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This year’s March Madness has seen a shift in focus from fragility to resilience and grit.
Consider the viral moment featuring Maryland women’s basketball coach Brenda Frese, who was captured in an intense exchange with her guard, Oluchi Okananwa. Frese, in a moment of heated passion, leaned in so closely it seemed as though she might touch Okananwa’s nose. Her voice rang out with the emphatic declaration, “I believe in you.”
Despite the team’s eventual loss, this incident sparked widespread online discourse surrounding coaching techniques in today’s sports culture.
Interestingly, Okananwa chose not to engage in the ensuing debate.
Okananwa seemingly wasn’t interested in joining the argument.
“I love to be coached hard and that’s what she does with me every single day,” she said of Frese.
Over the last decade or so, much has been made of the shift from tough love discipline to a softer, gentler approach that is more compatible with a generation raised by helicopter parents. Schools have adopted social emotional learning, where the emphasis is on feelings.Gentle parenting and toxic masculinity became part of our lexicon. Coaching at all levels has followed.
But during this year’s hoops extravaganza, we’ve seen very healthy displays of intense, hard coaching with all the screaming and spit flying. Yes, it’s been great for those of us who like to say, “back in my day” and invoke the great patron saint of flying chairs, Bobby Knight.
It does, however, beg the question: Has the demise of old school coaching been greatly exaggerated? Perhaps we’re, thankfully, seeing the decline of coddling. Or maybe it’s just the traditional methods and coaches, who stress mental toughness, have been prevailing.
Simply put, the better approach is winning.
Some of the most viral and impactful moments have been courtesy of the old guard. During their decisive defeat of Northern Iowa, St. John’s Rick Pitino was seen screaming at guard Lefteris Liotopoulos.
In a post-game presser, Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, who has one national championships and 28 consecutive appearances in the tournament, made sure to “not apologize” for his philosophy that breeds competitiveness.
He added: “That’s the American way, except America has gone soft.”
Houston coach Kelvin Sampson, 70, boasted he “knocked the ego out [of his players] early” in a post-game presser.
At 71, Tennessee’s Rick Barnes prioritizes hard-nosed, disciplined hoops. Then there’s UConn coach Danny Hurley, who is so intense, we’re ready for his head to pop on live television.
Hurley, 53, has two national championships and a lifetime of wisdom from his father, Bob Hurley Sr., the legendary disciplinarian who turned St. Anthony’s in Jersey City into a high school powerhouse.
All their teams remain in contention.
There’s no better story in college hoops now than St. John’s, where Rick Pitino has become the architect of the impossible. He’s taken the once vaunted program from decades of irrelevance to real title contenders.
Thanks to a Vice docuseries about last season, audiences were granted a front row seat to his building process — and it isn’t for the faint of heart.
In one episode, St. John’s was down at the half to Providence, when Pitino launched into a profanity laced tirade questioning the strength of every fiber in his players’ bodies.
“You’re like children with bad things happening. Instead of digging in and being tougher, you wilt. Where is your f—ing toughness,” he screamed. “Where have you guys raised that you’re so weak mentally, that you just f—ing give up.”
Last week, Charles Barkley praised Izzo as “one of the few coaches who can still yell at his players.”
“We got these babies out here now … The last couple of years, the media — who don’t know anything about sports because they never played — say, ‘Why is he yelling at his players?’ That’s called coaching. He cares,” said Barkley.
We’re so sensitive these days, we don’t realize these guys aren’t gratuitously yelling. They’re developing young men and young champions.
It’s particularly interesting that these stalwarts are thriving in 2025, when Name, Image and Likeness and the transfer portal have, in some cases, flipped the power dynamics. The athletes, now getting paid well, are more in charge of their destiny. They are also able to hop to another school to find a coach who will flatter them.
Especially in hoops, young athletes are always playing for their next “contract” to make more money, and ink lucrative endorsements. But are they emotionally ready for it? Or will it become a false finish line, where they believe they’ve made it because they have money?
They may have stuff, but they have no idea what to do with it, because they never had the benefit of being in a coach’s system that ultimately provides guardrails. It’s something they need while their frontal lobes are still forming.
And it’s likely that some want that challenge of playing for a maniac. Look at St. John’s star Zuby Ejiofor who came to Queens from Kansas three years ago. Among many things, Coach Pitino turned him into the Big East Player of the Year, and a NBA prospect. Recently, his father said Zuby had been offered millions to come to other schools. But they turned it down because they were loyal to Pitino and St. John’s.
Yes, these coaches will do anything it takes to win but, ultimately, they’re teaching more than hoops — and society benefits.
As Pitino said, “Your whole life is going to be adversity, learn how to f—ing deal with it.”