Paul Farbrace said Sussex’s sixth 50-overs defeat of the season is on him.
But he added some of the players he had selected were clearly not ready.
The winless Sharks were thumped by eight wickets by Gloucestershire at Bristol.
Their Metro Bank Cup campaign has turned into a big disappointment, although three of the defeats have been by agonisingly close margins.
This was not one of those as they made just 132-9.
Head coach Farbrace said: “This one’s on me and I’ve told the players that.
“I picked these lads thinking they were ready and clearly some of them are not.
“I’m not blaming the players – it was my decision to pick an inexperienced side and I take full responsibility for that.
“We’ve been outplayed by a very good Gloucestershire side and it was men against boys out there today.
“They bowled very well on what was essentially a good cricket wicket and at no stage have we really been able to break the shackles.
“There is no way that was a 130 all out pitch and the players have to learn from what they’ve seen and done here.
“There was a bit of nibble off the pitch early on, as you would expect, but we couldn’t deal with that and it was always going to be an uphill battle once we’d lost those early wickets.
“I said before the competition began that I wanted to take the opportunity to rest players and rotate the squad and that is what I have done.”
Sussex rested John Simpson, Tom Haines and Fynn Hudson-Prentice for the trip west.
Frbrace said: “We are top of the Championship second division and want to win promotion and I stand by my selections in this competition.
“We may have lost six games, but there have been some decent performances in among those and there is no point in having these young professional players on our books if we are not prepared to use them.”
Ajeet Singh Dale claimed 4-15 in nine overs to help restrict Sussex to 132-9 in a match reduced by rain to 41 overs-a-side.
Fellow seamer Zaman Akhter proved almost as deadly, returning figures of 3-25, his best in List-A cricket, while Danial Ibrahim top-scored with 30 for the outgunned visitors.
Required to chase 132 to win on the Duckworth/Lewis/Stern Method, Gloucestershire comfortably overhauled their target with 21 overs to spare, courtesy of an authoritative innings of 49 not out from Cameron Bancroft and a whirlwind knock of 46 in 28 balls from Miles Hammond.
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