Geno on KO

[UConnDad]

Fortunately, for a coach that has trouble with lay ups, KO was able to hit a 60 ft. buzzer beater!

 

[tzznandrew]

The consistency that Jim Calhoun produced from 1990 through 2006 will not be reproduced any time soon -- with ever increasing parity and the one and done rule, it is just not possible. Other than possibly Kentucky, it is simply harder to be a true top ten or top twenty team year after year than it used to be. Just ask Florida. Or North Carolina. Or Syracuse. Or Stamford.

It was not just an unfortunate blip that UConn was less consistent from 2007 to JC's departure -- it was the new reality of college basketball. And that is even before you accept the disadvantages KO started with due to the NCAA penalties we were dealing with and the conference realignment mess.

I generally agree, although there are plenty of examples beyond Kentucky for pretty consistent success.

The flipside to your point here is that with talent spread out, good coaches become more important. In the mid-90s, coaches matter, but 3-4 year talent could win out. See Harrick, or Tubby winning titles. But it's no surprise that a coach like Brad Stevens or Gregg Marshall have had good success. K has had a late resurgence, too, and JC went to 2 Final Fours in his last 4 years too.

I think KO's tournament success is telling.

 

[CL82]

Wow, Geno reads the Boneyard? Cool.

 

[HuskiesAllDay]

The way KO coached in the AAC tourney proves the criticism correct in a way. It shows he's had it in him and we were right to expect better. Not saying that he needs to give it everything he's got on the sidelines every game. But he went from sitting on his hands with zero emotion all season back to running up and down cheering the team on, getting into his defensive stance. switching up the d, actually calling sets to try to go to a hot hand on offense,etc. aka the guy we've all come to love. He was not that guy during most of this season.


As fans I don't think it's wrong to expect a little of that during the season.

 

[Inyatkin]

The way KO coached in the AAC tourney proves the criticism correct in a way. It shows he's had it in him and we were right to expect better. Not saying that he needs to give it everything he's got on the sidelines every game. But he went from sitting on his hands with zero emotion all season back to running up and down cheering the team on, getting into his defensive stance. switching up the d, actually calling sets to try to go to a hot hand on offense,etc. aka the guy we've all come to love. He was not that guy during most of this season.


As fans I don't think it's wrong to expect a little of that during the season.

You're assuming he doesn't know what he's doing. Maybe he makes the calculation that going full-on all season would have his guys burned out by March. Maybe he's wrong on that, who knows. But I respect him enough to think he has a strategy, and knows what he's doing.

 

[junglehusky]

You're assuming he doesn't know what he's doing. Maybe he makes the calculation that going full-on all season would have his guys burned out by March. Maybe he's wrong on that, who knows. But I respect him enough to think he has a strategy, and knows what he's doing.

And it should go without saying, but I guess it doesn't, that even if a coach recruits well with a decent amount of talent, and even if the coach runs practices well and has a solid game plan and in-game coaching, that doesn't guarantee the team will win every game. Are there thing KO could address before the next season, particularly in adjusting? Sure. Should we disappointed that this year's squad dropped some crucial games that would have improved our seed? I guess, but maybe not more than 2 or 3 games. I will confess to having inflated expectations before the first game of the season, that Miller and Gibbs would integrate right away and returning players would improve. It was an uneven year. Even with good pieces it's hard these days to avoid that unevenness, as businesslawyer pointed out.

 

[krinklecut]

It's all about expectations. Fans of this team have expectations that are way too high right now. Yes, we are UConn, and that means something, we expect to win. But to expect a HOF coach at the caliber of Jim Calhoun in his fourth year coaching is absurd. It's going to take him time to settle into coaching. People argue that Calhoun, even at the start of his time in Storrs, was better than Ollie. But Calhoun also had years of experience before he ever got here. Ollie is coaching for the first time. It's likely going to take him a decade to define who he is as a coach. Give it time. It was never going to be easy.

 

[J187Money]

I never turned on KO, but I definitely soured on the team over the past few weeks, with the Houston game being the low point for me. Seemed to be a low point for KO, too. I love him, but when I see him now saying words to the effect of "People gave up on us, they said we had no heart," I want to remind him that he was one of those saying exactly that just a few games ago himself.

He was saying it to motivate his team. We say it to be d%cks.

 

[J187Money]

Wasn't that... you? Not "people"?

And the reason your hypothetical was irritating was because we never actually were in that much danger of missing the tournament. Regardless of what Lunardi and Palm thought. So this was just scaremongering and pessimism.

In hindsight, sure. If we knew Tulsa was getting in we wouldn't have worried at all. But I was pretty sure we would have been out if we lost to Cincy. Turns out I was wrong, but it wasn't irrational to believe that.

 

[dennismenace]

Jacobs: Triangulation........victim, perpetrator.......rescuer. Create controversy and then then assign everyone their place. The creation of strife.
Same old same old.

 

[HuskiesAllDay]

You're assuming he doesn't know what he's doing. Maybe he makes the calculation that going full-on all season would have his guys burned out by March. Maybe he's wrong on that, who knows. But I respect him enough to think he has a strategy, and knows what he's doing.

I literally said that to my roommate 50 times during the AAC tourney. "It's like we don't even try during the regular season and save everything we can (offensive/ defensive plays, all of our energy and emotion) for the postseason It's clearly night and day. And this motivating and emotional KO is what know of. He wasn't that guy during the season.

That said we paid for it (not getting burned out) by getting a 9 seed and the number one overall seed in the second round. Clearly KO saves some stuff for the postseason and I think that's great. But I'd prefer somewhere in between what we had his year. Don't have to give it his all every game. But maybe give it a little something. He got our coached and showed zero emotion a lot of game this year.

 

[J187Money]

It's all about expectations. Fans of this team have expectations that are way too high right now. Yes, we are UConn, and that means something, we expect to win. But to expect a HOF coach at the caliber of Jim Calhoun in his fourth year coaching is absurd. It's going to take him time to settle into coaching. People argue that Calhoun, even at the start of his time in Storrs, was better than Ollie. But Calhoun also had years of experience before he ever got here. Ollie is coaching for the first time. It's likely going to take him a decade to define who he is as a coach. Give it time. It was never going to be easy.

I don't think they are generally too high. We had some bad losses. 11-7 in the AAC? Nobody expected 18-0. But 14-4/13-5 and we are a) in the mix to win the conference and b) easily in the NCAA tournament, hopefully with a reasonable seed. I think that's what most of us expect.

We were 21-10 regular season. 24 or 25 wins is where this team should have been. We did underachieve. Looks like we are on track now, but to think that we shouldn't expect 24/25 wins out of this team in the regular season with Ollie coaching? That's being too soft.

I wasn't calling for Ollie's head, but I also think he struggled at times this year and he needs to get better. I grade him about a B- this year for the regular season. AAC Tournament was great. Let's see if we keep it rolling. A loss to Colorado would be bad. A loss to Kansas if it is close would be understandable. If he gets us into the second weekend I'll be impressed.

BUT, we might have had an easier path had we not dropped 3-4 winnable games. That's on Ollie, and the team.

 

[krinklecut]

I don't think they are generally too high. We had some bad losses. 11-7 in the AAC? Nobody expected 18-0. But 14-4/13-5 and we are a) in the mix to win the conference and b) easily in the NCAA tournament, hopefully with a reasonable seed. I think that's what most of us expect.

We were 21-10 regular season. 24 or 25 wins is where this team should have been. We did underachieve. Looks like we are on track now, but to think that we shouldn't expect 24/25 wins out of this team in the regular season with Ollie coaching? That's being too soft.

I wasn't calling for Ollie's head, but I also think he struggled at times this year and he needs to get better. I grade him about a B- this year for the regular season. AAC Tournament was great. Let's see if we keep it rolling. A loss to Colorado would be bad. A loss to Kansas if it is close would be understandable. If he gets us into the second weekend I'll be impressed.

BUT, we might have had an easier path had we not dropped 3-4 winnable games. That's on Ollie, and the team.

Agreed, we did under achieve. But I feel like there was an expectation that this team would never under achieve. We have a young coach and a patched together team. An underachieving team wasn't so far out of the realm of possibility that people would seriously consider KO getting fired, or even being on the hot seat.

 

[Inyatkin]

I literally said that to my roommate 50 times during the AAC tourney. "It's like we don't even try during the regular season and save everything we can (offensive/ defensive plays, all of our energy and emotion) for the postseason It's clearly night and day. And this motivating and emotional KO is what know of. He wasn't that guy during the season.

That said we paid for it (not getting burned out) by getting a 9 seed and the number one overall seed in the second round. Clearly KO saves some stuff for the postseason and I think that's great. But I'd prefer somewhere in between what we had his year. Don't have to give it his all every game. But maybe give it a little something. He got our coached and showed zero emotion a lot of game this year.

You're misunderstanding. I'm saying we don't know what he's doing, but that we should respect him enough to believe that he has a strategy, and he's not just mailing it in until March. Unless you're there every day, and we aren't, you can't know what's really going on.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I think I know how you will probably answer this, but I will ask it anyway. Being that you're both a UConn and Kansas fan, which history would you rather have? UConn with 4 championships and Kansas with 3, but Kansas just a staple of consistency in terms of getting to the tournament.

I hate the down years as much as anyone else. March Madness is the best time of year and it royally sucks when UConn is not involved. But I am always on the side of UConn in that question. Probably a biased opinion. I think it would be interesting to ask a college basketball nut who is not a fan of either program.

This came up in another thread and I am the acknowledged oddball that prefers consistency over occasional titles. It's not just basketball either. Maybe it comes from being a Red Sox fan, but I came to appreciate that they were nearly always good (2nd best record to the Yankees from 1972-2004 despite never winning the WS). Imagine being a Marlins fan? Two WS titles and horrible almost every other season. I couldn't stand that.

What I want to see most is my team competing for the championship year after year after year. But it's a balance...they do need to win it all some of the time. No 80+ year droughts.

 

[Obrero]

Speaking for myself: The Houston loss at home was kind of a tipping point, which is to say it pissed me off royally, and lowered my expectations at the time for the remainder of this season. That said, I never posted, on this site or anywhere else, that this Uconn team lacks heart (even though the thought may have crossed my mind). Yet I heard Ollie say that to the press about three weeks ago. So thanks Geno, but I can do without being told by you how and how not to be a fan of my team.

 

[auror]

Specific coaching failures this season that Ollie could be rightly criticized for:

1) Not playing more up-tempo during the season. We were 298th / 351 in pace (252nd longest offensive possession length) this season. We often essentially play 4 guards and a center who wins the team's annual race. Inexcusable. If we had a really efficient half-court offense, sure, slow it down. But it's obvious to everyone we don't.

2) We're leading the nation in FT%*, but we never draw fouls. He hasn't taught the guards how to draw contact or go into the body. We don't have a single player in the top 500 of the country in fouls drawn per 40 minutes. Hamilton should be going to the line on like 1/4 of our possessions. This would take us from a mediocre offense to a good offense just like that.

3) 2-pt jumpers. Hamilton and Adams love these. They need to go away and Ollie needs to ram this down their throats. Take a 3 or go to the rim and get fouled. These are almost always bad shots. There's a reason Hamilton is shooting 42% from 2-pt land despite being 6'7.

4) We need to defend the 3-pt arc better. We do a great job of denying in the paint and having shot blocking and all that, but 3-pt shots can be highly efficient, and when you take away 2s but give opponents good 3's, that's not always a great trade-off.

5) Shonn Miller is our most effective scorer. This became obvious by at least the halfway point in the season. He still only takes the 3rd most shots when he's on the court. Get him the ball!

*I will praise him for teaching foul shooting. Hamilton's improvement in this regard is incredible and this has now become a pattern that is certainly attributable to him.

 

[ctchamps]

It wasn't just the thread about whether KO should go if the team missed an NCAA tournament two years in a row. How about the threads where posters wanted to remove assistant coaches after one bad recruiting season last year (totally ignoring the NCAA sanctions) or this year during the struggles. How about all the criticism of coach Miller. No one considered that every big not named Shonn and PN started playing bb late in their lives and PN was a recruit from the sanction period.

Now we're attacking Geno because he's sticking up for a fellow coach. We should be applauding him for taking this stand. It's a welcome relief to know the coaches have a good relationship and that they are willing to defend one another.

But NOOOOOOOO! How dare a prominent individual expose our whining!! After all we help pay for his salary and he should be sucking up to us. Doesn't he know we have every right to throw players and coaches under the bus and call them soft all the while ignoring our own inabilities to be stoic. That's the fan's right! We're entitled! We have the perfect right to insist others do as we say and not as we do. We're a bunch of crying whiny apologistas. We need others to win for us. It's the losers mentality.


We have no intention of shutting up and eating the mojo sandwiches because we are a bunch of whiny commies.

 

[tentoes4rings]

Specific coaching failures this season that Ollie could be rightly criticized for:

1) Not playing more up-tempo during the season. We were 298th / 351 in pace (252nd longest offensive possession length) this season. We often essentially play 4 guards and a center who wins the team's annual race. Inexcusable. If we had a really efficient half-court offense, sure, slow it down. But it's obvious to everyone we don't.

2) We're leading the nation in FT%*, but we never draw fouls. He hasn't taught the guards how to draw contact or go into the body. We don't have a single player in the top 500 of the country in fouls drawn per 40 minutes. Hamilton should be going to the line on like 1/4 of our possessions. This would take us from a mediocre offense to a good offense just like that.

3) 2-pt jumpers. Hamilton and Adams love these. They need to go away and Ollie needs to ram this down their throats. Take a 3 or go to the rim and get fouled. These are almost always bad shots. There's a reason Hamilton is shooting 42% from 2-pt land despite being 6'7.

4) We need to defend the 3-pt arc better. We do a great job of denying in the paint and having shot blocking and all that, but 3-pt shots can be highly efficient, and when you take away 2s but give opponents good 3's, that's not always a great trade-off.

5) Shonn Miller is our most effective scorer. This became obvious by at least the halfway point in the season. He still only takes the 3rd most shots when he's on the court. Get him the ball!

*I will praise him for teaching foul shooting. Hamilton's improvement in this regard is incredible and this has now become a pattern that is certainly attributable to him.

Great points. I agree 100% about forcing the pace and getting to the line more. The offense was much crisper during the AAC Tourney, hoping they can maintain that pace and efficiency.

 

[Palatine]

I'm with KO win or tie.

 

[fatlucy]

I think KO can be as good or even better than JC, and I don't say that lightly. He's still battling the effects of the recruiting restrictions he had nothing to do with, combined by a recruiting drop off by JC a couple years before that. Ollie will have his own team in 2-3 years and then we can judge him.

 

[Paesano]

Wasn't that... you? Not "people"?

And the reason your hypothetical was irritating was because we never actually were in that much danger of missing the tournament. Regardless of what Lunardi and Palm thought. So this was just scaremongering and pessimism.

You are pretty good at saying stuff that isn't true. First, you have no way of proving we would have gotten in had we lost to cinci. You don't know what the commitee would have done no matter how much you say you do. Second, I was not the only one thinking we could miss a second year straight and wondering what should be done if it happened again. Nice try though. Maybe you can get more frat brothers to jump in and help you sell this narrative. Sometimes this board reminds me of a Trump rally.

By the way, I'm glad my hypothetical irritated you. How damaged do you have to be to be irritated by a hypothetical?

 

[tzznandrew]

I think KO can be as good or even better than JC, and I don't say that lightly.

Here is the list of head coaches who have as many, or more, NCAA titles in the 64 team era:

Coach K

Every other coach either won all them in a different era (Wooden, Rupp) or won at least one of theirs in that previous era (2 for Knight).

I like the optimism here, but Jim Calhoun was one of the greatest coaches in the history of college basketball. That's not a fair measure to hold any coach to.

 

[Inyatkin]

I think KO can be as good or even better than JC, and I don't say that lightly. He's still battling the effects of the recruiting restrictions he had nothing to do with, combined by a recruiting drop off by JC a couple years before that. Ollie will have his own team in 2-3 years and then we can judge him.

Like when he brought in Napier, Lamb, Boatright, Daniels, Drummond -- those guys?

 

[Leebo]

Second, I was not the only one thinking we could miss a second year straight and wondering what should be done if it happened again.

At least you acknowledge that you were involved, and not mysterious "people".

The frat comments are amusing... what kind of flailing is that?

I'm looking forward to hearing about the hypotheticals about missing the '17, '18, and '19 tournaments.

 

[Paesano]

To the guy that proved he can cut and paste just like a second grader in today's tech saavy world, yes, everthing is on the head coach. If the program succeeds, he deserves the credit. If the program struggles to make the tournament, he deserves the blame. It goes both ways, ALWAYS. If this team is a top 10 team next year and makes it to the final four, the coach deserves the credit. If they are a bubble team again, people will question him. That is how is goes in a world of grown ups where people are held accountable for the things they are responsible for.

And this notion that it is ok for the team to be on the bubble every year so long as they turn it on in the post season is insanity. Excellence is a habit. You can construct practices to peak in March but in no way does that imply the team has to be so bad in the regular season that they are a mediocre team in a mediocre conference. It is insane to think it is impossible to win it all in the same year you dominate in a top conference. See UConn teams under Calhoun and especially those first two championship teams. They were nowhere near the bubble. Hell, even the 2011 team was nowhere near the bubble.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

3) 2-pt jumpers. Hamilton and Adams love these. They need to go away and Ollie needs to ram this down their throats. Take a 3 or go to the rim and get fouled. These are almost always bad shots. There's a reason Hamilton is shooting 42% from 2-pt land despite being 6'7.

Hamilton is shooting 32% from 3.

And I find this comment surprising given that the message from Ollie the last few weeks regarding Hamilton has been precisely the opposite.

But I guess i just find posters who deign to "give credit" to the coach for certain things to be insufferable.

 

[CL82]

I'm with KO win or tie.

Probably not tie though, right Pal?

 

[HuskiesAllDay]

You're misunderstanding. I'm saying we don't know what he's doing, but that we should respect him enough to believe that he has a strategy, and he's not just mailing it in until March. Unless you're there every day, and we aren't, you can't know what's really going on.

Fair enough. I was very critical of KO but I never wanted him fired. Posters saying that stuff is crap. But he deserved a lot of criticism this year.

I trust him to figure things out. But if his big picture strategy involves losing 5 or 6 winnable games in the regular season then count me out. We paid for it with out bracket.

Also, just as posters shouldn't call for his head after one season, one 3 game win streak in the AAC tourney just doesn't just erase the other 30 games. It doesn't justify finishing 6th in a mediocre conference.

 

[LIUCHusky]

Specific coaching failures this season that Ollie could be rightly criticized for:

1) Not playing more up-tempo during the season. We were 298th / 351 in pace (252nd longest offensive possession length) this season. We often essentially play 4 guards and a center who wins the team's annual race. Inexcusable. If we had a really efficient half-court offense, sure, slow it down. But it's obvious to everyone we don't.

2) We're leading the nation in FT%*, but we never draw fouls. He hasn't taught the guards how to draw contact or go into the body. We don't have a single player in the top 500 of the country in fouls drawn per 40 minutes. Hamilton should be going to the line on like 1/4 of our possessions. This would take us from a mediocre offense to a good offense just like that.

3) 2-pt jumpers. Hamilton and Adams love these. They need to go away and Ollie needs to ram this down their throats. Take a 3 or go to the rim and get fouled. These are almost always bad shots. There's a reason Hamilton is shooting 42% from 2-pt land despite being 6'7.

4) We need to defend the 3-pt arc better. We do a great job of denying in the paint and having shot blocking and all that, but 3-pt shots can be highly efficient, and when you take away 2s but give opponents good 3's, that's not always a great trade-off.

5) Shonn Miller is our most effective scorer. This became obvious by at least the halfway point in the season. He still only takes the 3rd most shots when he's on the court. Get him the ball!

*I will praise him for teaching foul shooting. Hamilton's improvement in this regard is incredible and this has now become a pattern that is certainly attributable to him.

Auror,

Don't mean to nit pick but regarding Hamilton getting to the line 1 in 4 possessions, he would on average get to the line 17 times per game based on our averaging 68+ possessions per game. LOL.