How Jim Calhoun's coaching career started

[Paesano]

Ok then, let's find the guy that has worked out the kinks and is starting to show progress. He may struggle for his first few years here, as he brings in his players, but we won't have to wait 15 years to see if he is a decent coach. It worked for us with that Calhoun guy. Jimbo may not be walking through that door but I would take half of a Jimbo right now.

 

[pj]

I remember this guy on TV talking about horseplayers that I believe fits in this discussion. "I hear people say they have 20 years experience playing the horses." he says, "Do they really? Or do they have 1 year of experience repeated 20 times?" I haven't seen any growth or improvement from Ollie since Shabazz graduated. I've seen the same old slog every year for four years running now. Why does anyone think that this performance won't continue to repeat? What am I missing?

KO just replaced his inherited assistant coaches with his own guys. That means he's changing and he's learning what he needs to be successful. Give him time, he'll change other things. He has to have a full roster that includes two point guards.

 

[Huskybass]

KO just replaced his inherited assistant coaches with his own guys. That means he's changing and he's learning what he needs to be successful. Give him time, he'll change other things. He has to have a full roster that includes two point guards.

I appreciate your optimism, however, how is the team so unprepared that they have to go to overtime with Monmouth and Columbia, and fall behind winless Coppin State 8-0? UConn has talent those teams can only dream of, yet struggles to put those teams away. Based on the disparity in talent alone, all three of those games should be easy wins to say the least.

 

[pj]

I appreciate your optimism, however, how is the team so unprepared that they have to go to overtime with Monmouth and Columbia, and fall behind winless Coppin State 8-0? UConn has talent those teams can only dream of, yet struggles to put those teams away. Based on the disparity in talent alone, all three of those games should be easy wins to say the least.

He has more changes to make. He does make them too slowly, he's only gradually shifting the style of play designed for an Alterique-Jalen backcourt (e.g. 3 guards) to what he needs to play without Alterique, even though Alterique has been almost useless since the Oregon game Nov 24, 2 weeks ago. He needs to be smarter. But, he's trying.

 

[Husky25]

Indiana considered a destination job?

All due respect, Dub, but There is a huge difference between how the transfer of power occurred at UConn and Indiana.

Ollie was Calhoun's hand picked successor, someone who he would be able to mentor along the way. If Calhoun saw something in him he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

According to ESPN in 2005 (back when they were a marginal UConn ally), Knight says he did not think too highly of Davis, but there was no way Indiana was going to take Knight's recommendation, given the way they parted ways.

"I stayed at Indiana six years too long because of the administration. The administration handled a lot of things poorly," Knight told Sporting News Radio on Saturday, after his Red Raiders upset Gonzaga to reach the Sweet 16. "I was working for an athletic director [former IU AD Clarence Doninger] that didn't know his [expletive] from third base. I ended up staying because of the kids that I liked and the people I did like rather than focusing on the real negatives there."

Knight, who coached at Indiana for 29 years and won three national championships, was fired in 2000 for violating a "zero tolerance" behavior policy by grabbing the arm of a student who he said greeted him by his last name. Knight sued two years later, claiming the university violated his employment contract. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed.
...

"They created that for themselves," Knight said in the Sporting News Radio interview. "The guy that's coaching there [Mike Davis] is a guy that I told Pat [Knight, his son and assistant coach] we were going to replace at the end of the season. There's no way that I would have kept the guy any longer than that. [But] That's their [Indiana] problem."

 

[August_West]

All due respect, Dub, but There is a huge difference between how the transfer of power occurred at UConn and Indiana.

Maybe.

But is Indiana considered a destination job?

 

[tentoes4rings]

KO just replaced his inherited assistant coaches with his own guys. That means he's changing and he's learning what he needs to be successful. Give him time, he'll change other things. He has to have a full roster that includes two point guards.

PJ, how much “time” do you propose we give him? He could have had two point guards if he didn’t lose MAL. Putting so much hope and dependency on a kid coming off his second shoulder surgery wasn’t great planning.

I do appreciate your optimism but let’s not pretend KO has just been extremely unlucky and call it like it is and admit a lot of the roster issues the past 4 years have been due to his mistakes.

 

[Husky25]

Maybe.

But is Indiana considered a destination job?

By virtue of being in the Big Ten, yes. On the other hand, Davis, Sampson, and what Crean walked into didn't too a whole heck of a lot to maintain it's culture after Bobby Knight left.

Calhoun was a coach from a different generation and it is an impossible task for Ollie to live up to those standards, given the change in environment and situation. That is why it is not desirable to follow the legend, rather than to replace the guy who follows the legend.

Honestly, I don't think offense is as big of an issue for this team at this point than defense. They let a 3 point shooting specialist who averaged less than 6 points a game through 9 go off for more than 30.

Ollie said at the beginning of the year, he wanted to press more and run (Of course almost every coach says that). Coppin State was the first game they actually did, but 1) It's tough to press of your own misses, and 2) it's tough to run when the opposition shoots near 50%. Having a guard in the backcourt, but not really challenging the opposition over the timeline does not a press make.

 

[pj]

PJ, how much “time” do you propose we give him? He could have had two point guards if he didn’t lose MAL. Putting so much hope and dependency on a kid coming off his second shoulder surgery wasn’t great planning.

I do appreciate your optimism but let’s not pretend KO has just been extremely unlucky and call it like it is and admit a lot of the roster issues the past 4 years have been due to his mistakes.

Agreed on the last point, the issue is whether he has learned and will avoid those mistakes in the future.

I think this year like last it's impossible to judge KO because without a true point guard, the team is going to struggle. Next year he will have his roster with his players and his coaches. He has to perform with it. I think he gets to the end of 2018-19 season and if he doesn't make the 2019 tourney, then he has failed.

 

[tentoes4rings]

Did say anything other to give this team time. Nobody should lower expectations, but no reasonable person should think this team is going to play like national titles contenders 5 weeks into the season with two returning rotation players AND once again hampered by injuries

The lack of returning rotation players is largely due to transfers, why can’t you see that Willie? Injuries happen to every team. We’re down ONE player, albeit an important one. Successful programs find ways to overcome injuries, usually through quality depth. Last season’s injury situation was devastating but with only one injured player this year, we have enough talent to play significantly better.

 

[tentoes4rings]

There are many distinguishing factors between our coach and the coaches who have been brought up in this thread. I am pretty sure by their 6th year as a head coach guys like Dean Smith were doing lots of things very well. What is it exactly that Kevin Ollie does very well?

The first 2 to 3 seasons it was fielding a strong defensive team. Now, even the defense is weak, despite having a roster of his guys.

 

[willie99]

The lack of returning rotation players is largely due to transfers, why can’t you see that Willie? Injuries happen to every team. We’re down ONE player, albeit an important one. Successful programs find ways to overcome injuries, usually through quality depth. Last season’s injury situation was devastating but with only one injured player this year, we have enough talent to play significantly better.

He pushed a reset button after last year, and kids didn't like what they heard left. I have no problem with that. Many thought at that time this season was already going to be a total disaster, but he managed to resurrect some hope. All his detractors argued he'll never be able to recruit kids to come here again, he already proved that to be wrong. A highly regarded recruit decommitted after the coach that recruited him was fired, that's collateral damage.

And this year's team will be better, with more time together and the more distance we put behind us with respect to Larrier's injury. Gilbert's loss CANNOT be simply discounted as meaningless, and not recruiting over him should not be called his fault either. Kids know Gilbert is here, we can't hide that, and Gilbert deserves some respect for choosing us to begin with.

We were in a bad place just 6 or 7 short months ago, and significant progress has been made since then. So once again I'm going to argue he needs more time, especially since he's not going anywhere.

 

[tentoes4rings]

Agreed on the last point, the issue is whether he has learned and will avoid those mistakes in the future.

I think this year like last it's impossible to judge KO because without a true point guard, the team is going to struggle. Next year he will have his roster with his players and his coaches. He has to perform with it. I think he gets to the end of 2018-19 season and if he doesn't make the 2019 tourney, then he has failed.

Fair enough, I appreciate the reply. I for one am willing to give him your timetable IF the team plays with heart, execution and pride. Unfortunately we haven't seen much of those the past 3 plus years. The 12-13 team had nothing to play for but pride. While they had Boat, Bazz etc. I give all the credit in the world to KO for keeping that team hungry and focused that entire season. If he can get this team to defend, play hard for 40 minutes and make us proud of their progress, one more season would be fair. If however we continue to struggle mightily against significantly inferior programs and get embarrassed routinely by better teams, this has to end this year.

 

[boog204]

I'm sure it's been said but I don't feel like reading everything... Using JC and K at MID-MAJORS with little to no legacy is like comparing apples to ferrari's. KO took a team that had won three national championships in 15 years and has "coached" into struggling with a 0-9 Coppin State team. For years, most of us fought off the criticism that KO just won w/ JCs players. But I can't do it anymore. Did he do a great job coaching that team? Of course. But they still had a JC stamp on them. What we've done since then is mediocre at best and he has pedaled out the same excuses and we have come up with every rationale for why things have gone south. But I cannot take any more "we've got to execute the game plan" or "we didn't come out with the energy we needed." That's YOUR JOB. And if you are doing it to the best abilities and the players are not playing for you, then the disconnect is far too extreme to fix.

 

[Fishy]

all at Northeastern

1) 19-7
2) 12-11
3) 12-12
4) 12-13
5) 12-14
6) 14-12
7) 13-13

8) 19-8, then he started to become the legend that he is today

What I'm saying is that it takes time to find what works for you as a coach

Such a load of horse crap.

Stop trying to justify this tire fire - it didn’t have to happen.

You know what Jim Calhoun also did? He worked hard every day.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

This is an idiotic premise and that is frankly extremely disingenuous.

Citing a few hall of fame coaches that are considered the best in their sport, who started out slow, while ignoring the literally thousands of head coaches who started out slow, because they were frankly bad.

Post this all you want, because it is a fact, but to be angry when people say its completely irrelevant is absurd.

 

[willie99]

Such a load of horse crap.

Stop trying to justify this tire fire - it didn’t have to happen.

You know what Jim Calhoun also did? He worked hard every day.

I suppose if you know something about Ollie's work ethic the rest of us don't, that can be a game changer.

Everything about Ollie's life suggests he works hard, his NBA career was all about working, but people can and do change.

I love Jim Calhoun, maybe he was hoodwinked by Ollie too

 

[willie99]

“It’s hard sometimes, because we’re trying to develop our front court, do this, this and that. We have a very good back court, five guys who can play on the perimeter, most teams don’t have that. And we’ve got to simplify what we do and hope to continue to work on what we’re really good at, and do that. Syracuse, you know what they did? Play a zone, protect the rim, and won because of the 2-3 zone. We’ve got to find our niche as the season goes on. I have a lot of confidence in Kevin. I think we have good players.”

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Has anybody told Jim Calhoun he's totally wrong about this? What on earth is he talking about?

"find our niche as the season goes on" whaaaaaaat? r u kidding me? how stupid is that?

"I have confidence in Kevin" I guess he doesn't know it's over already

 

[freescooter]

Northeastern was in the College World Series in 1966, they have always been Division 1

Not in basketball. You could be multiple divisions for different sports back then. Some sports didn’t even have divisions. UConn played obviously major college basketball but in the “college” division in football and division 2 in hockey I think. Top division in baseball too. But Northeastern absolutely was D2 in hoops.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

This team stinks, the future looks bleak, Ollie seems like a disaster at the moment, and all that being said, the idea that anyone is seeking out Freescooter's thoughts on the matter is laugh out loud funny.

 

[Paesano]

“It’s hard sometimes, because we’re trying to develop our front court, do this, this and that. We have a very good back court, five guys who can play on the perimeter, most teams don’t have that. And we’ve got to simplify what we do and hope to continue to work on what we’re really good at, and do that. Syracuse, you know what they did? Play a zone, protect the rim, and won because of the 2-3 zone. We’ve got to find our niche as the season goes on. I have a lot of confidence in Kevin. I think we have good players.”

--------------------------------------------------------------

Has anybody told Jim Calhoun he's totally wrong about this? What on earth is he talking about?

"find our niche as the season goes on" whaaaaaaat? r u kidding me? how stupid is that?

"I have confidence in Kevin" I guess he doesn't know it's over already

What the hell do you expect him to say?!?!?! It is the exact right thing to say in this situation. If you think that is what he is saying in private too, well, you are hopeless.

 

[uconnphil2016]

These examples are called outliers. It's like telling your son that he's going to the NBA after being cut from his freshman high school basketball team just because the same thing happened to Michael Jordan. Sure, KO could become Dean Smith, Coach K, JC, but the odds are not in his favor and I'm not sure we've seen anything to suggest that a future turnaround is immanent

 

[willie99]

Good god, another one who thinks he knows what other people are saying behind the scenes, so much so that he has the audacity to call posters like me "hopeless" if they don't know what Jim Calhoun is REALLY saying in private

Exasperating sigh

 

[Huskybass]

I suppose if you know something about Ollie's work ethic the rest of us don't, that can be a game changer.

Everything about Ollie's life suggests he works hard, his NBA career was all about working, but people can and do change.

I love Jim Calhoun, maybe he was hoodwinked by Ollie too

Such a load of horse crap.

Stop trying to justify this tire fire - it didn’t have to happen.

You know what Jim Calhoun also did? He worked hard every day.

Maybe it's just me. Or perhaps the time of year. But I feel like Fishy just told Willie the truth about Santa Claus, and Willie doesn't want to believe it.

 

[tentoes4rings]

What the hell do you expect him to say?!?!?! It is the exact right thing to say in this situation. If you think that is what he is saying in private too, well, you are hopeless.

Right. Did you expect him to publicly say "I can't believe he ruined my program in 4 years and the product on the floor has been a complete embarrassment"? Let's get real here.