Could Manuel find himself in a recruiting battle over Ollie next spring if he decides to keep him?

[upstater]

If that's the argument, then they shouldn't have hired him at all. Announce Blaney or Hobbs as interim until the spring and bring in a big name.

It's pretty simple. Because JC retired late, there was no coach the the school could have hired that it would be comfortable hiring on more than a 7 month basis. Nobody. Therefore the recruiting challenge for this next few months is inevitable and unavoidable. A long term contract was not happening. That is Calhoun's fault if anybody's.

So we should ignore the contract and focus on the man they chose. Instead of the wimpy safe play with Hobbs or Blaney, they made the bold choice with the unproven guy with great potential. I applaud the move. It was not certain that they would even do that, especially with the ban.

What big name?

You're all over the place in this latest post.

Ollie has certain intangibles that Shaka Smart (a big name I guess) doesn't. And I've listed those before, you know I have. It makes sense to swing for the fences if you're UConn.

 

[selles]

Oh I don't think that's what he meant. And yeah, he is.

That's correct, it's not what I meant at all. As I indicated in the prior post, if KO does a great job and WM doesn't extend him, I'll be elbowing people out of the way to express my moral indignation through vehement (but eloquent!) internet message board posts. Given the program equity that will pass from Calhoun to Ollie (but not to anyone else), I think it would be crazy to pass on KO if he proves himself a capable coach this year. If WM were to do that, it would be strong evidence that he's making it about his own ego rather than the good of the program, and that would be a problem.

But for now, given KO's lack of experience there's a very logical basis for not giving him a multiyear deal. I'm willing to give WM the benefit of the doubt that logic is underlying his approach rather than ego. Maybe the short contract will hurt us for 1 year in recruting - though I think that's very, very, very speculative - but it's a lot easier not to renew than to fire and I think a guy who will be a good AD could make the choice WM has here. So I say let's wait and see, and let's give WM a chance to prove that he's a good at his job.

We've talked this one to death, fellas. For several weeks, over multiple threads. To echo some sentiments from early in this thread, I can't wait for the season to start so we can argue about whether Tolksdorf should have taken that 3 when we were up 50 over Michigan State.