Nevada's Steve Alford Offers Sharp Criticism Of His Team And Himself

During his almost three-year tenure as Nevada's basketball coach, Steve Alford has typically been even-keeled in post-game press conferences.

Win or lose, he doesn't rock the boat much, either with over-the-top hyperbole after big wins or sharp criticism after big losses. That changed following Nevada's 77-67 home loss to Wyoming on Monday that dropped the Wolf Pack to 8-7 overall and 2-2 in the Mountain West, a thoroughly mediocre footing for a team that figured to be one of the conference's best.

"We're not tough enough, and that's on me," Alford said in his opening statement about the game.

The veteran head coach, in his 27th season as a Division I head coach, largely pointed the finger at himself, saying it was his job to fix the team's issues. But he also said the Wolf Pack lacked toughness and lacked togetherness; questioned his players' mindset when they get tired; and called Nevada's volume of 3-point attempts versus Wyoming "idiotic," among other criticisms.

Alford said changes are coming, although the scope of those is to be determined. After playing three games in six days, including a pair of home losses to upper-level MW teams, Nevada has three days of practice to prepare for Fresno State on Friday at home. And after Monday's effort, Alford appears to have reached a breaking point.

"We don't have an identity," Alford said. "There's no question on that. Now we're 13, 14, 15 games in. I get it. We've had a bunch of pauses and we don't have seniors. We only have one. I get that. But we have to listen better, we have to trust teammates better, we have to come together better. We have to do a really good job as coaches to make sure that's what we're fostering. We can't give into excuses and a woe-is-me attitude. Instead of, 'I'm not getting the ball' or 'The flow's not right,' get tougher or do something different. Take a charge, block a shot, run the floor. And we're just not responding that way.

"Right now, in my opinion, it's too much 'me' instead of 'we.' We've got to get to that mindset. Until we do, it's going to be a roller-coaster type deal. Here we have Fresno coming in that's one of the better teams in this league. They're really hard to play against. They have great inside-out (play) and they really defend. It's not like it's going to get easier, and I've talked to the guys that this is as balanced and as tough as I've seen the Mountain West in a long time. They're not going to be any breaks in the schedule."

Nevada is 0-6 against top-100 KenPom teams with six of its next seven games against such opponents with a game against rebuilding UNLV breaking up that stretch. Without marked improvement and improved play, the Wolf Pack could be well off the pace for a MW Tournament bye berth at the end of that stretch.

At minimum, Alford said he's changing how the Wolf Pack practices. He said Nevada didn't have a full-contact session Sunday because it played Saturday at Air Force and had another game Monday against Wyoming, adding that might have been a poor decision on his part.

"I haven't handled the pauses as well as I've liked," Alford said. "We're going to have practice harder, longer and see what comes out of that and see if there are some other guys who can get some minutes. Look at some guys that are either playing too many minutes or not enough and just try to find the right buttons to press. We're going to have to find a tougher approach to what we're doing."

Beyond the "toughness," a word Alford used throughout his assessment, Alford was critical of the Wolf Pack's offensive approach. Nevada's 32.3 percent shooting from three ranks 10th out of 11 MW teams and 250th in the country, but the Wolf Pack still attempted 30 3-pointers against Wyoming, hitting only six (20 percent). Those 30 3-point attempts were a season high for Nevada.

"We're not shooting it well at all, but again that's a toughness thing," Alford said. "If you're not shooting it well, it's real simple: Stop shooting. It's not rocket science. We're not shooting the 3-ball well and we shoot 30 today. To me, that's idiotic. We took 30 threes today, and the game plan was to go inside, go inside, go inside, and we weren't able to get that done."

One player who has struggled to make threes this season is Tré Coleman, who is shooting 23.1 percent overall and 16.7 percent from three. As a freshman last year, he shot 41.7 percent from the field and 36.1 percent from three. Alford highlighted Coleman's more aggressive approach late against Wyoming as a positive from the loss.

"I challenged him during a timeout with 7, 8 minutes to go in the game," Alford said. "I said, 'Look, stop shooting threes. It's not going in. It's not a good feel right now. Drive it, get fouled, get to the line. Do something different than shoot threes that aren't going in.' From that point on, he drew one or two fouls, he got to the free throw line. He made one or layups. He listened, and that showed toughness. But I think in today's game in particular, 'Oh, you don't believe in me.' Or, 'You don't think I can do this?' That's a soft approach. We try to speak truth, do something different. Don't just keep doing something over and over again that's not working. Are we going to take 40 (threes) and hope we make seven? That just makes no sense."

Alford added Nevada gets away from its fundamentals and disciplined play when it faces adversity or gets tired. He said his players "splinter" when things aren't going well, which can't be the case in a league as strong as the MW has been this year.

"We have to figure out a way to make them play harder and tougher over 40 minutes," Alford said. "I think we do that in spurts. I think we're doing it for 25 to 30 minutes. We do a lot of good things and we play really hard, but, boy, when we get tired, we get tired. We have a lot of mental breakdowns and mistakes, and those hurt when you play teams like Wyoming and like Boise where every possessions will be measured at the highest. This league is not going to let you take possessions off, and we do that too much."

Added captain K.J. Hymes: "We just have to play hard for 40 minutes. It's as simple as that. Not 36, not 32, not 28. Forty minutes of working hard and doing us."

Hymes, who has missed much of this season due to ankle and back injuries, agreed with the criticism of his team, saying the Wolf Pack's togetherness is an issue.

"I don't think we have selfish guys, but people when things aren't all the way going their way, it gets to their head and it takes them all the way out of the game, and that's a small form of selfishness," Hymes said. "But I don't think it's anything we can't figure out."

This was expected to be the breakthrough season for Nevada, which was coming off back-to-back CBI-quality seasons in Alford's first two years. After a slow start (1-4) and dismissal of key addition A.J. Bramah, the Wolf Pack won five in a row before this recent rough patch against better competition. Alford has only two losing seasons in his previous 26 years as a D-I head coach, those coming in 1999-2000 at Iowa and 2015- 2016 at UCLA. He's got his work cut out to avoid that number rising to three.

"These are great guys," Alford said. "It's on me, it's on us as a staff to figure this out because they're really good guys, and that's what I appreciate. For the most part, they put in the time and the effort. But I think we have to put in more time and we have to put in more effort, especially in practice. ... We have to look within the program to see what is best for this team to get them to play tougher and harder for 40 minutes."