I'm legitimately happy that this board, generally speaking, has Ollie's back. He's a hell of a basketball coach and an even better leader. OP deservedly took heat for insinuating that Ollie's job should be in jeopardy.
I do wonder, though, if people sometimes struggle to see beyond the UConn bubble that they live in, because outside that bubble, embarrassing is the word that fits. Just consider the aesthetics from the outside. Consider how bad it looks for us to open AAC play - which is embarrassing in and of itself - down 36-12 at the half to Houston, at home. Certainly, there is context that we are applying that makes it less embarrassing, but the same could be said of many of the same programs and coaches that we have mocked on this board. There are players on this roster who won a national championship. There are players on this roster who were heralded recruits. Injuries may caution us from judgement, but there is no circumstance that can quell the sting of embarrassment. Insofar as a fan base can be embarrassed by the results of a game, if not this, then what? Take a gander at what people are saying nationally and it's often a matter not of if Ollie will be fired, but when. That rhetoric is stupid, but it exists, and if perception has any baring on reality, it isn't something we should dismiss.
We're all guessing here. None of us know what the future holds, and so all we're left with are our interpretations of the past. Those interpretations tend to vacillate with waning variance depending on the additional context that every game and season unturn. Nobody can ever take Ollie's first two seasons away from him. He coached those teams brilliantly, and even if he fails to win another game in his career, I'm a life-long fan of the guy. There are no disclaimers there. None at all.
What we can do is use those seasons to gauge the trajectory of his career. We can assess how, specifically, the prototype that comprised those teams - the Boat's, the Bazz's, the Giffey's - changed in the proceeding years. The narrative that Calhoun left Ollie with a made title contender is nonsense. The narrative that Ollie might not be able to evaluate competitive greatness with the same precision as his HOF mentor is fair.
It is also fair to question player development. It is convenient at this point in time to say that we were without our three best players during Wednesday's loss to Houston. Somehow, over the course of the first three games and change - a stretch that produced some of the worst basketball I've seen from a UConn team - Larrier and Gilbert became two of our three best players, despite the fact that we have no way of knowing this...despite the fact that Purvis and Brimah surely would have been mentioned as among our best players before the year.
Purvis and Brimah, like it or not, are every bit as much a part of Ollie's track record as Napier and Boatright. In the coming years, we will find out whether their lack of development was an anomaly or the beginning of a trend.
Me? I think it's an anomaly, growing pains, part of the process. I think things are going to turn around sooner than people think. I think the three seniors will play better, the freshman will improve, and we will have a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament. I think that next year and the year after - when the renewed health of our recruiting finally comes to fruition - are going to be special, and that Ollie is going to be here for a long time, and that he's going to end up in the Hall of Fame. Ask me, and all this talk will look stupid years from now.
Today is December 31st, 2016, though, and we're a 2.5 point underdog against a terrible Tulsa team. There's nothing like that kind of reality to remind me that my opinion of the situation is just that, an interpretation.
