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Message: [QUOTE="champs99and04, post: 2652723, member: 488"] You bring up a great topic, no doubt. I'm not necessarily sure the expectations for Hurley are more measured, but I could be misreading the board. With regards to our shifting perception of KO, I am no different. I thought he was God, and now he's just...some guy trying to find his way. I'm rooting for him, and I'm not sure I'll ever get to the point where I [I]don't [/I]think he's a genius for 2014, but certainly it's human nature to accumulate doubt the further removed you get from any sort of positive reinforcement. It doesn't matter if you're his biggest fan or his mother or Kevin Ollie himself. There's doubt right now. Gun to my head, I still think the guy we saw in 2013 and 2014 is the real Kevin Ollie. It's important to qualify that, though, by saying that doesn't mean he's ever going to be as successful. Even if this went according to plan, and KO takes us to three tournaments and two sweet sixteens in the last four years, we're [I]still [/I]sitting here today wondering if that run was a fluke. A lot has to go right to get to the top and that's one of the curses - in sports or otherwise - of getting there so early. There can never be that narrative arch that we aspire to in the movies. You don't start from nothing and build, you start with everything and lose it all. Our own perceptions about things like that are literally built into the obstacles they face in rising again, because now all of your interactions - with fans or boosters or recruits or administration - are colored by doubt. Let me say something and then let fishy say the same thing and the responses are different. You know how it goes. Clout matters. Now, there is a major difference between "not getting back to the top" and "completely destroying a program." KO was veering towards the latter, hence the urgency to cut the chord. I tend to believe, though, that when there is a sudden drop of this magnitude, there is more at play than just the gradual exposure of one person being less than we thought. And I think, over time, we'll re-calibrate our perception to a more reasonable equilibrium. Kevin Ollie can be part of something great and he can be part of something bad. The margin for error with him might not be the same as it is with Bill Self, but there's no way there won't be hundreds of D-1 schools who would love to say "let's start with what went well at UConn and build from there." [/QUOTE]

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