IU coach Mike Woodson has had choice words for his players in the immediate aftermath of multiple losses this season.
And let’s be honest, to varying degrees, that’s nothing new in the sports world.
At Nebraska in early January, Woodson said his starting guards (Xavier Johnson and Trey Galloway) played “awful.” After a loss to Northwestern, Woodson called out starting forward Malik Reneau. “He didn’t play tonight,” Woodson said on his postgame radio spot. “He was awful.”
He’s called out players by name for missing open shots, questioned Kel’el Ware’s toughness in the first game against Purdue, highlighted Galloway’s six turnovers in the Nebraska rematch, and said he needed to add pieces to the roster in the offseason.
And there’s been more.
If the occasional public chiding of players was leading to results on the floor, the conclusion would no doubt be Woodson was a master motivator, cleverly using the media to get through to his players.
But now losers of four in a row, and eight of ten, that’s clearly not the story.
And what we haven’t seen publicly until very recently is much in the way of introspection from Woodson. We saw the same thing this fall from football coach Tom Allen, as the blame pendulum tilted towards the players far too often, until it was too late.
How much of a 14-13 season does a head coach own? A lot of course, and over the last week Woodson has seemingly come to that realization, whether entirely on his own, or perhaps with a nudge from people around him who realize his criticism of the players hasn’t been well received.
“Every year I’ve coached, when things don’t go well, I point the finger at me. A lot of coaches won’t do that, but at the end of the day, when things go well, I point the fingers at the players,” Woodson said on Monday.
“That’s just kind of been my nature of how I’ve coached over the years. You know, I know how it was when I played, and I played for coaches that had success with me and I played for coaches that haven’t had success.”
To be fair, Woodson has protected his players at times this season as well. When we were too quick to question Mackenzie Mgbako’s slow start, Woodson stressed patience. And that has proven to be the right approach.
But Woodson isn’t seamlessly transitioning from passing the blame to absorbing it. In one stream of consciousness on Monday, his frustration with his player’s shortcomings surfaced while trying to suggest the buck stops with him.
“You know, sometimes coaches don’t want to take the blame and want to put all on the players. I’m not that type of coach,” Woodson said. “Even though I don’t miss jump shots, wide open shots, and don’t miss free throws, I’m still a big part of it and I take a lot of responsibility.”
Even though what?
Woodson is right. He doesn’t miss the shots, and it seems fairly obvious those shots aren’t going to start falling with any degree of regularity. There’s very little a head coach can do to fix that now. And if we’re going to play the blame game, that’s where the real energy needs to be focused.
This is a team that was built in the offseason. And to use Woodson’s word, the roster construction was “awful.”
If Woodson wants to do a better job of taking the blame for these 2023-24 Hoosiers, he needs to examine the mistakes that were made last spring, when a roster spot was left open, Indiana added two centers and two forwards — and no guards — despite a glaring need at the time for proven veteran high-volume perimeter scorers.
Because there is an unambiguous finger pointing directly at Woodson on that, and no amount of focus on the current team is going to change it.
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