Sometimes things just happen, similar things, in a short period of time, and there’s nothing more to it than that. Reading into those events as a trend that makes a sweeping statement can be dramatic. Maybe even a little irresponsible.
But hey, let’s give it a whirl.
Here’s Tennessee women’s basketball coach Kim Caldwell on Sunday after her team lost 93-50 at South Carolina: “I have a team that’ll just quit on you, and you can’t do that in big games. … They have to fix it.”
Here’s Colorado men’s basketball coach Tad Boyle after his team’s 78-44 loss at Texas Tech on Wednesday: “We deserve to be on a 6 a.m. flight out of Lubbock, commercial, Southwest, whatever airline you choose. We don’t deserve a charter flight back to Boulder tonight. We got one. We paid for it. But we wasted our money. We wasted our university’s money.”
Colorado head coach Tad Boyle didn’t hold back following the Buffs 78-44 loss to Texas Tech…
“That was just a good old-fashion ass whoopin.” pic.twitter.com/8pqCDQAwKk
— A David Collier (@CollieronTV) February 12, 2026
Same night, same league, about 600 miles northeast, here’s a sampling of Kansas State’s Jerome Tang after Cincinnati came in and beat his team 91-62: “These dudes do not deserve to wear this uniform. There will be very few of them in it next year. I’m embarrassed for the university, and I’m embarrassed for our fans, our student section. It is just ridiculous. We’ve got practice at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning, and we will get this thing right. I have no answer and no words.”
Jerome Tang postgame:
“This was embarrassing. These dudes do not deserve to wear this uniform. There will be very few of them in it next year. It is just, ridiculous. We have practice at 6am… I’m pissed. This is… this is… yeah.”pic.twitter.com/LSWF2lIYsF
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) February 12, 2026
Emotional post-loss news conferences from embattled coaches are not new — “embattled” might be a bit strong for Caldwell, but it happens in a flash at that program and the fans are mad at her. Coaches calling out players also isn’t new. But it feels more frequent and fiery than ever before, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
(Ken Pomeroy, Bart Torvik and Evan Miyakawa love adding features to their college basketball analytics sites, so may I suggest the Head Coach Finger Pointing Presser — HCFPP. I know it’s a lot of research, but can we go back 40 years with it for perspective and to find out if Jim Boeheim or Bob Knight is the all-time HCFPP champion?)
Fans are harder on college athletes in the NIL/transfer portal era. Social media predates NIL by more than a decade and remains the worst development on that front. Sports betting apps featuring individual props are right behind that.
But there’s also a general shift in attitude from fans who know players on their favorite teams are getting paid — it’s not just the players on the cheating rival getting hundred-dollar handshakes. Booing the home team is unquestionably more common than it was 10 years ago.
Media are harder on college athletes, too, though that’s more subtle and also difficult to quantify. But just the fact that their compensation is a constant generator of headlines now means they are covered much differently. Much more like pros.
It stands to reason, then, that coaches would be harder on their athletes, and I think the last week has helped hammer that home. Behind the scenes is one thing — UConn’s Danny Hurley said in November that the way he sees it, his players make a lot of money and “owe it” to everyone else to go max effort at all times. This is fair.
Public shamings generally aren’t advised, though, unless you’re a coach with no concerns about losing a recruiting battle or your job any time soon. Like, say, Boeheim and Knight in their primes.
Most others, after losing a handle on emotions and calling someone out, could count on a rival coach finding a write-up of the incident in the local paper and then going to work with a copier and a fax machine until the high school coach of every prospect the offending coach was recruiting realized the crime that had been committed. What a time.
Now rosters change significantly every year. Strong, multi-year relationships are fewer. And sometimes they still get disrupted by another school coming in and dropping a bag. You can see how coaches would not understand their players as well, not be able to coach them as well, get frustrated more often and be less concerned about popping off.
Not that these pressers were smart. The aforementioned conditions could also make things more challenging internally after such an event.
“Because there aren’t enough deep relationships ingrained with these teams now for you to get a pass (from your players) on that,” said ESPN analyst Tom Crean, former coach at Georgia, Indiana and Marquette. “Not only the next day but the next game. There are so many more people swarming players now — their timelines, their messages, their phones. Every day, players are gonna be on the fence about something inside of a program.”
Crean hasn’t coached since the 2021-22 season, so he has mostly observed this era on the media side of things. But he’s had pressers he instantly regretted as a head coach, leading to sleepless nights. Going from “complete combat mode” to the public explanation of an emotional disappointment can be jarring, which is why he started organizing his thoughts before taking the microphone.
That could lead to long delays before he popped into the press room. Better that than a viral moment. The most important thing for coaches in these moments, Crean said, is to have someone who can talk things through with them and even be brutally honest with them before they start fielding questions. That clears the head. And makes it less likely the coach will use the presser as a “therapy session” for all the world to see.
Here’s guessing that was absent in a few programs in the past week.
“These dudes gotta have some pride, man,” Tang said. “It means something to wear a K-State uniform. It means something to put on this purple, man. Like everything this university is about and all it’s been about, why I love this place, they don’t love this place, so they don’t deserve to be here.”
Take the outbursts of the past week as commentary on the state of things or as a coincidence in the slog of mid-February, but let’s agree on one sweeping statement: These are jobs.
