KO has never been a Head coach before UConn. He is young coach and is learning some valuable lessons. I think he has learned his lesson and will improve in areas he is lacking as a coach. Imo his future as a coach is promising and we are lucky to have him. Watch him become one of the best coaches in the game at some other school and then we will be kicking ourselves for letting him go. They say one does not appreciate something good until it's gone. Well I'm not willing to take the risk. Our credibility as a program does not rest on the last 2 or 3 years. We had some unfortunate things happen to us. We need to be patient and good things will happen.
This is my view as well. He has some real strengths -- a coach who didn't have strengths couldn't have won a national championship in 2014 with a team with one future NBAer; and he couldn't recruit guys like James Akinjo to a weaker conference, across the country.
He needs to recognize his weaknesses and either repair them or assemble a group of assistant coaches that is strong in all his weak areas. Some things he can't delegate, such as emotional leadership of the team, and leading by example (hard work, persistence, emotional stability). But many things he can. He would probably benefit from having a strong ex-head coach like George Blaney as an assistant. And he needs to provide "tough love" to his players and get them to give 100% effort every play, especially when it comes to effort aspects of the game like defense, rebounding, screening, and loose balls; and to do the work off the court such as film study and strength and conditioning.
I think he's learning what it takes to be a coach, but hasn't gotten there yet. He has peeled off the top few layers of the onion though, replacing coaches that didn't fit (e.g. Miller) with ones that do (Chillious) and learning how to recruit (with Chill's help, recruiting has improved). It will take at least a few years to get the remaining aspects of head coaching down, but if he works hard, loves hard, and is humble and honest, he will figure it out.
Switching coaches, with the player losses that might entail, would also cost us a few years. So AD Benedict has to make a judgment about whether KO is learning fast enough, and whether he can bring in a top coach who can get us to the top faster. I think with the payoff that will come from sticking by KO and maintaining the "UConn family" tradition, it will be hard not to give KO more time.
