Best Uconn men's BB coach not named Calhoun or Hurley

[AZHuskiePop]

Hugh Greer without a doubt.
The guy that made “UConn“ the States Basketball team.

 

[superjohn]

I seriously wonder how history will judge the KO era. Im not trying to derail this thread, but it really is a fascinating argument because you can look at it from so many ways.

History will judge him way better than he's judged now. That national championship will always he on the books, the further we're removed from all the nonsense the more we'll forget.

It will be a lot easier to forget all the bad stuff and just remember the championship because we hired Hurley and are back in the Big East. If we faded away in the AAC under some retread coach with no vision It would be awful for Ollie's legacy.

 

[StllH8L8ner]

Dave Leitao in the asst coaches category. Always was a fan of his.

 

[Palatine]

Obviously, Suffield native Hugh Greer. You've probably been in his field house.

His winning percentage was .718. He won 287 games and lost only 113. He led the Huskies to 7 NCAA appearances and one NIT. He won 12 Yankee Conference titles in sixteen tries never finishing below 3rd in the conference.

 

[Sphinx]

Hugh Greer. To mention Fred Shabel in the same breath as Greer simply reflects an ignorance of the antecedents of UConn basketball.

You had to be a teenager in the 50's, as I was, to appreciate what a statewide craze was UConn basketball, albeit simply a radio phenomenon, conveyed through the voice of George Ehrlich. Greer -- tall, stately, white-haired -- was a father figure to us all and every bit as renowned in the state as Calhoun came to be. It was a different time with different expectations but they were held with no less ferocity than today's.

When UConn beat #4 Holy Cross at the Worcester Auditorium in 1954 -- and Greer and his team were featured in The Sporting News, the only national sports media outlet of the time -- there was no less the sense of having achieved national recognition than we felt in the Dream Season.

When Greer died suddenly midway through the the 62-63 season, he had already recruited the entire team that Shabel took to the Elite Eight the next year (Kimball, Perno et al) and he had made the initial overture to Bialosuknia. Toby and Wes came to UConn because of Greer and the UConn-brand Greer had established, not because of Shabel. Shabel exploited his inheritance smartly to have two great seasons, but when Toby graduated, Shabel was done and he knew it. He quickly skipped out, leaving the hapless Burr Carlson with Bill Corley and a ragtag bunch of walk-on caliber players.

The seed of UConn's success was sown in the late 40's and 50's, when Greer transformed the school's backwater aggie image to that a school with a basketball aura and a fanatical fan base that would follow it anywhere. That is the aura that lured Calhoun to UConn, and, for that matter, Dee Rowe -- another story worth telling.

 

[Dean Wormer]

KO. The championship cures all ills. It’ll be more important in years to come.

 

[Ts5034]

History will judge him way better than he's judged now. That national championship will always he on the books, the further we're removed from all the nonsense the more we'll forget.

It will be a lot easier to forget all the bad stuff and just remember the championship because we hired Hurley and are back in the Big East. If we faded away in the AAC under some retread coach with no vision It would be awful for Ollie's legacy.

I agree with you on this. The last part about what you said how it will be easier to forgive and forget reminds me of how the Red Sox fans forgave Bill Buckner after they finally won in 2004. If we continue to have success with Hurley, the wound of the KO era will heal and the fan base will move on. It will always be a shame though because of the way Ollie’s first two years on the job went. He could have been a HOF coach. At least he won a National Championship, and with the way things are going, Kevin Ollie will have the same amount of National Championships as Jim Boeheim.

 

[Hey Adrien!]

My roommate Nick in the 2005-2006 school year.

Why? He liked to ball but he broke his arm the summer before our sophomore year at UConn.

We decided to create an intramural team and invited everyone on our floor. My roommate went to every game in a full suit as our "coach". Acted like a maniac, screaming at us, arguing with the refs, the whole facade.

We had a squad of like 23 guys and we sucked so badly. There one game where I was the leading scorer...because I hit one three.

I remember there was a team that year called "We only shoot threes". And yes...staying true to their name, 100% of their shots were three-point attempts. Hilarious.

Good times.

 

[AZHuskiePop]

Hugh Greer. To mention Fred Shabel in the same breath as Greer simply reflects an ignorance of the antecedents of UConn basketball.

You had to be a teenager in the 50's, as I was, to appreciate what a statewide craze was UConn basketball, albeit simply a radio phenomenon, conveyed through the voice of George Ehrlich. Greer -- tall, stately, white-haired -- was a father figure to us all and every bit as renowned in the state as Calhoun came to be. It was a different time with different expectations but they were held with no less ferocity than today's.

When UConn beat #4 Holy Cross at the Worcester Auditorium in 1954 -- and Greer and his team were featured in The Sporting News, the only national sports media outlet of the time -- there was no less the sense of having achieved national recognition than we felt in the Dream Season.

When Greer died suddenly midway through the the 62-63 season, he had already recruited the entire team that Shabel took to the Elite Eight the next year (Kimball, Perno et al) and he had made the initial overture to Bialosuknia. Toby and Wes came to UConn because of Greer and the UConn-brand Greer had established, not because of Shabel. Shabel exploited his inheritance smartly to have two great seasons, but when Toby graduated, Shabel was done and he knew it. He quickly skipped out, leaving the hapless Burr Carlson with Bill Corley and a ragtag bunch of walk-on caliber players.

The seed of UConn's success was sown in the late 40's and 50's, when Greer transformed the school's backwater aggie image to that a school with a basketball aura and a fanatical fan base that would follow it anywhere. That is the aura that lured Calhoun to UConn, and, for that matter, Dee Rowe -- another story worth telling.

My feeling is UConn basketball originally ascended st the wrong time .
UConn first NCAA was the ill fated 1950 scandal Riddled Tourney
Not only UConn but Eastern Basketball withdrew from the National scene
until Dave Gavitt’s vision rescued it. It’s the foundation that Greer laid that got us into the Big East
No Big East no Calhoun.
PS the 1954 Holy Cross team won the NIT which really ment something in those days.
They also had Togo Palazzi ( NIT MVP) and Tom Heinsohn both former Celtics .We beat them at Worcester something that rarely happened.

 

[Waquoit]

Shabel for the win. Not even close.

 

[gampelcrazies]

People got to stop with Ollie. He’s not the 2nd best coach.

 

[Guapo]

People got to stop with Ollie. He’s not the 2nd best coach.

I’m the last person to defend Ollie; but any other argument is just galaxy brain bs

 

[Palatine]

I’m the last person to defend Ollie; but any other argument is just galaxy brain bs

Ollie lost to Yale, Wagner, and Northeastern (without Reggie Lewis). Yep, he won the NC with a tremdously talented team. That was great. But the job of a coach is to coach. And KO lost to inferior teams with horrifying regularity.

 

[Guapo]

Ollie lost to Yale, Wagner, and Northeastern (without Reggie Lewis). Yep, he won the NC with a tremdously talented team. That was great. But the job of a coach is to coach. And KO lost to inferior teams with horrifying regularity.

Ollie would’ve coached circles around Rowe.

 

[Kenny11]

Ollie lost to Yale, Wagner, and Northeastern (without Reggie Lewis). Yep, he won the NC with a tremdously talented team. That was great. But the job of a coach is to coach. And KO lost to inferior teams with horrifying regularity.

that team had a lot of great qualities: toughness, poise, chemistry...but it was not a talented team at all in comparison with most final four teams. You are obviously right about Ollie losing to inferior teams regularly.

 

[cohenzone]

Although George Greer was a very respected and beloved coach

It was Hugh Greer. George Greer was a great UConn baseball player, one of the best hitters in the country.

I’m with Fred Shabel whose 4 UConn years coincided with mine. He got to coach Toby Kimball, Don Perno, Wes B. Bill Corley and Tom Penders among others Excellent coach, nice guy even though he came to UConn from Duke where he was an assistant and went from UConn to head the Spectrum Corp in Philly

 

[mauconnfan]

It’s KO because of the 20 win APR year last in the BE and the NC...... plus as someone mentioned it wasn’t assumed to be head coach only and as an assistant he had some pretty nice guard play he helped groom into NCs. Like Dee but this isn’t actually close.

 

[alphasigko]

Dee Rowe... Really? What did he ever win but a single Yankee Conf regular season championship, 2 short NIT appearances and one NCAA trip to the Sweet 16. Granted he had an overall winning record of 0.577. I was at UConn for most of his tenure and his style of play was boring at best. I took the long bus ride to MSG for his 2nd NIT appearance and we were winning at the half by pushing the ball, and then he went into a stall offense in the 2nd half and wound up losing the game. Just sayin'...

 

[Wordbomar]

Raphael Chillious ...

 

[Devland]

There was a UConn assistant (other than Kevin Ollie) that went on to win a championship as a head coach. His name......Jim Valvano.

 

[StllH8L8ner]

Ollie lost to Yale, Wagner, and Northeastern (without Reggie Lewis). Yep, he won the NC with a tremdously talented team. That was great. But the job of a coach is to coach. And KO lost to inferior teams with horrifying regularity.

I rooted for Ollie and winning a national championship is nothing to scoff at but I agree, there were many, many games in the Ollie era that were truly unwatchable.

 

[Sphinx]

To amend my statement a bit on Shabel: He stuck around for two more seasons after Toby graduated, seriously under-accomplishing in 65-66 (16-8 with a team that included Wes, Tom Penders, Dan Hesford, Ron Ritter, the young Bill Corley) and again plateauing in 66-67, Bialosuknia's last year. He than left, leaving the recruiting cupboard bare. Indeed, in four years at UConn, Shabel recruited only one stand-out player, Bill Corley. It was Dee Rowe's accomplishment that he restored the recruiting pipeline that returned UConn to the top of New England basketball by the mid-70's, a legitimate peer to Providence, HC and BC, and as such, a charter selection to the new Big East (when HC turned down its invitation.).

 

[Sphinx]

It occurs to me (actually slams me upside the head) that for me to be recalling the 1950's and a game played in 1954 is equivalent to some old-timer in 1956, when I was 17, recalling the 1890's and a game played in 1890. Forgive me, please. Those of you who are not yet ancient cannot possibly appreciate how fast the years fly.

"Ah, nostalgia! We live our days in the glare of the sun and recall them in the glow of the moon." ~~ Robert Brault

 

[Mr. French]

Funny how we as a fan base sometimes use our nattys as a means to discount other programs, then we simultaneously discount a guy who coached VERY well for a few years, won a natty against all odds, then had down years.

I totally understand why Hurley wasleft out of the question: he’d be most people’s answer based on the excitement and understandable confidence in him bringing us back to where we’ve been.

But the only other, AND most recent coach in our history to win our most improbable and in some ways most impressive Chip would HAVE to be the correct answer to this question, post-Chip implosion aside.

Objectively, right this second, Ollie has a better UConn resume than Hurley. Obviously they are in different positions, so that statement only serves to prop up Ollie more, not discount Hurley. People are actually discounting a national championship and a helluva coaching job.

 

[Palatine]

Ollie would’ve coached circles around Rowe.

I agree with that. I was at UConn when Rowe was coach and the students used to chant "Rowe must go."