I just don't agree that we lost because of lack of adjustments or strategies. Not at all. armchair quarterbacks believe that a few tweaks and we would have been fine. I guess we'd never lose a game again if that were true. Baylor had an elite backcourt and huge frontcourt and more experience. We tired out and lost. Not coaching mistakes.
I think we lost because of poor execution. I don't think Tom Izzo's team lost horribly to Uconn because Kevin Ollie is a better coach nor because Izzo failed to adjust. Execution is most of the battle. We got killed on the glass, and Lavin can't rebound for us. Kids on the court need to close out.
If insist I blame Lavin for something it is keeping Gift as a redshirt as I think his rebounding would have helped quite a bit and maybe put us in position to best Murray and Baylor. Sure i think Lavin and the team might have been helped by having a 2-3 zone in the arsenal, but that's not something that can be installed with 4 games in the same week. I don't think anything Lavin adjusted would have made a difference against a stacked Baylor team, when we were tired out, lack the same amount of experience and are missing our two starting PF's in Sanchez/Gift against a big frontline.
Again I like Lavin and I am glad he is the coach. Based on his first year I also don't think he is as bad a game coach as his rep, Baron Davis , Lenn Robbins unamed source, Fun and some other posters have opinioned. Of course that first year is up to interpretation based on just how much credit you feel Dunlap deserves. With that being said I thought the staff had a bad South Carolina tourney. From my armchair I do not think we have the right personal to play zone consistently. We are getting killed on the boards, we don't rotate fast enough on shooters and we have poor recogination of the people who are killing us.
Going back to our original snit, no matter what we did I believe we lose to Baylor. They are bigger, more athletic(I can't wait for the protests on that one) and better than us. But we still stayed in the zone way to long! I also disagree on your argument that it was closer than it actually was. The only reason we stayed as close as we did was becuase we also shot out of our minds for most of that game. Maybe I am too negative but I kept waiting for the Baylor run to put us away. It just came later than I thought.
Bottom line is there is not a big difference from 15-16 wins and 19-20. We already let one game get away and I think the margin for us to make the tourney is real slim which is why people will question coach from time to time.