To be completely honest, I don't think Ollie was really all that good at anything as a head coach and the sheer number of disappointments, transfer exits, inability to develop, lack of motivation in recruiting... it was all over the roster.
Ollie - to me - always seemed to coach in a way that it never really felt like he ever had any clue what he had in any given player, ever. Watching guys like DO get playing time over kids like Diarra. Gibbs moonlighting as a point guard. I mean heck - we didn't even *have a real point guard on the roster* for a whole year at a program that's calling card is guards. The lack of development in almost everyone up front... I can't really think of any of our guys that we've had in the paint the past few years that could have been truly meaningful, impact players on our seriously good teams in the past. I honestly can't think of a player he recruited and developed all the way through that I watched and said 'wow - that was absolutely as advertised' because it was always disappointing. Or at least seriously flawed.
It felt like his 'positionless basketball' thing was cribbed off of a bunch of GM interviews he'd heard in the past... because none of the players he had on the team sans Hamilton and maybe Larrier (MAYBE Purvis a bit?) were at all capable or even close to being that kind of player. I mean it was just a mess. There was no style, system, nothing. It didn't even feel like plays were being run. It was just a total trainwreck - no vision, no real rhyme or reason for why he was going after certain guys, no real grasp of the talent he had at his disposal or any clue how to use it... He certainly wasn't any good as a teacher.
And because of that - the transfer thing was always a thing. But again - and yes, I get it - it's a different time - but transfers are *still* transfers for a reason. There's always a story, always a soft point - and for some kids, it totally works for for the programs, it's always a monster risk. By in large, you can't build a whole team around transfers and stop gaps. Can't today, couldn't yesterday and won't ever be able to. And all of Ollie's problems begin at recruiting, recognizing talent, having a vision, a system and the motivation to get the players to see that through.
That's why i'm 1,000% convinced people are going to be objectively shocked when they see how much better Hurley does with Kevin's older players than Kevin did.