Amore: Crumbling Connecticut Foundation? Kevin Ollie Under Scrutiny With UConn Men

[Hoophound]

I think Mau is saying they just don't have the innate ability to play basketball really well. I agree that some guys don't, but all three of them? Facey showed this year that tremendous ability is in that body and yet we only saw a glimpse. I've mentioned it before, but all you needed to see was that video of Facey hitting about 50 3's in a row with a perfect stroke to know he had serious potential. You don't see that out of guys that don't have innate ability, especially at his size. He has the feel for a basketball and putting it in the hoop. He certainly developed but too little, too late. I think he could have become a deadly weapon for us.

 

[whaler11]

Ollie is lucky that dope Brimah was around to save the day against St. Joe's.

I gotta say that I'm pretty tired of hearing about Ollie's divorce. If he can't handle his personal life to the point where we are looking at this tire fire he should have resigned.

 

[willie99]

Put me on record as someone that thinks that UConn is going to have a very good year next year. I think the nucleus is very good, and I think that we are going to play a tougher brand of basketball next year. UConn basketball. We will be in the NCAA tourney next year and we are going to make some noise.

Now that I've gone on record, let all the boo-birds rain down on me for the next 7 months or so until I'm proven right...

I concur, and it's what has happened like every time the wheels have fallen off the program, we bounce back

after the 2000 season, kids transferred, bad recruits, we only had Caron Butler and T Brown coming in, one year removed from from a national Championship and we were in meltdown mold. MSG was a 50+ recruit, and Meka was still out there in April for heaven's sake, how good could he be? Top talent didn't want to play for JC

2010, the wheels were coming off, Roscoe Smith should commit, we landed the wrong Lamb, our incoming class $UCKS (that class won it all twice)

2012, JC ill, AD leaves, RS and AO transfer, OMG it's over for us, yet again

Going back to 2010/2011, that season was over before it started. Ater Majok left the program in late August !!!!!!!!

doomed I tell you, we're doomed.

I don't know who was saying what and when, but I'd wager today's doom and gloom crowd was yesterday's doom and gloom crowd. Same ole same ole

 

[Huskybass]

I concur, and it's what has happened like every time the wheels have fallen off the program, we bounce back

after the 2000 season, kids transferred, bad recruits, we only had Caron Butler and T Brown coming in, one year removed from from a national Championship and we were in meltdown mold. MSG was a 50+ recruit, and Meka was still out there in April for heaven's sake, how good could he be? Top talent didn't want to play for JC

2010, the wheels were coming off, Roscoe Smith should commit, we landed the wrong Lamb, our incoming class $UCKS (that class won it all twice)

2012, JC ill, AD leaves, RS and AO transfer, OMG it's over for us, yet again

Going back to 2010/2011, that season was over before it started. Ater Majok left the program in late August !!!!!!!!

doomed I tell you, we're doomed.

I don't know who was saying what and when, but I'd wager today's doom and gloom crowd was yesterday's doom and gloom crowd. Same ole same ole

Absolutely not. I have always felt very optimistic about the program, until the last three years.

 

[BUConn10]

I really don't understand this post at all. How can you say a coaching staff isn't responsible for teaching their own players. I'm pretty sure that's like the definition of coaching. Also they recruited those "dopes" so trying to act like they were thrust upon Ollie and staff is another perplexing take.

You don't understand it because it's nonsense.

 

[pj]

The coaching staff is responsible for developing players, but the student has to be educable.

In comparison with Clyde Vaughn, Miller has always seemed a mediocre big man coach. When Clyde was here all the big men developed rapidly. Under Miller, including during the Calhoun years, it was a 50-50 thing. Some developed, some didn't.

I think we can blame recent big men for slower development than other bigs made under Miller. But we can blame Miller for slow development generally of bigs under his tutelage. Ollie shares responsibility. There's enough blame to go around.

 

[djct1999]

Ollie is lucky that dope Brimah was around to save the day against St. Joe's.

I gotta say that I'm pretty tired of hearing about Ollie's divorce. If he can't handle his personal life to the point where we are looking at this tire fire he should have resigned.

You are absolutely right. I have never bought into his divorce being an excuse for his coaching.

 

[mauconnfan]

I really don't understand this post at all. How can you say a coaching staff isn't responsible for teaching their own players. I'm pretty sure that's like the definition of coaching. Also they recruited those "dopes" so trying to act like they were thrust upon Ollie and staff is another perplexing take.

Pretty simple for most, they are clueless and not coachable. No natural instincts and hardly able to improve as you saw. If they were any good at all they wouldn't even need a coach to improve a little but they showed hardly anything. If you've played or coached there are just kids who have it and those who don't. Watching Facey and Brimah the light seemed to kind go go off after 90-100 games suddenly but still the same mistakes were made. Hell kids with instinct and ability don't even need to be taught fundamentals by year 2 now it's time to improve. They were still trying to teach the most fundamental things to all of these guys throughout their careers and the bulb was broken for the most part. Steve, seemed to be grasping some offense for sure but again, defensively he was clueless basically.

Be perplexed all you want I'm perplexed you wouldn't see the obvious!

 

[mauconnfan]

Don't put too much on Anderson.


1) Jesus. Yes, it freaking is their job to teach them to play the game. They played it well enough to get a scholarship offer from this staff, didn't they?

2) Yes, Jim Calhoun would have gotten more out of Brimah.

Sorry no he wouldn't have. Clyde maybe a little but nope you're wrong. The guy was clueless, this one's not on the staff.

 

[mauconnfan]

You don't understand it because it's nonsense.

Good news is you calling it nonsense give me a much better chance of being correct!

 

[BUConn10]

Good news is you calling it nonsense give me a much better chance of being correct!

Ok mau

 

[donyell34]

Ollie is lucky that dope Brimah was around to save the day against St. Joe's.

I gotta say that I'm pretty tired of hearing about Ollie's divorce. If he can't handle his personal life to the point where we are looking at this tire fire he should have resigned.

Wake up on the wrong side of the bed whaler. No need to call Amida a dope, to you feel better about yourself when you spout your crap. Critique is fine and we do it all here but you always go to far and you have been doing this for a long time. No need for name calling like that.

 

[TRest]

Wake up on the wrong side of the bed whaler. No need to call Amida a dope, to you feel better about yourself when you spout your crap. Critique is fine and we do it all here but you always go to far and you have been doing this for a long time. No need for name calling like that.

He ws quoting mau calling him a dope. What were we talking about again? As an aside, how long did the legendary Clyde Vaughn actually coach here? His legend grows with every thread.

 

[pj]

An anecdote. I once asked a former West Virginia basketball player what he thought of Gale Catlett, the long-time WVU coach who went 439-276 there. The player said he was a great X's and O's coach who could win a lot of games, but he never developed players and didn't get anybody into the NBA.

Glen Miller was like that, only less successful - 93-99 at Brown and 45-52 at Penn.

With elite programs competing over their ability to put players in the NBA, you need coaches who recruit and develop players. I think KO made the right move shifting to Chillious.

 

[whaler11]

Wake up on the wrong side of the bed whaler. No need to call Amida a dope, to you feel better about yourself when you spout your crap. Critique is fine and we do it all here but you always go to far and you have been doing this for a long time. No need for name calling like that.

Someone else called him a dope - I was mocking them. So good job good effort attacking the wrong guy.

 

[mauconnfan]

He ws quoting mau calling him a dope. What were we talking about again? As an aside, how long did the legendary Clyde Vaughn actually coach here? His legend grows with every thread.

whaler is nothing to me as I am sure he is to 95% of the board who get's his deal. I don't see his replies he's ignored with the other few who are similar to him, worthless. Let me know if it's anything worthwhile, oh never mind it won't be.

 

[ctchamps]

I think Mau is saying they just don't have the innate ability to play basketball really well. I agree that some guys don't, but all three of them? Facey showed this year that tremendous ability is in that body and yet we only saw a glimpse. I've mentioned it before, but all you needed to see was that video of Facey hitting about 50 3's in a row with a perfect stroke to know he had serious potential. You don't see that out of guys that don't have innate ability, especially at his size. He has the feel for a basketball and putting it in the hoop. He certainly developed but too little, too late. I think he could have become a deadly weapon for us.

I've never doubted that the one thing KO took from JC was the insistence that players needed two things to get court time - work ethic ( demonstrated in practice) and PLAYING DEFENSE!

Kentan was raw and struggled with offensive and defensive sets. He showed from day 1 an ability to score - mostly from offensive rebounds. But he was lost on the court and a liability on defense.

This year he put it together. Even at the end of this season it was more of a slump than an inability to understand his role. Shame really because his slump came at a time that was pivotal for events.

It certainly was fortunate for Kentan that he finally had to get court time with all the injuries and people can certainly make the case that KO should have done this sooner. But that eliminates the JC protocol of proving oneself in practice. I'm not sure people can know for certain how Kentan or any of the kids did in practice.

It's funny how people can say it's on the players or coaches or whatever with absolute certainty given that most of us have life experiences where we've observed inadequate teaching or inabilities to learn under capable teachers or differences in the learning curve of peoples.

 

[mauconnfan]

Wake up on the wrong side of the bed whaler. No need to call Amida a dope, to you feel better about yourself when you spout your crap. Critique is fine and we do it all here but you always go to far and you have been doing this for a long time. No need for name calling like that.

And I shouldn't even call them "clueless" because it's not right they played hard and did everything they could for the program. Ultimately they just didn't have the IQ to get a lot better under any situation. What is the biggest shame is they weren't able to be the "pieces of the puzzle" which their actually skills allowed them to be. If they both were solid back ups playing 12-18 minutes their expectations would have been in line with their games. So in all reality the staff did fail them by not getting better players in their positions.

Hey not once will I say KO and the staff did a good job, it's impossible right now to even support that theory. But some things just weren't going to change, out of their hands. Now's the time to prove they can get this job done, I think they can but by no means am I close to sure of that at this point.

 

[ctchamps]

And I shouldn't even call them "clueless" because it's not right they played hard and did everything they could for the program. Ultimately they just didn't have the IQ to get a lot better under any situation. What is the biggest shame is they weren't able to be the "pieces of the puzzle" which their actually skills allowed them to be. If they both were solid back ups playing 12-18 minutes their expectations would have been in line with their games. So in all reality the staff did fail them by not getting better players in their positions.

Hey not once will I say KO and the staff did a good job, it's impossible right now to even support that theory. But some things just weren't going to change, out of their hands. Now's the time to prove they can get this job done, I think they can but by no means am I close to sure of that at this point.

And there is the major dichotomy of peoples positions in this forum. KF, SE and AB should have not been recruited and once they've shown inabilities they should have been recruited over.

So why were they recruited in the first place? I guess it depends on who you talk to. Some say it was the APR sanctions, some say it was on the coaches, some say it was both and some are clueless.

Why didn't they get recruited over? I guess it depends on whether you consider Zach and Juwan were examples of the staff making this move and emphasize things didn't work out with them versus the staff had no clue AB, SE and KF were not the answers.

 

[Fishy]

Sorry no he wouldn't have. Clyde maybe a little but nope you're wrong. The guy was clueless, this one's not on the staff.

Nothing is ever on this staff, is it?

 

[David 76]

I think people forget Ollie has a actually coached a mix bag. Not all good or bad.
First two years were excellent. The negatives write that of as Calhoun's team or / pre divorce. The next two years were not so good. They did get to the second round but we're inconsistent. The positives focus on recruiting problems

I can't judge this year as a bad coaching job. Ollie brought in a great class, while they were not ready for the first two games, when the wheels fell off he did a great job of pulling them together. Then negativity set in.
If those players (or even two) stayed healthy, I don't think we are having this discussion and Mal is coming in August

Ollie deserves a chance to show he can coach like he did his first two years. It should be considered progress if his depleted, young, unfamiliar with each other team makes a strong improvement. What is that? Making the tourney? Maybe.

 

[mauconnfan]

Nothing is ever on this staff, is it?

There's many things I question and wonder about no doubt. Plenty to question they have a lot to prove Fishy, but I will never hold them accountable of the little improvement shown by those 3.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

Ollie is lucky that dope Brimah was around to save the day against St. Joe's.

I gotta say that I'm pretty tired of hearing about Ollie's divorce. If he can't handle his personal life to the point where we are looking at this tire fire he should have resigned.

Just another pleasant valley Sunday, eh?

 

[whaler11]

Just another pleasant valley Sunday, eh?

Just another guy who can't read while he whistles past the graveyard.

 

[Whtdmd]

Pretty simple for most, they are clueless and not coachable. No natural instincts and hardly able to improve as you saw. If they were any good at all they wouldn't even need a coach to improve a little but they showed hardly anything. If you've played or coached there are just kids who have it and those who don't. Watching Facey and Brimah the light seemed to kind go go off after 90-100 games suddenly but still the same mistakes were made. Hell kids with instinct and ability don't even need to be taught fundamentals by year 2 now it's time to improve. They were still trying to teach the most fundamental things to all of these guys throughout their careers and the bulb was broken for the most part. Steve, seemed to be grasping some offense for sure but again, defensively he was clueless basically.

Be perplexed all you want I'm perplexed you wouldn't see the obvious!

Agree with u. Having play division 3 college ball. The coach can teach you certain things. It's up to u to repeat it on your own time to master it. The team last yr was hamper by the lack of roster so they can't play 5 on 5. They had no strong captains who insist on them playing defense in pick up games/practices. When we were practice by ourself, we only practice offense because that is the only way to get the team to show up to captains practice. Defense is what win games