That game started ugly from the pregame with two starters being benched, and it stayed ugly until the final buzzer (and probably longer once they got to the locker room). Many of you think this season was doomed the day NMP was hired and maybe you will prove to be right. I'm starting to wonder if the season was sidetracked during the first few weeks after she was hired when she basically had to rerecruit all of the returning players along with Madison Hayes. The players had all the leverage at that time, especially with Danberry graduating, Hemingway and Bibby already in the transfer portal, recruit DeYona Gaston having flipped to Texas, and Promise Taylor retiring. NMP couldn't afford to lose anyone else and if she lost even one or two players it would have been a disaster.
I'm not using that as a NMP excuse. Maybe it could be seen as a criticism since during those first few weeks NMP was talking about all the Zoom calls with players and building relationships, etc. Maybe she made the mistake of winning the battle of getting the players to return while losing the war of establishing an atmosphere of respect and discipline that a coach needs. (As an aside, if we ever get to the point where all players have the option of transferring at least once without having to sit out a year, then it is going to be interesting to see just how much power gets shifted from coaches to their star players. And it will be interesting to see if a group of star NCAA players would decide to all transfer to the same school to create a super team like we are seeing in the NBA.}
