contradictory arguments here: 1) they're tired because of lack of depth and 2) Haase is just not a good coach.  I strongly agree with #1--the entire team looks tired, not just the freshman.  In between plays, they seem sort of listless. They are not playing with the energy they had early in the season on offense or defense.  You can make the argument that that's a coaching issue, but I see it more as a product of 5 guys playing over 28 minutes a game--Davis and Terry are over 30.



As for #2, the argument that Haase is being exposed now against better competition is silly--Oregon State and Cal are mediocre to bad teams, and USC is not great.  We played some bad teams in the preseason, but we also beat Oklahoma and came within a couple of ridiculous shots by that one kid from beating Butler.  It's not like we're just having problems in one area--the team seems to be doing everything worse lately.  Is Haase suddenly a bad coach?  Has he changed the system in some way that is suddenly making us lose?  No.  I think they're just tired.  Next year, we hopefully add 3 new rotation players (plus maybe Fitzmorris).  That will be a brobdingnagian difference.

[burger]

Average coach got some almost ready for prime time freshman that took advantage of weak teams, unprepared teams, and a lot of home cooking.  Now the conference coaches have enough footage to prepare for the players and are able to make superior game day adjustments to Haase.



The freshmen look tired.   The physical grind of a season against more mature college players, the travel, and the academic load probably are in the mix, but their body language lacks that swag they had in November and December.



Haase just doesn't seem to have the answers and over his tenure his teams have consistently faded late in games and seasons.   That's generally not the consistent with above average coaching.

You're making two contradictory arguments here: 1) they're tired because of lack of depth and 2) Haase is just not a good coach.  I strongly agree with #1--the entire team looks tired, not just the freshman.  In between plays, they seem sort of listless. They are not playing with the energy they had early in the season on offense or defense.  You can make the argument that that's a coaching issue, but I see it more as a product of 5 guys playing over 28 minutes a game--Davis and Terry are over 30.



As for #2, the argument that Haase is being exposed now against better competition is silly--Oregon State and Cal are mediocre to bad teams, and USC is not great.  We played some bad teams in the preseason, but we also beat Oklahoma and came within a couple of ridiculous shots by that one kid from beating Butler.  It's not like we're just having problems in one area--the team seems to be doing everything worse lately.  Is Haase suddenly a bad coach?  Has he changed the system in some way that is suddenly making us lose?  No.  I think they're just tired.  Next year, we hopefully add 3 new rotation players (plus maybe Fitzmorris).  That will be a brobdingnagian difference.