[2006alum]

We’ve been “grading” Kate’s performance and discussing the characteristics of the kind of coach we need to be successful in this era. I suggest you give a listen to players Lauren Betts and Angela Dugilic and Coach Cori Close during UCLA’s post game press conference [link to video] after beating Duke. And contrast the values, mantras, sayings, concepts they talk about vs. the “Tara-isms,” like “sometimes you’re the dog and sometimes you’re the hydrant” or “they already cast the movie Dumb and Dumber and you weren’t in it”

I find this critique a little odd, in two respects. First, Cori's made it to two final fours with some extremely stacked, portal-curated rosters. But I'm not convinced she has what it takes to win a championship, nor, necessarily, that that approach will. And it stands in contrast to all of the top coaches in WBB: I don't think any of Geno, Pat, Tara, Dawn, Mulkey, or Muffet would be considered in that same vein. Dawn is real talk. Geno is real talk. Pat could stare her players down like no one I've seen. Now maybe Gen Z and Gen Alpha demand something different, but Tara has a legion of players who loved her Tara-isms and it got us to numerous conference championships, final fours, and three titles, as recently as 2021.

The other reason I find this critique odd is that if anything, I generally find Kate too nice and too scripted - she has almost nothing negative to say about ANYONE. Not the other teams, not our players, nada. To me, it comes off a little inauthentic - the opposite of "real talk". And I've said it before and I'll say it again: the players really do seem to like her. They chased her down the street at Pitt in a snowball fight, and they actually do seem really happy interacting with her. Again, maybe that's all for the cameras, but if so, our team has a bunch of first class actors, because it definitely stands in contrast to other programs where players had unexpectedly bad seasons and it showed on team morale (like Notre Dame last season, or Tennessee and Iowa State this season).

Again, none of this is an argument for keeping our coaching staff precisely as is, but I don't think that criticism (a) lands well given the success of "real talk" coaches and (b) applies to Kate, who is anything but a real talk coach.

[2006alum]

We’ve been “grading” Kate’s performance and discussing the characteristics of the kind of coach we need to be successful in this era. I suggest you give a listen to players Lauren Betts and Angela Dugilic and Coach Cori Close during UCLA’s post game press conference [link to video] after beating Duke. And contrast the values, mantras, sayings, concepts they talk about vs. the “Tara-isms,” like “sometimes you’re the dog and sometimes you’re the hydrant” or “they already cast the movie Dumb and Dumber and you weren’t in it”

I find this critique a little odd, in two respects. First, Cori's made it to two final fours with some extremely stacked, portal-curated rosters. But I'm not convinced she has what it takes to win a championship, nor, necessarily, that that approach will. And it stands in contrast to all of the top coaches in WBB: I don't think any of Geno, Pat, Tara, Dawn, Mulkey, or Muffet would be considered in that same vein. Dawn is real talk. Geno is real talk. Pat could stare her players down like no one I've seen. Now maybe Gen Z and Gen Alpha demand something different, but Tara has a legion of players who loved her Tara-isms and it got us to numerous conference championships, final fours, and three titles, as recently as 2021.

The other reason I find this critique odd is that if anything, I generally find Kate too nice and too scripted - she has almost nothing negative to say about ANYONE. Not the other teams, not our players, nada. To me, it comes off a little inauthentic - the opposite of "real talk". And I've said it before and I'll say it again: the players really do seem to like her. They chased her down the street at Pitt in a snowball fight, and they actually do seem really happy interacting with her. Again, maybe that's all for the cameras, but if so, our team has a bunch of first class actors, because it definitely stands in contrast to other programs where players had unexpectedly bad seasons and it showed on team morale (like Notre Dame last season, or Tennessee and Iowa State this season).

Again, none of this is an argument for keeping our coaching staff precisely as is, but I don't think that criticism (a) lands well given the success of "real talk" coaches and (b) applies to Kate, who is anything but a real talk coach.