A New Era Begins Tomorrow

[Scot-e]

KO has to prove he is a good game time coach this year- I don't think that means a certain number of wins is the measure of success or failure but there are going to be games we should win and others that we will have a chance to win. I would like to see improvement all year- I would like to see good substitutions at the right times and players playing hard for him and not giving up if they are getting the snot beat out of them in the paint.

KP can pull in players- if he is a good/great game day coach he will be here a long time. If he is not- there should not be a single fan that says "good enough". We have to be patient and manage our expectations (HA!). Improve all year- play hard- at least look like a bubble team by the end of the year and KO is here to stay.

 

[gampelcrazies]

CANT WAIT FOR OLLIE

 

[Waquoit]

Calhoun 9-19 in first year. What would have happened then if they let him go. Putting a number on this doesnt't make sense and misses the point. There are many variations on this and what would constitute a successful season. Come on scooter your smarter than this.

There was no danger in letting JC go that year due to qualitative metrics. On 1/25/87, the Boston Herald wrote "If, as expected, Cliff Robinson and Phil Gamble are declared ineligible, the team UConn puts on the floor Tuesday will be the worst team in the history of the Big East."

Of course, UConn went on to beat BCU at BCU in that game, televised by ESPN. Didn't matter that they went 2-9 the rest of the year. Right then, we all knew we had the right guy.

 

[Waquoit]

Calhoun's team lost to St. Peter's 75-50 at the HCC that year.

This was his team:

Cliff Robinson
Phil Gamble
Gerry Besselink
Steve Pikiell
Tate George
Jeff King
Robert Ursery

2 future NBAers, one a long-timer with historic NBA stats.
1 competent guard on the order of Shabazz in Gamble.
A defensive specialist ala Niels Giffey.
3 big men who can all score in the post even if two weren't NBA material (King and Besselink)

Comparing the two teams, there is no dynamic presence such as Boatright. Calhoun is an impressive frosh. No one on this current team is comparable to a Cliff Robinson.

I'd say this current team might have more depth and be slightly more talented, but they don't have the bigs Calhoun had in 1986-87.

So, a loss to St. Peter's at home by 25 points is equivalent to what?

This entire post is nonsense. The two best players were ineligible for that St. Peter's game. Try again.

ADD: This post is even dumber upon more reflection. Tate and Pikell were freshmen in a time when freshman had to be really good to get regular PT. Nobody in their right mind at the time considered King and Besselink "big men who can score in the post." In fact, it was proof of how good Calhoun was that Bessilink ended up 3rd in the Big East in rebounding, but he was no scorer. Everybody on the team is comparable to Cliff in the 2nd half of the season, because they can actually play in a game. Giffey is better than Spider by a factor of 2, at a minimum. On that team, a soccer player and a baseball player got regular PT because the cupboard was left so bare! This could be the most pull-BS-out-of-your-ass post in the history of the Boneyard.

 

[freescooter]

This entire post is nonsense. The two best players were ineligible for that St. Peter's game. Try again.

ADD: This post is even dumber upon more reflection. Tate and Pikell were freshmen in a time when freshman had to be really good to get regular PT. Nobody in their right mind at the time considered King and Besselink "big men who can score in the post." In fact, it was proof of how good Calhoun was that Bessilink ended up 3rd in the Big East in rebounding, but he was no scorer. Everybody on the team is comparable to Cliff in the 2nd half of the season, because they can actually play in a game. Giffey is better than Spider by a factor of 2, at a minimum. On that team, a soccer player and a baseball player got regular PT because the cupboard was left so bare! This could be the most pull-BS-out-of-your-ass post in the history of the Boneyard.

Thank you for clearing that up.

 

[freescooter]

You just don't like Ollie. Why waste everyone's time with the rest of the nonsense?

I will if you'll just admit that if Calhoun had recommended they name a plant as the new head coach, you'd want it to get a long term deal.

 

[diggerfoot]

Not even vaguely comparable situations, Donyell. You know that. Calhoun came to a program that was struggling to compete in the Big East and had never been a major national program. they were a borderline New England power. Ollie is coming into a totally different situation. You wouldn't have the same standards for him as you had for Calhoun in his first year. that is patently absurd. UConn hadn't been to the NCAA tournament for something like 8 years before Calhoun, and were the only Big East team never to have gotten a bid during the Big East era. Ollie comes into a program that won a title 2 years ago and went to the tournament last year. Not even in the same universe as far as where the program is today vs where it was in 1986. Sheesh.

In this thread and elsewhere you use combinations of hyperbole, straw men and moving targets to support your beliefs. For example, elsewhere you refer to our current collection of talent as "misfits." I suspect that even you would concede that is hyperbole, yet the premise behind that hyperbole is that our talent base is on the low end of the totem pole, or at least similar to our talent base when Calhoun first arrived.

Sports publications actually agree with your assessment of our talent base, predicting things like 14th place and 108th best team. Yet coaching should make a difference, and a successful year for Ollie might be construed as doing better than what the talent base, what you referred to as "misfits." would justify.

Ah, but you've moved the target. You brought up the "misfits" allegation to dampen optimism by others for how our team might perform. Yet now we are to (optimistically) expect 16 wins, which is significantly more than slightly better. Forget what Calhoun did with similar, or perhaps slightly better "misfits" in his first year, a paltry 9-19. We ought to expect around 16 wins based on previous successes of the program, forget the talent. Even though that lack of talent was important to you in dampening optimism by others for what might occur, we are not to consider it pertinent for evaluating what does occur.

You've demonstrated two things overall with your various posts. No one is going to win an argument with you using actual consistent logic, that's just not how you roll. You use the usual tools of the dogmatist: hyperbole, straw men, moving targets, selective information. On the other hand, you are never going to win an argument with people who use consistent logic, no matter how much you toss out things like "patently absurd" (to the illogical).

 

[Huskies4ever]

I will if you'll just admit that if Calhoun had recommended they name a plant as the new head coach, you'd want it to get a long term deal.

Do you really believe that Calhoun wants to destroy the UConn program he built? There are reasons he believes in KO, and thought he would be the man for the job. That's why he fought for him to be named his successor. The man knows coaching, knows the game, knows his program. He feels KO is the man for the job. That's good enough for me to give KO a chance.

 

[freescooter]

In this thread and elsewhere you use combinations of hyperbole, straw men and moving targets to support your beliefs. For example, elsewhere you refer to our current collection of talent as "misfits." I suspect that even you would concede that is hyperbole, yet the premise behind that hyperbole is that our talent base is on the low end of the totem pole, or at least similar to our talent base when Calhoun first arrived.

Sports publications actually agree with your assessment of our talent base, predicting things like 14th place and 108th best team. Yet coaching should make a difference, and a successful year for Ollie might be construed as doing better than what the talent base, what you referred to as "misfits." would justify.

Ah, but you've moved the target. You brought up the "misfits" allegation to dampen optimism by others for how our team might perform. Yet now we are to (optimistically) expect 16 wins, which is significantly more than slightly better. Forget what Calhoun did with similar, or perhaps slightly better "misfits" in his first year, a paltry 9-19. We ought to expect around 16 wins based on previous successes of the program, forget the talent. Even though that lack of talent was important to you in dampening optimism by others for what might occur, we are not to consider it pertinent for evaluating what does occur.

You've demonstrated two things overall with your various posts. No one is going to win an argument with you using actual consistent logic, that's just not how you roll. You use the usual tools of the dogmatist: hyperbole, straw men, moving targets, selective information. On the other hand, you are never going to win an argument with people who use consistent logic, no matter how much you toss out things like "patently absurd" (to the illogical).

I'm going to assume you weren't even here for Calhoun's first year, or weren't old enough to really follow it seriously, because if you were you'd know that he didn't have anything like the talent on the current team. Don't let what players did after 4 years of coaching fool you into thinking that guys like Tate George were seen as NBA players when they were freshmen. To say nothing of the fact that he lost his two best players to academic problems halfway through the season. This stuff is all relative. If Calhoun had the current level of talent his first year, he would have been well above 9-19. He didn't. Spider Ursery wouldn't even make this team as a walkon...and he played a lot. that team wasn't good by New England standards. You doubt it, consider that they lost to the following: Yale, BU, Hartford. Beat Central Connecticut by 10. This years team is weak by Big East standards. It would not lose to Hartford, Yale and BU. It would not struggle with Central. And another difference, in Calhoun's first year they were coming off the following seasons: 12-16, 13-15, 13-15, 12-16. we were a fixture in the 8-9 game.

 

[freescooter]

Do you really believe that Calhoun wants to destroy the UConn program he built? There are reasons he believes in KO, and thought he would be the man for the job. That's why he fought for him to be named his successor. The man knows coaching, knows the game, knows his program. He feels KO is the man for the job. That's good enough for me to give KO a chance.

I don't believe he wants to destroy the program, but I do believe that he wants to remain "in charge" even if he is retired. He never looked beyond "his guys" and would never be willing to do that. Instead of looking for the best coach to succeed him, he looked for a former UConn guy. the best coach among former UConn guys might or might not be the best coach available, but Calhoun was never going to try and find out. Beyond that, an outsider would likely not defer to Calhoun on things like assistant coaches, nor would he appreciate Calhoun attending practice, having anything more than symbolic input. Calhoun wants to have real input, and is willing to put the program at risk to satisfy his ego.

 

[Waquoit]

I don't believe he wants to destroy the program, but I do believe that he wants to remain "in charge" even if he is retired. He never looked beyond "his guys" and would never be willing to do that. Instead of looking for the best coach to succeed him, he looked for a former UConn guy. the best coach among former UConn guys might or might not be the best coach available, but Calhoun was never going to try and find out. Beyond that, an outsider would likely not defer to Calhoun on things like assistant coaches, nor would he appreciate Calhoun attending practice, having anything more than symbolic input. Calhoun wants to have real input, and is willing to put the program at risk to satisfy his ego.

What you say here is the truth. To say this doesn't make one "anti-Ollie". JC fought for KO above anyone else is because he is the only person in the world connected to JC that had any chance to get the job. No other member of the JC tree had a snowball's chance. Let's hope it works out, it would be great if it does.

 

[Huskies4ever]

I don't believe he wants to destroy the program, but I do believe that he wants to remain "in charge" even if he is retired. He never looked beyond "his guys" and would never be willing to do that. Instead of looking for the best coach to succeed him, he looked for a former UConn guy. the best coach among former UConn guys might or might not be the best coach available, but Calhoun was never going to try and find out. Beyond that, an outsider would likely not defer to Calhoun on things like assistant coaches, nor would he appreciate Calhoun attending practice, having anything more than symbolic input. Calhoun wants to have real input, and is willing to put the program at risk to satisfy his ego.

free, it's his program. He is a legend and made UConn a basketball power. At this rate, he was going to coach till he's 85. If he wants to be around the program, so be it. He feels KO has "it ". It's not like Calhoun thought, "Gee, I'll select any former player and roll the dice." He knows KO very well and thought he would be as good a candidate as any, and keep it in the family. And by sticking around, Calhoun will help transition the change.

 

[Waquoit]

Forget what Calhoun did with similar, or perhaps slightly better "misfits" in his first year, a paltry 9-19.

Perhaps slightly better "misfits"? Are you insane? JC had real hoop misfits, like a goalkeeper and a pitcher. I'm not sure UConn had a Top 100 recruit on that team, certainly not after Cliffy got the boot. And Cliff was a soph, he barely played as a frosh until late in the year. I'm not sure he ever started. This year's team has at least 4 Top 50 guys, some with NC rings. No one loved Jeff King more than me, except maybe his mother. He's wasn't as good as Wolf. JC lost his 2nd game to Yale. A year later he wins the NIT. This year's team has bubble talent. That will be my quantitative metric. Would they be on the bubble if they were eligible?

 

[UC990411]

No one ever beats the teams they should beat. Teams are always upset.

Your minimum is literally an impossibility.

what?

 

[Huskymaniac]

Oy, this thread could be a case study in human behavior. It demonstrates why we have two dominant politial parties that pander to their extremists.

First, arguing which team had/has more talent is futile because it is so damn subjective. Cliff was the only legit NBA player. Tate should have been a second rounder that never saw an NBA floor. But people can view him as better than Napier because it is subjective.

I like Ollie and I am OK with the contract he got. I think this team has more talent than Calhoun's first team but that is my opinion. We don't have a Cliffy but the rest of the team is better position by position except maybe small forward where it is a wash. I think Daniel's will spend most of this season at PF out of necessity.

I want Ollie to succeed but I think people are marginalizing the team to set him up for success. If he does what he should the team will win a lot of games and people will claim he is a genius to do it "with this group".

I have to admit, it is difficut to create a set of objectives to honestly define success for Ollie this season. I can say that upstater and freescooter have come down on opposite extremes which are unrealistic. But where is a reasonable middle ground? Tough to say.

One thing I will look for is improvement as the season progresses. Napier, Giffey and Olander are upperclassmen but we will play alot of young players. Barring a major injury, the team as a whole should improve. But, again, that will be a subjective opinion. Love it or hate it, I will use the evolution of our Sagarin rating as an unbiased guide.

 

[CTBasketball]

Well this thread certainly blew up.

Here's my input:

No assumptions can be made until we see the team play, so in other words, I can't wait for tonight.

 

[Waquoit]

But people can view [Tate] as better than Napier because it is subjective.

It's not subjective. Bazz as a junior is lightyears better than Tate was as a freshman. To say otherwise is to argue in bad faith.

 

[8893]

Calhoun wants to have real input, and is willing to put the program at risk to satisfy his ego.

IMO the program would be at greater risk without Calhoun's input. You want Manuel--a football guy, to the extent he brings anything to the table--to pick an outsider from among the big names or up-and-comers du jour, meaning that we get a Miller, Smart or Stevens who wants to remake the program in his own image. I think that's a far greater risk of failure. First, you're gonna have to pay a ton of money and guarantee a lot of years to nab one of these guys. And then what are your options if that doesn't work out? How long of a timeline will you give one of them to start from scratch here? How do you know Stevens's style of play would translate here? What makes you confident that Miller would excel here? In three seasons at Arizona he's had all of one NCAA tournament appearance. Last year was a first round exit in the NIT. Is that okay with you? Do you think Smart's success in the CAA guarantees success here?

Personally, I feel a lot better knowing that our new head coach will inherit the goodwill and wisdom of the program that Calhoun built, and I feel less confident that an outsider could jump into anything close to instant success here.

 

[freescooter]

It is not "his program." It is the University of Connecticut's program. He knew that KO and only KO among his associates could get the job. And quite frankly that was because KO was an unknown quantity. Maybe Ollie will be a good head coach. But we don't know that because Jim Calhoun picked him.

 

[CTBasketball]

IMO the program would be at greater risk without Calhoun's input. You want Manuel--a football guy, to the extent he brings anything to the table--to pick an outsider from among the big names or up-and-comers du jour, meaning that we get a Miller, Smart or Stevens who wants to remake the program in his own image. I think that's a far greater risk of failure. First, you're gonna have to pay a ton of money and guarantee a lot of years to nab one of these guys. And then what are your options if that doesn't work out? How long of a timeline will you give one of them to start from scratch here? How do you know Stevens's style of play would translate here? What makes you confident that Miller would excel here? In three seasons at Arizona he's had all of one NCAA tournament appearance. Last year was a first round exit in the NIT. Is that okay with you? Do you think Smart's success in the CAA guarantees success here?

Personally, I feel a lot better knowing that our new head coach will inherit the goodwill and wisdom of the program that Calhoun built, and I feel less confident that an outsider could jump into anything close to instant success here.

I think this is an over-statement the way he's pieced together a team this year.

 

[8893]

I think this is an over-statement the way he's pieced together a team this year.

I don't follow. What is an over-statement, and who are you talking about in terms of the "the way he's pieced together a team this year"?

 

[freescooter]

IMO the program would be at greater risk without Calhoun's input. You want Manuel--a football guy, to the extent he brings anything to the table--to pick an outsider from among the big names or up-and-comers du jour, meaning that we get a Miller, Smart or Stevens who wants to remake the program in his own image. I think that's a far greater risk of failure. First, you're gonna have to pay a ton of money and guarantee a lot of years to nab one of these guys. And then what are your options if that doesn't work out? How long of a timeline will you give one of them to start from scratch here? How do you know Stevens's style of play would translate here? What makes you confident that Miller would excel here? In three seasons at Arizona he's had all of one NCAA tournament appearance. Last year was a first round exit in the NIT. Is that okay with you? Do you think Smart's success in the CAA guarantees success here?

Personally, I feel a lot better knowing that our new head coach will inherit the goodwill and wisdom of the program that Calhoun built, and I feel less confident that an outsider could jump into anything close to instant success here.

Please stop with the football guy stuff with Manuel will you? He played college football but come on. He also competed in track & field, so does that make him a track guy? He was hired because he was viewed as an up and coming athletic administrator. He was the assistant AD in charge of the basketball program at Michigan for what its worth. He oversaw the development of a good wrestling program at Buffalo. Does that mean he was a "wrestling guy?" During his tenure the womens tennis program made its first NCAA appearance, so I guess he's a womens tennis guy... He wasn't hired as the football coach, for heaven sakes. Ollie was Calhoun's choice for one reason...he was the only guy who didn't have a track record. As far as other coaches are concerned, there absolutely is no guarantee. But Smart has a damned good track record, as obviously does Stephens. Miller had an impressive run at Xavier and at least one very good year at Arizona. He knows what it takes to compete at this level. I'd take the risk on him because I think it is pretty small. How many elite eights has Ollie coached his team to now?

 

[Waquoit]

A football guy gets the credit for the Calhoun hire.

 

[diggerfoot]

Perhaps slightly better "misfits"? Are you insane? JC had real hoop misfits, like a goalkeeper and a pitcher. I'm not sure UConn had a Top 100 recruit on that team, certainly not after Cliffy got the boot. And Cliff was a soph, he barely played as a frosh until late in the year. I'm not sure he ever started. This year's team has at least 4 Top 50 guys, some with NC rings. No one loved Jeff King more than me, except maybe his mother. He's wasn't as good as Wolf. JC lost his 2nd game to Yale. A year later he wins the NIT. This year's team has bubble talent. That will be my quantitative metric. Would they be on the bubble if they were eligible?

I hope you understand that my use of the term misfits is not serious, I would not consider either group misfits. I'll admit that "Perhaps slightly better" is not completely honest on my part, they could also be "perhaps slightly worse." As far as similar to each other, that's not as "insane" a notion as you claim, though don't you sound convincing by using that descriptor. Take the one comparison you bring up, King v. Wolf. That certainly is open for debate. It would be interesting to look at something like statistics, rather than accept your proclamation void of any criteria. Talent is as talent does. Performance matters, not rankings. It may very well be that Ollie will bring out a different type of performance than what we've seen from these players, but in making the comparison I'm using what we've seen last year in terms of performance.

Let's get at your claim that they have "bubble talent." We have had other bubble teams in the post dream season era. Do you think this team has equal talent to any of those other UConn bubble teams since 1990? Even if you think the answer to that is yes, though I suspect you would be in the minority, do you think Ollie is Calhoun's immediate equal, which must be the case to achieve the same level of "bubble" success with that comparable talent? Only if your answer is "yes" to both questions is it logical to expect bubble type results. Otherwise we may get it, particularly if Ollie brings about better performance than Calhoun from the same players, but it's not logical to expect it.

 

[CTBasketball]

This team is not "bubble-status."

 

[8893]

Please stop with the football guy stuff with Manuel will you? He played college football but come on. He also competed in track & field, so does that make him a track guy? He was hired because he was viewed as an up and coming athletic administrator. He was the assistant AD in charge of the basketball program at Michigan for what its worth. He oversaw the development of a good wrestling program at Buffalo. Does that mean he was a "wrestling guy?" During his tenure the womens tennis program made its first NCAA appearance, so I guess he's a womens tennis guy... He wasn't hired as the football coach, for heaven sakes. Ollie was Calhoun's choice for one reason...he was the only guy who didn't have a track record. As far as other coaches are concerned, there absolutely is no guarantee. But Smart has a damned good track record, as obviously does Stephens. Miller had an impressive run at Xavier and at least one very good year at Arizona. He knows what it takes to compete at this level. I'd take the risk on him because I think it is pretty small. How many elite eights has Ollie coached his team to now?

A football guy gets the credit for the Calhoun hire.

True, John Toner was a football guy first. He was also President of the NCAA and our AD for quite a while when he made that hire, and he did so based primarily on the same thing we all saw when Calhoun's Northeastern Huskies played against Perno's UConn Huskies: drive and passion.

My issue with Manuel isn't that he's a football guy; it's that he fumbled (imo) the first major decision he had to make as our AD and looked like anything but an up-and-comer as an AD. To the contrary, I think he looked like an amateur with the seven-month contract.

I know Kevin and trust him enough to give him my full support as our next head coach. I also know Jim Calhoun (and John Toner, too, for that matter). I don't know Warde Manuel from Adam, and so far I'm not too impressed from what I've seen. You keep asking what Ollie has shown; what has Manuel shown you that has already earned your undying loyalty to him and your giddy fervor to throw the man who made UConn hoops what it is under the bus?

 

[Waquoit]

Let's get at your claim that they have "bubble talent." We have had other bubble teams in the post dream season era. Do you think this team has equal talent to any of those other UConn bubble teams since 1990? Even if you think the answer to that is yes, though I suspect you would be in the minority, do you think Ollie is Calhoun's immediate equal, which must be the case to achieve the same level of "bubble" success with that comparable talent? Only if your answer is "yes" to both questions is it logical to expect bubble type results. Otherwise we may get it, particularly if Ollie brings about better performance than Calhoun from the same players, but it's not logical to expect it.

As far as my bubble talent claim goes, if I'm not mistaken, we have four guys that were Top 50 recruits (Bazz, Boat, Calhoun, DD). When JC took over the program hadn't had 4 Top 50 recruits in the previous decade combined. We have two guys that started for a national championship team and another guy who played 24 minutes in the final game. That's not good enough to be considered bubble talent? Thin in the middle I admit, but that's why I said bubble. If we had more strength in the middle we'd be better than bubble.

As far as you second point (in italics), you seem to be saying that it's "not logical" to hold Ollie to a high standard. A standard befitting a blueblood, Top 10 program. Are you sure you want to go there?

 

[selles]

Maybe Ollie will be a good head coach. But we don't know that because Jim Calhoun picked him.

You're right. We don't know that, just because Jim Calhoun picked him, KO will be a good coach. We also don't know that, just because Jim Calhoun picked him, KO will not be a good coach.

I get a sense of irony reading your posts on this freescooter, because you've been on the Shaka Smart bandwagon for a long time and the coach KO most reminds me of so far with his brand of relentless positive energy is...wait for it...Shaka Smart.

Let's at least let the season get going and see what we've got before we start assigning arbitrary win totals to measure KO's worth.

 

[Huskymaniac]

In your opinion he fumbled. You know Ollie and you are too biased to be objective. The rest of us, save freescooter, want you to be right but believe the jury is still out and that Manuel's decision was reasonable.

 

[8893]

In your opinion he fumbled. You know Ollie and you are too biased to be objective. The rest of us, save freescooter, want you to be right but believe the jury is still out and that Manuel's decision was reasonable.

Knowing Ollie has nothing to do with whether the seven-month contract was reasonable. I'm glad that you are speaking for the rest of the experts on the board. Try speaking to anyone with any remote connection to big time college or professional sports and ask them what a seven-month contract means in the business; and ask the college people how that might affect recruiting. It was an amateur move. Embarrassing, really.