Good players, can't overcome bad coaching.
“Social media, handling success, having a young team, being put in adverse situations — all that stuff,” Prohm said. “The outside world is a lot of factors. Three weeks ago, the narrative on us was that … we’re really talented. We space the floor and share the ball. Now the narrative is that we’re soft — in three weeks.”
I read that as blaming the players and I'm not buying it. He has two NBA level prospects. I'm not saying they are RJ Barrett or Zion, but with coaching and another year, the idea was LW could be drafted this year, and THT (he literally turned 18 this year and the NBA loves raw talent) either this year or the next.
The defense has gotten worse and the L's keep piling up. They went from the 13th ranking in the dance with one of Prohm's statistically (basing this on KenPom stats) better defenses he has had at Iowa State to just another average Prohm defense in a few weeks. This is not a sweet sixteen team. It's a barely scrape by a first round game and then get obliterated by a better team. Unless we get lucky, like a mid major knocks out someone the first day and we get the leftovers of a high teen seed, like Chris Beard's Little Rock in '16, to play. That same coach we will play Saturday looking for his first title in the Big 12.
Our only hope is the team is magically healthy this last week and uses Hilton South as a spring board. If we beat Baylor, then you will know we are not a soft team and have broken through whatever metaphysical barrier as impeded this team. I'll hope they do as I'll be down there watching.