Chiefly: How was a team composed of the likes of Brock Reichner, Jimmy Balderson, Austin Ainge, Mike Rose, etc. able to win a reg. season conference championship and go to the NCAA tourney in consecutive years, and teams with players like Eric Mika, Tyler Haws, Kyle Collinsworth, Elijah Bryant and so on never could?

In trying to answer this question, I always pointed the finger at Rose. Like, maybe he lost his zeal for coaching and got lazy (maybe cancer hit him harder than we all thought?). But this article makes me think I'm wrong. Maybe the game changed, and the players changed, and he and his coaches just didn't know how to adapt.

The 2006-2011 teams were teams. Winning was everything, and all of the guys did what they had to do to win.

The 2012-2019 Cougars were a collection of individuals. Trying to get theirs and take care of only themselves.

Who knows? But I definitely got a little more sympathy for Rose after reading this article. Poor guy was left behind, sounds like.

Here's the article, by the way: