It is apparent that Pat's ideology does not exist with the present team. Holly pats players on the butt or back when they come to the bench after making several costly mistakes. To me this makes the players soft and they lose respect for the HC. Head coaches can't be concerned if you love or hate them, they are concerned about players doing the right thing. Listen how past players talk about the respect they still have for Pat. Many players said that when they saw "the stare" they were scared to head to the bench, because they knew they would have to face the ire of Pat. Now under Holly, when players screw up, they walk to the bench as if it is a matter of fact.
People attribute way too much importance to the STARE; since it was so visible during games, it became the iconic part of the CPS legacy. However, those close to the program point out that Pat formed tremendously strong, quasi-maternal relationships, with her players. Toward the end of the career, when all her standard motivational speeches and stares did not get the desired results, some of that connection with her players had also started to fade. That may have been due to her illness; perhaps she had not fully adjusted to the orientation of this newer generation of players or some combination of both.
I can remember in those latter days, a common explanation of the LVs struggles was that CPS had made her players fearful to take risks and make plays, had them second guessing and so on.
More generally, you can find coaches who have lots of success being supportive and upbeat versus Bobby Knight disciplinarians. There is no one right or magical approach.
I really don't think the problem is that the players are selfish, showboating etc and it is flat out silly to think that the LVs problems can be solved by gimmicks like taking names off uniforms, or yelling more, or running steps.
It is clear that for whatever reason some players are not understanding their role-- I think that is Diamond in particular and that disparity may reflect that the coaches aren't sure how to use her.
The team clearly plays better and more fluidly when they are not using the double post system. So, the onus on the coaches is to figure out to make better use of their mix of players (and it is not that easy off a fix given the players' particular strengths and weaknesses).
