I know it's early, but...
What is wrong with the Griz basketball team? Honestly, this team is just as talented, if not moreso, than
last year's team and it just isn't showing. When talent is not meeting expectations, coaching has to come into question.
The following clip is from a recent Bill Simmon's article on Doc Rivers. The Griz players don't give too many quotes after games but if they did I guarantee they would be saying some of the things listed below.
See, it's not hard to tell when your coach stinks. You usually know when your players are constantly saying things like "We just need to sustain that intensity for four quarters," "We need to play the kind of defense we're capable of playing," "We can take big leads, now we need to learn how to keep them," "We're a young team, so we're still learning how to bring the same consistency every night," "We have to start getting stops," and my personal favorite, "We need to learn how to execute down the stretch."
In last night's 81-65 blowout, the Hilltoppers made a run at the end of the first half to go into the break tied after trailing double digits previously. After the half the Griz came out flatter than a Monopoly board and Western Kentucky went on a 22-5 run. This would've never happened with last year's team. Last year the Griz would ALWAYS come out on a high and make a big run to start the second half. These runs were a staple of Larry Krystkowiak's motivational skills.
Coach K's recruiting skills also showed last night as Cameron Rundles looked very capable of running the point. He had 13 points, 3 assists and 3 rebounds in 16 minutes.
If you knew anything about recruiting at the University of Montana it would be that Tinkle did MOST to all the recruiting while K was the coach. Tinkle went to the players homes and talked to them and got them to commit with the exception of Vanderjagt. Tinkle is a players coach and will have this team rolling come Big Sky play. Trust me
First off, thanks for the comment. Looks like Tinks is starting to turn it around, a win tonight agains Oral Roberts would be big. I went to several practice with Tinks and have seen him at games and he just doesn't seem to be the motivator K was. I honestly do not want to be right on this one, I do hope he gets the hang of it; I mean, he is just starting. If he was as good as K the Bucks would've taken him. On the recruiting stuff, I'll admit I don't know too much but always thought Tinks was the enforcer and K was the recruiter/coach. However it does look like he did grab Cam, take a look at Cam's quotes from this great profile on K. http://www.missoulanews.com/News/News.asp?no=5354