I appreciate White's honesty. It is something I like about him, putting blame in himself and not avoiding questions or giving some reply that doesn't answer questions. I hope he figures it out quickly.
Concur. The question, I'm sure, that a lot have right now is why didn't you take measures to better prevent these last two losses? I'd guess that the answer is that in the back of Coach's mind, he knew that we might have propensity to be soft on D, but the picture thus far showed a team that was fast, somewhat athletic, and accurate, against some pretty good early season competition no less. Likely, the thinking was that the confidence that should be swelling (but tempered, key thought here) from those wins would inspire the team to grow and mature in deficit areas to seek the level of what the offense was early on and expand to meet it.
I can't know this for sure, but my instinct tells me that the maturity level of this group is not near where it needs to be in order to properly process the required thinking and assimilation to be a consistent team. Having to sit key members of the line-up (Allen, Hayes, etc.) for periods seems to support this. Also, only one senior, Chiozza, who doesn't seem to overtly display a lot of leadership on the court, has to be a factor. It's easy for good, young players to mishandle successes early. Getting too full of themselves when the resume is incomplete, if you will.
Without getting into the X's and O's (though I think we could either be a little more functional offensively in terms of sets and intentions and a whole lot more hard-nose in our defensive approach), it looks like Coach has to force the players who are and should start and get the most minutes to better buy what he's selling. Currently, it looks like they have become more independent contractors than a team. Otherwise, his only tool will be to play the newbie's more than they need to or really deserve at this stage. If they were better, it would be a great thing, but they aren't...yet, and it can further complicate things when they are displacing those who should be in the game more and at crucial junctures. Still, he's got to do it if he's not getting the response he needs. Two thrashings would do it for me. It'll be interesting to see what transpires against Cincinnati. Banking on the coach to get the attention he needs.