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Durham transferring

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I'm not saying that what Oz posted was right. but I also don't believe we should just ignore the impact of fan's on social media as much as so called insiders. It is all a bad look, if you think social media is a big deal. Which I know it is. I work in a public school system. Kids are glued to their phone.

Oh I'm with you there. But there's only so much you can do to stem the tide. It wasn't a blanket statement against all insider info either.

Again, most of what Oz has posted over the past couple of weeks I'm fine with (even when wrong). There was a couple of things that grinded my gears though. Maybe some people are cool with it. I'm personally not.
 
you really want to get into this, too? Oz has pictures all over his Twitter with KO. Then he goes and calls Glen Miller lazy and tells people that Durham was asked to leave? For what advantage? To make KO look better?

It's completely different when it's an anonymous person on a message board compared to a real twitter account tied to a message board account that has pictures of him hanging out and laughing with the head coach of the program.

I have no opinion of Oz either way. I don't take anyone who posts anonymously on a bulletin board that seriously. Including myself.
 
Alright, let me shed some light that will hopefully calm everyone down. As @fleudslipcon said, I've known this was coming for over a week, but because of speculation rules I couldn't say anything on the board. Here's some info from the same source that told me Juwan was leaving that I hope will calm everyone down.

1) There is no team chemistry/hate KO mentality in the locker room
2) Both Vance and Juwan leaving were PRIMARILY because of being homesick. I know that a lot of us don't want to believe that because of what VJ Sr was tweeting.
3) Admittedly, there was some griping by the players that left over playing time (more so by Enoch and some by Vance I would assume), but it was mostly playing time. I know I know I know - "but there was going to be so much time open." That's true, but between a perceived lack of 'proper use' and missing home, 2 of these guys wanted to head back closer to home for that 'home cooked meal.'
4) MAL leaving was primarily because of Miller being let go - not because he was nervous about stepping foot onto a sinking ship
5) This is it. There isn't anyone else leaving. If I end up being wrong on this, I'll take whatever heat you guys can throw at me.
6) Morale is VERY high with the players that are left

This isn't a great look for the UConn Men's BB program right now, but it's not nearly is chaotic up in Storrs as many seem to think it is. Ollie has not lost control of this team.
Hope to god you're right.
 
This program, led by Head Coach Kevin Ollie, is a total dysfunctional mess right now.

The Strength and Conditioning Coach, Glen Miller, Enoch, Jackson, MAL and Durham are all out in the past month.

His buddy "Oz" is spouting off on Twitter like an idiot.

No more excuses, no more "well we can't do any better", KO owns this program and has run it into the ground.

Let's see what he makes of it. Another sub .500 season and I think a change would have to be in order.

That's the part that gets me too, this idea that Ollie is automatically the best guy we can have. He's won 65% of his games and never finished better than tied for third in the AAC. I understand the APR thing not helping, and I really want him to succeed, but I think that we should have a higher opinion of ourselves to think that the last few years are acceptable or what we're resigned to. UConn is a great program and there are a lot of talented coaches out there that would love to coach here.
 
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So the entire Durham situation was incredibly, incredibly, strange. It would not have been odd at all to see him having redshirted this year before we lost our three players to injuries. But he was playing before Larrier and Gilbert got hurt, so he was not going to be redshirted. But as thin as we were, KO simply would not play him more than 8 minutes a game, even though you could see there were basketball skills underneath all that rust and we played some games with 7 players and he still wouldn't get more than token minutes.

It would not surprise me if they were just not a fit together. That's not blaming either one of them, but he should have redshirted or have had a chance to play. We played this season as if we had to give him a few minutes a game but he was never going to earn a real chance. It was just very strange.

Good luck to him whether he was pushed out or not. I'm not one who cares to receive an explanation. What I need to see are more bodies. Larrier, Gilbert, Adams and Vital are enough to get us to the tournament if we can come up with minutes in the middle and depth on the perimeter, and everyone goes back to being hungry Huskies.
Kid insisted on not being red shirted prior to coming. Put KO in a difficult bind because kid already signed. No way of knowing everything because KO may have been told by medical staff to be cautious with kid and Juwan felt differently. Or it could have been a work ethic thing. We could have used him this past season so it wasn't because his position was covered.

I'm sure KO was not at his best this season. Bad seasons affect everyone and coaches are not immune.
JC was at a low with how he handled things in 2010. So this vicious cycle continues and we'll have to wait and see how it plays out.
 
no, you can go piss off
Classy. You can have your opinion but he can't have his?

I tend to agree with the idea that he has free speech and isn't associated with anything other than hearing things. Might not have been in good taste to call JD soft but not that big of a deal.

Also anyone who says anything about the state of the program is just fabricating things. Yes there have been some sad departures but we do not know what else or what has happened behind the scenes. Let's let things play out before we pass judgement.
 
Nah, I'm cool with insider info. Just don't like pot shots at guys on their way out. Bad taste in the mouth.

And I'll happily keep posting about it as I'm not an insider. Keep on keepin on.

FWIW, I am totally cool with @chevtheman, @Zionn, @3uconn, and even Oz. Except when he's posting like a middle school girl.

He's allowed to be emotional. He's a FAN. FAN is short for FANATIC. Just because he's 'OZ' doesn't mean he can't be a little dramatic and emotional. We all care about the program and can be a little emotional. He just happens to be a plugged in fan.
 
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I have no opinion of Oz either way. I don't take anyone who posts anonymously on a bulletin board that seriously. Including myself.
I don't take you seriously either. On a serious note UConn did have problems with something from the women's forum that was far less egregious than what Oz has done.
 
That's the part that gets me too, this idea that Ollie is automatically the best guy we can have. He's won 65% of his games and never finished better than tied for third in the AAC. I understand the APR thing not helping, and I really want him to succeed, but I think that we should have a higher opinion of ourselves to think that the last few years are acceptable or what we're resigned to. UConn is a great program and there are a lot of talented coaches out there that would love to coach here.

Did you seriously post that without mentioning that he's won a national championship?
 
.-.
Alright, let me shed some light that will hopefully calm everyone down. As @fleudslipcon said, I've known this was coming for over a week, but because of speculation rules I couldn't say anything on the board. Here's some info from the same source that told me Juwan was leaving that I hope will calm everyone down.

1) There is no team chemistry/hate KO mentality in the locker room
2) Both Vance and Juwan leaving were PRIMARILY because of being homesick. I know that a lot of us don't want to believe that because of what VJ Sr was tweeting.
3) Admittedly, there was some griping by the players that left over playing time (more so by Enoch and some by Vance I would assume), but it was mostly playing time. I know I know I know - "but there was going to be so much time open." That's true, but between a perceived lack of 'proper use' and missing home, 2 of these guys wanted to head back closer to home for that 'home cooked meal.'
4) MAL leaving was primarily because of Miller being let go - not because he was nervous about stepping foot onto a sinking ship
5) This is it. There isn't anyone else leaving. If I end up being wrong on this, I'll take whatever heat you guys can throw at me.
6) Morale is VERY high with the players that are left

This isn't a great look for the UConn Men's BB program right now, but it's not nearly is chaotic up in Storrs as many seem to think it is. Ollie has not lost control of this team.
Thanks for your insight! Just curious, what do you mean by the first point?
 
He's allowed to be emotional. He's a FAN. FAN is short for FANATIC. Just because he's 'OZ' doesn't mean he can't be a little dramatic and emotional. We all care about the program and can be a little emotional. He just happens to be a plugged in fan.

Then Ollie needs to cut him off if he's going to act like a middle schooler on Twitter and rvals
 
Yes, because they're tanking.

Nah. That wasn't what the team set out to do. Rose said they were a dream team. They were down Anthony, Rose and Noah, but the botton line is that they are terrible at assembling talent. Plenty of other teams tank with quality young talent. The Knicks have none, other than Porzingis and Hernangomez.
 
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Interesting if true. I think we should give time for the situation to iron out. I have friends still at the University, and I have heard from the scout team and etc. that many of the players were not committed to the cause. After losing to Wagner they did not put in the effort and did not see themselves as a serious contender. Ollie likely noticed, and if husky99 was told that this was planned, I'd like to think he took action. Ollie deserves the chance to make things right.
And it took this many months? Why didn't those bad attitudes show up in practice the day before Wagner?
 
He's allowed to be emotional. He's a FAN. FAN is short for FANATIC. Just because he's 'OZ' doesn't mean he can't be a little dramatic and emotional. We all care about the program and can be a little emotional. He just happens to be a plugged in fan.

He can be emotional all he wants, and post his opinions whenever. But he's not posting this as if it's his opinions, but as "this is coming from KO."

He poses as speaking for the program. As someone else said, he's got pictures of him and Ollie posted all over his Instagram. He's not an anonymous message board poster.
 
A culture shift was needed at UConn. I don't mind a lot of these shakeups.


If it wasn't for a miracle run to the National Championship, and a full-court buzzer-beater from Jalen Adams, the narrative would be even more negative. Way too much inconsistency since Ollie took over.

KO coached five seasons for us. In 12-13, he did a fabulous job and with a team witout expectations kept us in the Big EAst race all year (and qualified for the NCAAs but for the ban he inherited). In 13-14, he won a national championship with a team very few saw as a Top Ten team. Yes, some wanted to criticize him for some regular season losses but if you're being realistic .... In 14-15 we were not good enough, but it was coming off a national championship with a team at apex of the pain from earlier scholarship restrictions. In 15-16, it was certainly solid. More regular season losses than we'd like, but conference tourney championship, one win in the NCAAs and then poor seeding running us into a much better team. And last year was a disaster. One that injuries contributed to certainly, but were there were also problems far deeper than that.

So five years. He succeeded strongly in 2 of them, mildly in 1 of them and didn't succeed in 2. We need to do better, but he has hardly driven the program off the cliff at this point. Let's see how they rebuild the roster and what happens. We've had years before where we think we're going to be very average and we achieve.
 
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