JC's handling of AO early this year

[GlastonTim]

I love JC, hope he coaches as long as he wants to. That being said, I think his handling of AO and Roscoe for that matter stunted both of their developemant this year. What may have started out as a motivating experiment, backfired. Some kids may thrive under adversity, but as we know at Uconn, some don't. I think that AO didn't handle it well, resentment seeped in. Roscoe bounced back, but took him most of the year. I think AO and Roscoe deserved to be the starters this year due to their play last year. The chemistry was screwed up right from the start because of this. I think in some parallel universe had this gone down differently, the results would have been way better, of course we'll never know. Your thoughts.

 

[Dogdeacon]

Agree in theory but ONLY because hindsight is 20-20. I think a big contributor is Calhoun's illness and how that took him away from the team and very likely decreased his interaction with players both before and after. There was no way to have foreseen that and arguably if he never misses time Alex and JC ultimately get thru the difficult period and emerge better much like Roscoe ultimately did.

 

[Fishy]

I cannot disagree with that.

I think the early experimenting with Olander was a mistake.

Alex's production dropped from 9.6 points and 8.7 rebounds to 6.7 points and 4.8 rebounds. His minutes dropped from 29 minutes to just under 22. Roscoe dropped from 6.3 points and 5.2 rebounds in 25 minutes to 4.4 points and 3.4 rebounds in 18 minutes. Tyler received about nine more minutes per game and really did not have enough production to warrant it. His shooting percentage is low and he was not a particularly effective rebounder or defender - worse, his preferred 10-12' jump shot took a big body away from the basket.

I would have liked to have seen JC show more patience with both players early. AO was moved to a different position and even Roscoe had to adjust to having Drummond on the floor - the answer to that was probably more minutes and more patience.

No one's perfect - there's even a chance that I have no idea what I'm talking about.

 

[GlastonTim]

I agree that hindsight is 20/20, but Alex's head was gone before JC left the team. What with his father in his head, it was too late to recover from. I think Roscoe was able to bounce back just because he has a different make up than AO. I just look at the end of the season last year and Alex was a STUD. When you play with their heads, sometimes it doesn't work out.

 

[UConnSportsGuy]

No offense...but I think I am going to trust Calhoun's basketball knowledge and motivation tactics much more than GlastonTim. He has a little more of a proven resume!

 

[UChusky916]

This year's teams had a multitude of "what-ifs." This is certainly one of them. The lack of leadership in the locker room also contributed to this.

AO never seemed to respond after the whole "team meeting." The fact that it even had to occur was a big issue. He never gave himself the opportunity to earn those minutes, it seemed like he felt entitled to them.

I absolutely LOVE Roscoe because you could see that he eventually did respond positively, it just took him some time. He gives his all 100% of the time, and that's all you can ask for. I can deal with his not-top-1o heaves and poor clock management if he commits himself.

Fact is, these kids were Freshmen/Sophs last year, so they shouldn't have felt entitled to anything. Winning a championship was tremendous, and I'll love these kids for it. But I'm not sure it was the best thing for their development. JC knew this, and tried to work it out of them.

You can blame JC or you can blame the players. I'm sure it's a little of both. Fact is, JC is going to do what he thinks is best for the player, plain and simple. He doesn't care about egos. His methods are proven effective by the players he's gotten into the NBA. Hard to argue with that.

 

[UConnSportsGuy]

I agree that hindsight is 20/20, but Alex's head was gone before JC left the team. What with his father in his head, it was too late to recover from. I think Roscoe was able to bounce back just because he has a different make up than AO. I just look at the end of the season last year and Alex was a STUD. When you play with their heads, sometimes it doesn't work out.

The fault goes on AO, not Calhoun. This isn't YMCA basketball. Be a man!

 

[Palatine]

The mistake was making Alex a captain. When your captain is sulking 6 games into the season, it foreshadows trouble

 

[John Fryer]

The fault goes on AO, not Calhoun. This isn't YMCA basketball. Be a man!

And most men know that respect is something that is earned and lost as men/women interact with each other.

I would argue that most players have a built in respect for the person who holds the position of being the "Coach."

Respect for the man who is the coach is an entirely different thing.

Peace,

John Fryer

 

[GlastonTim]

I trust Coach also, I wouldn't want any other coach. I hope he coaches til he's 80! I'm just throwing out there that it's possible for him to read a kid wrong. That's all. Maybe there should be a good phsycologist on staff to get a better read on these kids. As a parent with kids, you learn that each kid is different and you adjust your parenting style to better fit each kid. An extreme example of that would be ....My oldest has Aspergers, and if I were to parent him like I do my other kid it wouldn't work, it'd break his spirit and destroy him. Just saying that each kid needs different things and as a parent or coach you need to see that and not force a kid to conform or you face the risk of losing them.

 

[UConnSportsGuy]

Maybe there should be a good phsycologist on staff to get a better read on these kids.

In a somewhat related (yet unrelated) topic....a couple of years ago I worked with the person who was the sports psychologist working for the UNC basketball program when Matt Doherty was the coach. She has some very interesting stories from those days to say the least!

 

[ZenConn]

The mistake was making Alex a captain. When your captain is sulking 6 games into the season, it foreshadows trouble

That's what happens when you have a young team. Normally, it would be the upperclassmen that would be named captains. These kids are 19/20 years old and it's extremely difficult being a captain of a team that won a NC the previous year as well as being a captain of a team with a great history.

 

[GlastonTim]

In a somewhat related (yet unrelated) topic....a couple of years ago I worked with the person who was the sports psychologist working for the UNC basketball program when Matt Doherty was the coach. She has some very interesting stories from those days to say the least!

Do you know if most teams have one on staff?

 

[Dogdeacon]

In a somewhat related (yet unrelated) topic....a couple of years ago I worked with the person who was the sports psychologist working for the UNC basketball program when Matt Doherty was the coach. She has some very interesting stories from those days to say the least!

Well, give one up! You can change names to protect your source. I..e. A certain someone who constantly admired himself in the mirror and fiddled with his salt & pepper hair used to cry in his private bathroom after every practice and then smear the walls with...

 

[sparky]

AO's production decreased because of himself. He's a sulking baby and perhaps the biggest error this year was making himcaptain in an effort to apease him. It's that old song and dance crap that we need not break his spirit with discipline. Life is a bitch and what doesn't kill ya makes you stronger. If life hands ya lemons either make lemonade or pout. AO chooses to pout. Let him go and play with Jamal Coombs-McDaniel

 

[campcalhoun2009]

Doesn't anyone remember how HORRENDOUS it was when AO and AD were on the floor together in the beginning of the year.

They couldn't play together. That's why Olander got so many more minutes. He was the only 4 that could stretch the floor/play at the elbow/take that 15 ft jumper. He actually played well for a stretch but it didn't hold up in BE play.

It's not like there was some personal vendetta against AO but with Drummond seeing the minutes he was you needed another option other than Alex so you didn't have 2 bigs who couldn't pass/shoot clogging the paint, esp against mid majors who often have those stretch 4 players and smaller lineups.

 

[Dogbreath2U]

I trust Coach also, I wouldn't want any other coach. I hope he coaches til he's 80! I'm just throwing out there that it's possible for him to read a kid wrong. That's all. Maybe there should be a good phsycologist on staff to get a better read on these kids. As a parent with kids, you learn that each kid is different and you adjust your parenting style to better fit each kid. An extreme example of that would be ....My oldest has Aspergers, and if I were to parent him like I do my other kid it wouldn't work, it'd break his spirit and destroy him. Just saying that each kid needs different things and as a parent or coach you need to see that and not force a kid to conform or you face the risk of losing them.

I suspect that a big part of JC's success had been the degree that he pushes many players beyond their comfort zones and challenges them to go beyond what they think they can do. The way he does this often goes beyond my comfort zone, but he seems to be able to connect with so many it appears that they are able to see the care with the screaming and spittle. I also found myself feeling that he was kind of out of whack with his choices this year in this regard, specifically the way he went off like a crazy person on Giffey and seemed to never confront Andre for any reason despite no shortage of bad decisions.

The issue with Alex and Roscoe is another place where looking back, it looks like a bad decision to have benched them both in favor of newer, more highly rated players early in the year. It's impossible to make a judgement when you don't see them in practice. There is a reasonable standard that the best players should play whenever they joined the program, but it seemed like AD and DD were given the slots based on their apparent ability (apparent because neither one turned out to be as developed as expected). I wonder if JC being out the way he was also prevented him from being able to help some of them get through the difficulties (the putting them back together part after breaking them down part). I would also have to guess that JC's back pain was probably with him for some times and did not just start up prior to his medical leave of absence. Chronic pain might have made it hard for him to be at his very best as well (but who knows).

Sometimes things come together and sometimes they just don't.

 

[Lefty2one]

I don't have any problem, even with hindsight, on JC's coaching early in the season. We don't know what happened behind the scenes, if JC felt that AO or RS weren't putting in enough work, playing hard enough, etc. JC knew that we'd sorely miss Kemba's leadership and he was going to do his best to prevent the team from being complacent. Even the returning starters from the Nat'l Title team weren't guaranteed anything. It's the UConn way, you have to earn what you get day-in and day-out. Neither RS or AO did enough on the floor early on, or hell - all season, to be guaranteed minutes.

I think it was a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. If AO was playing 30 minutes a night along side Drummond we wouldn't have won more games or seen much more production from AO. They didn't mesh together because they're nearly identical players, Drummond is just a bigger, stronger and more athletic version of AO. They gave us the same things, though again, Drummond did all of it better. Neither is skilled, could create their own offense, both were decent rebounders and shot-blockers, neither was all that tough or physically imposing.

The final 8 games of this year AO was playing 25 mpg and didn't score double-digits a single time and only had more than five rebounds once. Even with the PT he wasn't producing. We gave him four post touches early on against ISU and got absolutely nothing out of it (I think Drummond may have gotten fouled on one offensive board, can't remember). He was given plenty of opportunities and didn't produce, I don't put any of that on JC.

 

[caw]

I don't have any problem, even with hindsight, on JC's coaching early in the season. We don't know what happened behind the scenes, if JC felt that AO or RS weren't putting in enough work, playing hard enough, etc. JC knew that we'd sorely miss Kemba's leadership and he was going to do his best to prevent the team from being complacent. Even the returning starters from the Nat'l Title team weren't guaranteed anything. It's the UConn way, you have to earn what you get day-in and day-out. Neither RS or AO did enough on the floor early on, or hell - all season, to be guaranteed minutes.

I think it was a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. If AO was playing 30 minutes a night along side Drummond we wouldn't have won more games or seen much more production from AO. They didn't mesh together because they're nearly identical players, Drummond is just a bigger, stronger and more athletic version of AO. They gave us the same things, though again, Drummond did all of it better. Neither is skilled, could create their own offense, both were decent rebounders and shot-blockers, neither was all that tough or physically imposing.

The final 8 games of this year AO was playing 25 mpg and didn't score double-digits a single time and only had more than five rebounds once. Even with the PT he wasn't producing. We gave him four post touches early on against ISU and got absolutely nothing out of it (I think Drummond may have gotten fouled on one offensive board, can't remember). He was given plenty of opportunities and didn't produce, I don't put any of that on JC.

I think he scored when Boatright got the rebound off his miss and fed him for a dunk.

 

[Lefty2one]

Sounds about right for his offense, a guard creating the look and AO finishing.

 

[James]

AO never clicked because the introduction of Drummond. JC was in a wierd position. Here you have this elite prospect, who he probably knew had A LOT OF WORK to do, but still had apparent talent, basically fall into your arms. you can hate on drummond all you want, but his numbers as a frosh were still freaking impressive. I look forward to next year, that is if we can play in the tourney, and AD comes back. We could start Tyler at the 4 and have a Gasol/bynum looking front court. Tyler is gonna be great with time.

 

[GlastonTim]

AO never clicked because the introduction of Drummond. JC was in a wierd position. Here you have this elite prospect, who he probably knew had A LOT OF WORK to do, but still had apparent talent, basically fall into your arms. you can hate on drummond all you want, but his numbers as a frosh were still freaking impressive. I look forward to next year, that is if we can play in the tourney, and AD comes back. We could start Tyler at the 4 and have a Gasol/bynum looking front court. Tyler is gonna be great with time.

Who's hating on Drummond?

 

[James]

People on this forum were very delusional at parts during the year. Thinking AD would be as polished as an Anthony Davis. Expecting wild production.

 

[GlastonTim]

We all did expect more with all the hype. If he can develop a jump hook with either hand, he'll be unstoppable.

 

[Danzz]

I cannot disagree with that.

I think the early experimenting with Olander was a mistake.

Alex's production dropped from 9.6 points and 8.7 rebounds to 6.7 points and 4.8 rebounds. His minutes dropped from 29 minutes to just under 22. Roscoe dropped from 6.3 points and 5.2 rebounds in 25 minutes to 4.4 points and 3.4 rebounds in 18 minutes. Tyler received about nine more minutes per game and really did not have enough production to warrant it. His shooting percentage is low and he was not a particularly effective rebounder or defender - worse, his preferred 10-12' jump shot took a big body away from the basket.

I would have liked to have seen JC show more patience with both players early. AO was moved to a different position and even Roscoe had to adjust to having Drummond on the floor - the answer to that was probably more minutes and more patience.

No one's perfect - there's even a chance that I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Drummond in the lineup created problems along with Boatright. Overall Drummond hurt this team more than he helped and that isn't a knock on Drummond. He just caused too many changes and when those players couldn't effectively adjust they got benched.
We weren't going anywhere unless Alex and Roscoe returned close to form and they never did. It wasn't like we ever played great with Drummond starting so why didn't JC try to go back to the championship lineup minus Kemba? Drummond, Boatright and Olander could have come off the bench. I said this for most of the season so it really isn't 20/20.
Next year should be interesting with Alex and probably Lamb gone. Hopefully Omar Calhoun doesn't change his mind and Daniels develops.We could be a really quick team next year.