I’d probably cancel the Hurley presser

[BlueDogs]

Not an attorney but the first thing is that’s the previous contract above - not the current one (below):

You know you're on the hot seat when fans start pulling your contract for termination and severance terms...

 

[BlueMAB]

How about when he stays and some players leave?

It amazes me that people are worried about defections if Ollie goes.

Ollie stayed after last year and we had 4 defections anyway.

 

[lange10]

It amazes me that people are worried about defections if Ollie goes.

Ollie stayed after last year and we had 4 defections anyway.

Polley is as good as gone. Cobb was playing at the rec last night; he’s gone. I’d wager one other player leaves as well.

Keep him around though, Akinjo is the next Trae Young I’ve heard.

 

[UConnStats]

I still expect Ollie out at the end of the year. The AD wants him out, players will leave regardless of if he stays or goes, he can barely face the media, and the fans are turning on him.

Yes it’s a lot of money, no it will not come from the school’s budget, but I expect it to get done nonetheless.

I respect everyone’s opinion whether they want Ollie here or don’t think we’ll find the money, but I’ve heard the AD is trying to fund the buyout and we’ve seen him give zero support to Ollie publicly. ESPN and other CBB analysts have been using Ollie and UConn as a punching bag. Long term losses keep on expanding with KO here. This is speculation on my part, but the bridge is too burnt. Time to take a haymaker via the sunk cost.

I’ve beat this point to death, but there is also rarely going to be a year where you have two talents like Wilson and Gilbert who virtually have to stay, or face missing multiple consecutive years of live action. Set the next coach up with an opportunity to work with talent right away.

 

[HuskyHawk]

You watch a lot of college basketball? Who else do you watch? What makes you think they're poorly coached?

Look im not giving Ollie a pass on not getting any shooters. It's his fault 100%. No debate there. I just don't think that is a fireable offense. I think he's recognized that oversight and will look to rectify it. As it is right now, the roster is flawed. The offense is tailored to having 2-3 guys who can score on the roster. No one else is a threat to opposing defenses. Carlton looks like he might get there sooner rather than later, but for now, he's not much to worry about.

Yes. I'm a Kansas grad and fan as well. I watch all sorts of games. I haven't seen any team with that dear in the headlights look that our team has. We look like we have no idea what the other team is capable of or is trying to do. We often look like our own players don't know what the others on the team are doing. Our offense is outdated and inefficient. I give Ollie some credit in his willingness to go to zone on D, since our guys get torched from outside playing man. But we aren't playing the zone well either.

 

[BlueMAB]

For a guy who played point guard in the NBA (and who was never a score first PG) it's beyond belief that he appears utterly clueless as to how to implement even an average college offense.

 

[mauconnfan]

How was 2 yrs ago disappointing? They won the conference tournament and won an NCAA game. This is what im talking about. Spoiled fans.

This one amazes me hence the resentment of their agenda. I mean we all know they have the upper hand at his point, if you can't see the program slipping then you're blind. But they make sure to extend their history lesson on how bad KO is to a year which many teams in the NCAA can only dream of. NCAA tourney and a win too, good year solid year for most. After a NC never easy to bring it all back we've seen that many times. But the question I have is how spoiled can you be to throw that year away as crap?

Hey they've made their point (ya think?) and they have 2 legs to stand on now. Doesn't mean I have any respect for the way they've gone about it, I don't.

 

[mauconnfan]

Polley is as good as gone. Cobb was playing at the rec last night; he’s gone. I’d wager one other player leaves as well.

Keep him around though, Akinjo is the next Trae Young I’ve heard.

Where did you hear about Akinjo being compared to Trae Young, that's great?

Oh you tried a funny...oh not so good but I get it. Ha

 

[ThabeetDown]

Polley is as good as gone. Cobb was playing at the rec last night; he’s gone. I’d wager one other player leaves as well.

Why is Polley gone? Because he's not good enough to play even at our mediocre level? With Kisunas coming in next year (and Carlton's development) Cobb is expendable (although he would be nice to have this year still). We can't really afford another player leaving unless it's Kwintin...

 

[RipCity]

I can’t wait for the offseason. I need answers, we’re all stuck in speculation purgatory.

 

[August_West]

And Jay Wright is Billy Beane. Kevin Ollie is like Barry Switzer trying to run a wishbone in 2018.

You had other points that I get , but this is a bad one. Villanova is pretty close to how Ollie wants to play. We just dont have the horses and/or experience yet.

Polley is as good as gone. Cobb was playing at the rec last night; he’s gone. I’d wager one other player leaves as well.

Do you have ANY basis for that? Polley leaving would be troubling. Depending on the reasoning it could reflect poorly on KO.

Cobb SHOULD be gone. No one should hold that one against KO. Good riddance.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I can’t wait for the offseason. I need answers, we’re all stuck in speculation purgatory.

Welcome to UConn basketball 2018, where the fans look forward to the off season more than the season. Kind of says it all.

 

[HuskyHawk]

You had other points that I get , but this is a bad one. Villanova is pretty close to how Ollie wants to play. We just dont have the horses and/or experience yet.

He talks a good game about positionless basketball, and then runs nothing but ISOs, clear outs and pick and roll (mostly with no roll and very little pick). I don't think it's just a lack of players, or Polley would be in much more often, and Cobb, a big who can shoot, would as well. I don't think his system is remotely like what Nova is running, irrespective of the talent.

 

[JMick]

He talks a good game about positionless basketball, and then runs nothing but ISOs, clear outs and pick and roll (mostly with no roll and very little pick). I don't think it's just a lack of players, or Polley would be in much more often, and Cobb, a big who can shoot, would as well. I don't think his system is remotely like what Nova is running, irrespective of the talent.

I don't think he even has a system. If he does, he can't teach it.

 

[August_West]

and Cobb, a big who can shoot

Cobb cant curb his impulses to play like he is a member of the Harlem Globetrotters. He had his whack and showed nothing but that.

Polley started 6 games at beginning of season. Its not like KO did not want him to succeed at exactly what you talked about but there has to be a baseline of function in there too, and Polley crashed and burned hard for a while there. Hopefully he starts ascending again.

 

[KembaStepback]

I think players leaving last yr was the exception. Not the rule. When else have others transferred?

Like I said, Ollie isn't free of blame. He absolutely has a hand in why we've had 2 bad seasons. I just want to make sure people realize it's 2 seasons. Not more.

Also - I'm not saying fans are ruining the program. Come on now. What I don't like is the fair-weather fan who wont go to a conference game because it's not against old BE rivals. I don't like the fair weather fan who comes to a home game for the sole purpose of booing Ollie. It doesn't look good.

I can appreciate the argument for wanting Ollie out. I get it. The points have been made and your opinion is your opinion. I don't agree, but I see where you're coming from. The thing that I hate the most is the negativity to impose their agenda. The goal should be for UConn to be good again. Booing our head coach at a home game will not help land recruits or do any good. It just makes UConn fans look childish and spoiled. Can we at least agree on that?

 

[BlueMAB]

Cobb SHOULD be gone. No one should hold that one against KO. Good riddance.

KO recruited him. We can and should hold that against him.

 

[August_West]

KO recruited him. We can and should hold that against him.

lol on what basis?

 

[superjohn]

lol on what basis?

Are you serious right now?

 

[August_West]

Are you serious right now?

Yeah. Go ahead and answer for him, littlejohn, if you must

 

[JMick]

Are you serious right now?

getting taken to the woodshed on the 'pool. The same is happening to August on the men's board. Talk about an exciting day.

 

[August_West]

getting taken to the woodshed on the 'pool. The same is happening to August on the men's board. Talk about an exciting day.

Why don't you answer it then. Simple answer the question and we will see who is in the woodshed.

3 of you dolts now, none with the guts to answer.

 

[boog204]

I can actually kind of deny it. I see many good looks especially early in games. I see us as a bunch of brick layers. If we dont make shots off good looks early in games that is kind of the snake that feeds its own tail (ouroboros) because we then get desperate and flustered about not making shots which leads to bad decisions and shots. The bad shots I see? Most of them are due to Vital. He's a chucker at heart. I dont see Larrier taking many bad shots. Once in a great while. His decision making shortfall is not in shot selection, it is in his terrible awareness of his own handling abilities. Once everybody has gone around the world clanking through the first 15 minutes of a game, we then default to the Jalen show. And then the offense can look stagnant because we have now conceded to play 1 on 5.

I had little interest in doing my job the last 30 minutes, so I put on the Tulane game and I thought I'd count the "good looks" just to see if I was wrong. I have no idea what percentage would constitute a well executed offense. 60%? 70%?

So we had 32 offensive possessions and scored 30 points in the first half.

17 of those possessions passed my "good looks" test including drawing a foul and one second chance basket (off a bad shot).
15 of those possessions did not. These included Adams, Vital, and Anderson going one on two/three, contested deep jumpers off the dribble, Larrier fadeaways, unforced turnovers, and guys being given the ball in bad spots (Diarra as a bail out after Vital left his feet and Diarra forcing an airball jump hook.)

So it was a little over 50% of the time we got a good look. It was more than I had thought to be honest. So tad bit of egg on my face.

However, as August noted, many of our best looks were in the very beginning of the game. That leads me to think two things. #1, as August stated, if we get those good looks but do not hit them, we go into iso-ball. In this game, we hit our early looks so the iso stuff were outliers. #2, the defense adjusted and our half-court offense did not. We ended the half on a 12-2 run where we got good shots off of secondary breaks and Jalen breaking down the defense but we did not get much of anything in the half-court set.

 

[Northbound]

I'm as big a UConn person as anyone but you cannot possibly think that UConn is the overall premier university in New England.

You beat me to it. But I suppose you can delude yourself into thinking that if you drink often and excessively.

Edit: I say this because I think to say New England is meaningless, judge it based on the Northeast as that's what many rankers do - they do regions, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

 

[BlueMAB]

Why don't you answer it then. Simple answer the question and we will see who is in the woodshed.

3 of you dolts now, none with the guts to answer.

easy there fake tough guy. i've got 2 cell phones, you have no idea how much intestinal fortitude i have. Just because I didn't respond within your timeline doesn't mean i'm scared of the conversation.

He was arrested and suspended a week before they were to play in the NIT for using a BB gun to shoot at someone in a car. He was also arrested for weed. He had a history, went to JuCo, and ballooned in weight before ultimately landing at UConn.

Had it worked out, Ollie would have deserved credit. It didn't, Ollie owns it. Just like he owns every other recruit, and transfer in/out of the program. It's well within his control to pass when there are obvious red flags. I don't want to hear the excuse that we were desperate for a big man, that was also his doing.