Calhoun hand picked Ollie as his successor

[UConn990411]

I said it and was accused of everything but starting the Boer War. I find it interesting that some of the people who screamed the loudest now are calling for Ollie’s Head.

You get that reaction because you disappear anytime things are going well, only to return when something bad happens.

You’re the definition of a troll.

 

[upstater]

There's an exceptionally high chance if any other coach took over for Calhoun other than Ollie we do not win a championship. For that reason he will never have been a "mistake." Even if his UConn career doesn't pan out long term, his first two years were special and it gave us another championship.

Do you know who you are responding to? Freescooter was merciless against Ollie in 2014, and then he disappeared in March and April. Missing.

 

[jayteeman]

I love really smart people. You see them in every walk of life. They have the magical gift of getting into other bodies, explaining how a situation is, and providing a fix.

It's amazing. Without even having a conversation with the subject, or someone really in the know, and destroying them in one or two sentences on a keyboard.

I believe JC felt,
There's an exceptionally high chance,
And it really does look like,
he must have picked up some coaching,
I think it's very obvious,
Could be as simple as,
Its possible (likely) that Ollie,
Ollie is clearly in self pity mode,
I’ve said this more times that I can count on....etc....etc....

I don't know why JC left the game early. I would ask him and only him and get the real answer. There could be 100 different reasons. I don't know how Ollie feels during or after these games. I can only hear what he, and only he, says in the post game interviews....and he normally explains the how and why.

 

[imno1]

Coach Ollie needs to continue to win, recruit good players and have a good relationship with them. He has to win and sell himself to recruits. The noise of Ollie getting fired or wouldn't be at UCONN for long is only going to make it harder in the recruiting world. Unless UCONN can hire a very credible and high profile coach the results will be the same. You have to be able to sell something to recruits and right now it's not UCONN playing in the All American Conference or the location in the cow pasture.

I disagree. It would be nice to hire a high profile coach but not imperative. Greg Marshall was not a high profile. Ed Cooley coached at Fairfield. Look at what the leprechaun is doing at Cincinnati. You may argue those guys never won a championship but they might and their teams are competitively good. I’m a casual fan so I don’t know who’s doing a great job under the radar but I sure there are some out there and HC at UConn is still a pretty good gig.

 

[dennismenace]

Kinda like Mello?
Kinda like Danny M?
Kinda like Anthony D - the unibrow?
Kinda like a lot of cases?

Yeah could be that simple

Pretty good supporting cast (Boat, Giffey, Daniels) but he was unworldly that year!

 

[freescooter]

You get that reaction because you disappear anytime things are going well, only to return when something bad happens.

You’re the definition of a troll.

Defend Ollie’s coaching. Go ahead. Defend losing to Wagner last year. Or the first losing season in 30 odd years. Or hearing it getting blown out by Arkansas was ok because the “will probably be a Tourney team in March.” ( my personal favorite excuse by the way. Remember when we used to beat all comers.)Even you are losing interest and Ollie is doing exactly what I said he’d do. The big difference is that we were in position to land a big time coach when he was hired. Now it will be much tougher.

 

[UConn990411]

Defend Ollie’s coaching. Go ahead. Defend losing to Wagner last year. Or the first losing season in 30 odd years. Or hearing it getting blown out by Arkansas was ok because the “will probably be a Tourney team in March.” ( my personal favorite excuse by the way. Remember when we used to beat all comers.)Even you are losing interest and Ollie is doing exactly what I said he’d do. The big difference is that we were in position to land a big time coach when he was hired. Now it will be much tougher.

Nice try to deflect.

I’ve been one of Ollie’s bigger critics on here for years now.

 

[BlueDogs]

Not sure means anything. Maybe he had another commitment etc.

But I was at game last night and saw JC there. He walked out and left the building a few minutes after Columbia inbounded that dead ball in front of the UConn bench for a dunk as the Huskies napped....

No Husky timeout called after that play BTW....play on...

That play perfectly summed up everything wrong with KO and his kids.

 

[BlueDogs]

There's an exceptionally high chance if any other coach took over for Calhoun other than Ollie we do not win a championship. For that reason he will never have been a "mistake." Even if his UConn career doesn't pan out long term, his first two years were special and it gave us another championship.

He had JC's players, and but for a heroic run by a very special player, KO would be the KO we have. He got lucky and special players saved him.

 

[Alum86]

The chickens have come home to roost. The JC tecruits are gone. It's on Ollie and his 6'9 165 lb recruits

 

[WrenchFan69]

He had JC's players, and but for a heroic run by a very special player, KO would be the KO we have. He got lucky and special players saved him.

While I think that's not true, even if that is the case, any other coach probably doesn't win that championship

 

[Vancat]

I'm beginning to think the only thing KO retained from JC is the hand-on-the-back-of-the-head hug.

 

[Stinger92860]

When you've built up a program and decide it's time to step away you want someone you see as an extension of yourself to take over. I believe JC felt KO was that guy and he likely was. When things started going sideways JC tried to reel in Ollie and re-calibrate what he was doing to fall back in line with what JC had laid out for the past 25 years. KO resisted and there began the distance in their relationship. At some point a successor will inevitably deviate from the predecessor, but the degree with which Ollie has tanked the program has to be heart-wrenching to Calhoun as the architect of the program but also as a mentor and loving friend of Ollie. I refuse to believe JC has stood by idly watching this dumpster fire.

Serious question. How do you know this is the way it's happened?

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

Defend Ollie’s coaching. Go ahead. Defend losing to Wagner last year. Or the first losing season in 30 odd years. Or hearing it getting blown out by Arkansas was ok because the “will probably be a Tourney team in March.” ( my personal favorite excuse by the way. Remember when we used to beat all comers.)Even you are losing interest and Ollie is doing exactly what I said he’d do. The big difference is that we were in position to land a big time coach when he was hired. Now it will be much tougher.

Before seeing this response, I was simply going to say that he was being generous toward you.
Point out your positive contribution to this board. Go ahead.
Or start now...

 

[temery]

I personally doubt the program would be in a better position had JC stayed. I have little doubt JC is the better coach, but I do doubt we’d be better off now, if he had stayed.

Different times.

This program was JC's baby. He built it from a Big East cellar-dweller to a multi-National Championship program. KO was his former player. He was his assistant coach when we won it all in 2011. He's been part of the UConn family. But Calhoun must have seen something else in him for him to hand KO the keys to the program.

The majority of us were all behind him. It was his first head coaching job, and it was at his alma mater, a blueblood program(yeah, I said that). First 2 years we were all behind him, very much engaged in every game, and his players certainly fought for him - getting through the tourney ban year with 20 wins, then the following year a mediocre regular season (by our standards) capped by another magical NCAA Tourney run to the title. We were on top of the world again.

Since then, it's been a fairly steady downhill slide. We've missed the tourney 2 of the last 3 years, and the year we made it it took another miraculous conference tourney run to cement a bid (although we learned after the fact that we were in the dance anyway, but we didn't know at the time). And this year after a handful of games it's been another sluggish showing and the impatience has boiled over.

What's happened? Is KO's inexperience so apparent now that it's blinding? Was he doing things right the first couple years that he's gotten away from or was it all just better players handed down from JC? Bazz, Boat, DD, Giffey, etc. Did they mask KO's inefficiencies with their talent? The consistent lack of offensive flow or play selection, trouble both shooting & defending the 3, and other problems in recent years have gotten too common and too familiar. Has the recruiting eroded so much now since we entered this makeshift conference that there's no way out unless we kick KO to the curb or drop football and go back to the Big East 2.0?

Point I'm getting at is, KO must have had some ability to coach and recruit if Calhoun chose him, no? Or was it mostly Warde's decision all along to pick a coach that he knew would be popular with the fanbase and Calhoun just being supportive? Has JC been mentoring KO through all this? Giving him advice, pointing out the weaknesses of KO's coaching and offering suggestions & tips? Has he been involved at all? Although JC is at St. Joseph's now, I doubt he can still do that if he's been doing it before. But if KO was around JC long enough, he must have picked up some coaching knowledge from him. Didn't he?

It would pain me to see KO get the boot knowing how all this started, but in the end it's about the UConn program, not the individual. We're only 7 games in. He's not getting axed mid-season anyway so I'll hold out a flicker of hope that he figures this all out and has us playing better basketball as the season progresses.

 

[BugsyCT]

I personally doubt the program would be in a better position had JC stayed. I have little doubt JC is the better coach, but I do doubt we’d be better off now, if he had stayed.

Different times.

It's not about if JC had stayed (he would have most likely retired soon after anyway), it's about if he made the correct choice of KO to succeed him, especially since this is his first head coaching gig. Pretty big shoes to fill and a lot of pressure to continue what JC built here.

 

[Edward Sargent]

I personally doubt the program would be in a better position had JC stayed. I have little doubt JC is the better coach, but I do doubt we’d be better off now, if he had stayed.

Different times.

And JC would be the first person to say that!

 

[temery]

It's not about if JC had stayed (he would have most likely retired soon after anyway), it's about if he made the correct choice of KO to succeed him, especially since this is his first head coaching gig. Pretty big shoes to fill and a lot of pressure to continue what JC built here.

Ollie had the potential of being a great choice. At the time JC suggested Ollie as his replacement, Ollie was the best choice as his replacement. And 2014 proved him correct.

Nothing that has happened since this time is on JC.

 

[intlzncster]

Ollie had the potential of being a great choice. At the time JC suggested Ollie as his replacement, Ollie was the best choice as his replacement. And 2014 proved him correct.

Nothing that has happened since this time is on JC.

Yep, at a certain point, it's up to the coach in question to pick up the reins and drive the sled on his own. Ollie did so at first, but then went off course.

 

[Deadrody]

And ? I guess I'm missing the point. Been 5 years. Ollie's failure(s) are entirely his own at this point and has absolutely nothing to do with Jim Calhoun. His endorsement 5 years ago is IRRELEVANT

 

[Deadrody]

Defend Ollie’s coaching. Go ahead. Defend losing to Wagner last year. Or the first losing season in 30 odd years. Or hearing it getting blown out by Arkansas was ok because the “will probably be a Tourney team in March.” ( my personal favorite excuse by the way. Remember when we used to beat all comers.)Even you are losing interest and Ollie is doing exactly what I said he’d do. The big difference is that we were in position to land a big time coach when he was hired. Now it will be much tougher.

Indeed. Maybe people forgot, or just didn't realize, but UConn used to BE Arkansas, winning those kind of games they weren't expected to win.

How about beating UVA in 1993 ? Beat #12 Virginia on their home court by 40. That's what UConn USED to be. (BTW, watching now... )



Now, they're on the receiving end of that kind of beat down.

I highly recommend you watch that game and contrast that team and their style of play with how they're playing now. Keep in mind that Donyell, Donny, Sheffer, Ollie, and Travis started that game, but just in the first half, Ray, Brian Fair, Rudy Johnson, Kirk King, Hayward, and Boo all got significant minutes. Frankly, the offense wasn't much better in that game than much of the last 20-30 years of UConn basketball, but the pressure defense and transition offense led to a major blowout.

 

[LStudfellow]

He had JC's players, and but for a heroic run by a very special player, KO would be the KO we have. He got lucky and special players saved him.

Why is it that so many of you KO haters have to go as far as to say that it was because of Jim Calhoun and Shabazz only that we won that National Championship in 2014?

As I said on another thread, the recent trend and moreover KO's recent acceptance of mediocrity are definite negatives and if he does not turn them around he will not last too much longer. But to continue take it to this extreme canard that he got lucky in 2014 is not only ridiculous, but it makes you and anyone else who makes this similar claim look like an ignorant fool.

Yes, Shabazz was obviously the best player in that tournament for 5 1/2 of the 6 games and without him we have no chance. But go through each game and I can show you points where Kevin Ollie obviously out-coached each and every other coach he faced in that tournament - including Jay Wright, the great Tom Izzo (who I happen to think is a great coach), Billy Donovan and John Calipari.

Here is just one example: our coach who you so obviously think has always been terrible is the one who devised and actually implemented essentially a 4-guard 1-forward lineup with 6'5" white guy Niels Giffey defending the center position in the National Championship game for significant portions of that game - and it worked. I am quite sure that you think you could have come up with the same strategy BlueDogs because as you say, you along with everyone else is smarter than Kevin Ollie. And I am quite sure on that point that you are 100% full of crap.

Honestly, I have never seen a segment of a fan base so disrespectful of a National Championship in my life. It really is pathetic, and reflects much more on you than on Kevin Ollie.

 

[UCFan1513]

Indeed. Maybe people forgot, or just didn't realize, but UConn used to BE Arkansas, winning those kind of games they weren't expected to win.

How about beating UVA in 1993 ? Beat #12 Virginia on their home court by 40. That's what UConn USED to be. (BTW, watching now... )

Now, they're on the receiving end of that kind of beat down.

Watching the start of that game makes it even more apparent how extremely slow we play. There is no sense of urgency or fast breaks during the Ollie tenure, which is what I believe makes some of these games so unwatchable.

 

[Deadrody]

Why is it that so many of you KO haters have to go as far as to say that it was because of Jim Calhoun and Shabazz only that we won that National Championship in 2014?

....

Honestly, I have never seen a segment of a fan base so disrespectful of a National Championship in my life. It really is pathetic, and reflects much more on you than on Kevin Ollie.

You're just wrong. Nobody "disrespects" that Championship. Not.One.Person. It was an incredible accomplishment.

The fact is that strategic and tactical moves in that game, do not define a career. It's just that simple. Nobody can take away the 2014 championship, but that does not make up for the failures of the last 2 or 3 years, nor of the last 2 games.

The fact is that Jim Calhoun's unparalleled greatness is only now becoming as clear as day. Not only did he win 3 championships, but 2 years after he left, his legacy resulted in a 4th championship. Amazing. Kevin Ollie certainly played a major par

 

[LStudfellow]

You're just wrong. Nobody "disrespects" that Championship. Not.One.Person. It was an incredible accomplishment.

The fact is that strategic and tactical moves in that game, do not define a career. It's just that simple. Nobody can take away the 2014 championship, but that does not make up for the failures of the last 2 or 3 years, nor of the last 2 games.

The fact is that Jim Calhoun's unparalleled greatness is only now becoming as clear as day. Not only did he win 3 championships, but 2 years after he left, his legacy resulted in a 4th championship. Amazing. Kevin Ollie certainly played a major par

First of all, to answer your utterly false retort that Ollie only came up with an ingenious out-of-the-box strategy to win the Championship game versus Kentucky and not the other games is another one of your groups' canards. Again... makes you look like a fool. I mean seriously. Did you even watch any of those 6 games? Kevin Ollie ate Jay Wright's lunch in the round of 32 game against Villanova - and without Shabazz for the last 12 crucial minutes of the first half of that game, I might add. If you need me to go more in-depth on this and the other games and continue to show you for the ignorant fool you are being, by all means let me know. That 6-game run does not define a career, but he sure as hell deserves a lot more credit for that 4th National Championship than you want to give him credit for.

What I do not understand about guys like you, BlueDogs, Freescooter and others is that you seem incapable of being able to admit that the same person can be the one most responsible (with huge help from others, starting obviously with Shabazz) for something great: our National Championship in 2014, and also the most responsible for this more recent period, when by most measures he has been doing a less than stellar job. What is so hard about understanding that, and admitting to it?

And yes... to come out and say that Ollie was "lucky" for winning the championship in 2014 is to disrespect it. It certainly disrespects him. And he was the Head Coach at the time. Every one of you takes it for granted that we would have won that year if Calhoun was coaching that team... and that is disrespectful of that team and what they and Ollie accomplished together. I would put any other coaches odds of winning that title with that group running through that group of 6 opponents at about 1 in 10. And that is probably generous.

And before you come out with some sort of response that I have anything but the greatest respect for what Jim Calhoun did for this university by saying he most likely would not have won that National Championship in 2014, let me just state again that I will always believe that Jim Calhoun was one of the 2 or 3 best coaches that men's college basketball has ever seen. And his building of our program may well be the best building job ever. Period.

But he is also the same coach who just a year after his 3rd National Championship in 2011 was also the head coach who led the 2011-2012 preseason ranked #4 team in the country to a 20-14 ranking, 8-10 in the Big East and a rather atrocious 13-point loss to Iowa State in the first round of the 2012 NCAA tournament in a game that we were not in at all after halftime. Did the team under-achieve that year and in that game? By almost any measure, yes. Does that take away from Jim Calhoun's legacy at the University of Connecticut overall? No

 

[Deadrody]

First of all, to answer your utterly false retort that Ollie only came up with an ingenious out-of-the-box strategy to win the Championship game versus Kentucky and not the other games is another one of your groups' canards.

Whatever. Nowhere in my response did I make the claim that his game plan or adjustments applied to ONLY the title game.

The fact that you're actually going to compare Ollie to Calhoun and point to one of the few years a Calhoun team failed to meet expectations is laughably ridiculous. Just stop.

The beauty is, ultimately, the results on the court will decide things. Either Ollie can get this team to perform or they're going to get the snot beat out of them by a number of teams this year. There's just no hiding from that fact.

I don't know what planet you're living on that you think people "disrespect" the 2014 championship, but that season, that tournament run, etc. is wholly, 100% IRRELEVANT to the team's performance, basically EVER SINCE.

 

[the Q]

Why is it that so many of you KO haters have to go as far as to say that it was because of Jim Calhoun and Shabazz only that we won that National Championship in 2014?

As I said on another thread, the recent trend and moreover KO's recent acceptance of mediocrity are definite negatives and if he does not turn them around he will not last too much longer. But to continue take it to this extreme canard that he got lucky in 2014 is not only ridiculous, but it makes you and anyone else who makes this similar claim look like an ignorant fool.

Yes, Shabazz was obviously the best player in that tournament for 5 1/2 of the 6 games and without him we have no chance. But go through each game and I can show you points where Kevin Ollie obviously out-coached each and every other coach he faced in that tournament - including Jay Wright, the great Tom Izzo (who I happen to think is a great coach), Billy Donovan and John Calipari.

Here is just one example: our coach who you so obviously think has always been terrible is the one who devised and actually implemented essentially a 4-guard 1-forward lineup with 6'5" white guy Niels Giffey defending the center position in the National Championship game for significant portions of that game - and it worked. I am quite sure that you think you could have come up with the same strategy BlueDogs because as you say, you along with everyone else is smarter than Kevin Ollie. And I am quite sure on that point that you are 100% full of crap.

Honestly, I have never seen a segment of a fan base so disrespectful of a National Championship in my life. It really is pathetic, and reflects much more on you than on Kevin Ollie.

I agree. The way he aggressively used Boat to pick up the pg at half court was a huge factor in our success. It was downright brilliant. I wanted to see more of that. Not sure we have the talent to do that this year. But definitely should’ve done it more in 2015/2016

 

[raf46]

This program was JC's baby. He built it from a Big East cellar-dweller to a multi-National Championship program. KO was his former player. He was his assistant coach when we won it all in 2011. He's been part of the UConn family. But Calhoun must have seen something else in him for him to hand KO the keys to the program.

The majority of us were all behind him. It was his first head coaching job, and it was at his alma mater, a blueblood program(yeah, I said that). First 2 years we were all behind him, very much engaged in every game, and his players certainly fought for him - getting through the tourney ban year with 20 wins, then the following year a mediocre regular season (by our standards) capped by another magical NCAA Tourney run to the title. We were on top of the world again.

Since then, it's been a fairly steady downhill slide. We've missed the tourney 2 of the last 3 years, and the year we made it it took another miraculous conference tourney run to cement a bid (although we learned after the fact that we were in the dance anyway, but we didn't know at the time). And this year after a handful of games it's been another sluggish showing and the impatience has boiled over.

What's happened? Is KO's inexperience so apparent now that it's blinding? Was he doing things right the first couple years that he's gotten away from or was it all just better players handed down from JC? Bazz, Boat, DD, Giffey, etc. Did they mask KO's inefficiencies with their talent? The consistent lack of offensive flow or play selection, trouble both shooting & defending the 3, and other problems in recent years have gotten too common and too familiar. Has the recruiting eroded so much now since we entered this makeshift conference that there's no way out unless we kick KO to the curb or drop football and go back to the Big East 2.0?

Point I'm getting at is, KO must have had some ability to coach and recruit if Calhoun chose him, no? Or was it mostly Warde's decision all along to pick a coach that he knew would be popular with the fanbase and Calhoun just being supportive? Has JC been mentoring KO through all this? Giving him advice, pointing out the weaknesses of KO's coaching and offering suggestions & tips? Has he been involved at all? Although JC is at St. Joseph's now, I doubt he can still do that if he's been doing it before. But if KO was around JC long enough, he must have picked up some coaching knowledge from him. Didn't he?

It would pain me to see KO get the boot knowing how all this started, but in the end it's about the UConn program, not the individual. We're only 7 games in. He's not getting axed mid-season anyway so I'll hold out a flicker of hope that he figures this all out and has us playing better basketball as the season progresses.

two 5 star players coming in next year. Wilson and Akinjo. If team is no better, then KO will go.

 

[LStudfellow]

The fact is that strategic and tactical moves in that game, do not define a career.

I'm sorry... but in my understanding of the English language, "that game" refers to that one game. Maybe you have a different understanding of how the English language works from the way it was taught in school to me and everyone else on this board. Or, better yet, you should choose your words better. Because I am only responding to your poor word choice.

As to your "wholly, 100% IRRELEVANT" comment... my point stands. You, BlueDogs, Freescooter and anyone else who takes credit away from Kevin Ollie for that 2014 championship is being disrespectful toward a man who has represented this university a heck of a lot more successfully, even with his recent mistakes, than you... or me, for that matter.

And finally - you once again show what a tool you are for falsely taking my comments on Coach Calhoun and somehow turning them into a comparison of his career to Kevin Ollie's. To anyone who has beyond a grammar school reading comprehension, that is obviously not what I said. At all. I was saying even the greatest coach we have ever seen could and did have a down period. And the facts are that he actually had several of them during his amazing 26-year run as the head coach of this great University. Furthermore, I bet if you asked him he would not even take the level of credit for the 2014 championship that you want to give him.

Done with this argument though, since you are obviously willing to make crap up instead of sticking to the facts.. and that is just a waste of my time.

 

[temery]

You're just wrong. Nobody "disrespects" that Championship. Not.One.Person. It was an incredible accomplishment.

If by nobody you mean 1/2 of Ollie’s most vocal critics, then you have a point.