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Message: [QUOTE="Ricker, post: 2628294, member: 1245"] I haven't posted anything about our coaching change, but this list of candidates isn't very inspiring that we are improving our situation. We're going to spend millions of dollars to get rid of a coach who bleeds blue, won a national championship with a team few coaches would have won with, and who brought in a noted recruiter who hasn't had a chance to make an impact. Ollie's NBA credentials, reputation, and early NCAA title make a pretty good story. He parlayed his act to be a top 5 finalist on the list of numerous top 5 star talents and mostly swung and missed. Now we confirm he was likely up against a stacked deck with sneaker money and was still close selling a marginal conference to boot. It's true that in the past couple of years he underachieved with the players he did have, we got our butts kicked solidly a bunch, a group of kids jumped ship, and, we slid towards the lower middle of a so/so conference. It's true that several players did not improve in their time at UConn. It's also true that the cupboard isn't bare, the team visibly improved over the last 10 games, individual players visibly improved, Ollie made many changes to improve strength and conditioning, hired the talent he felt would recruit, and, we had 2 top 100 recruits coming in. Ollie never got to coach the back court of Adams and Gilbert over a season, and improvements in recruiting, conditioning, and the on court performance of freshman are the type of things that improve gradually. I don't know what the kids really think in the locker room, nor what the dirty laundry really is, and this might make a difference, but I personally would have given him another year. He's proven an upside and there is no reason I have seen so far that proves he is not capable of finding his way back. With that said, my main complaint is that we are not turning to an obvious improvement. Watching URI since Hurley's name has been put forth has not been impressive in terms of likelihood of improvement. I see him coaching players who try to make an individual play, then pass it to the next guy who tries the same. Today some hero shots went in. Essentially I watched a guard oriented team required to play the same as UConn plays now because they haven't got a good enough front court just like UConn now. What makes anybody think he would do better than Ollie recruiting or coaching? The retreads mentioned have never recruited any more top kids to their programs than Ollie has, and are not with their recent schools because of their own shortcomings. I think we are going to rue this change. Maybe that search firm might still come in handy. The program needs to have 2-3 kids on the roster with legitimate NBA talent. Find me somebody sitting on an NBA bench as an assistant that could excite prospects with NBA talent. Just venting but I don't think the grass is greener and I think Ollie would make it back like Tiger because Ollie is a competitor. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach