Jeff Jacobs: Ollie Will Fight, But Can He Get Better Leading Program?

[ctchamps]

Chief,

From my own experience playing and being around Ball players and coaches, all smart coaches take care of their X players, their is no downside only upside so to say we are not sure if KO is doing that it is silly.

KO wasn't even Kevin Durant's coach and KD still talks about him playing an important role in his development and OKC winning habits.

My true belief is....

No matter if KO is the coach at UConn or somewhere else KO will be successful, as a UConn fan I hope he stays for the next 20 years, our program will be in great hands.

Remember he already brought us a national championship.

Absolutely. People cringe thinking about Juwan, Steve, and Vance going somewhere else and doing well. I cringe thinking KO gets fired, our program never recovers and KO does well in some other program.

There is no doubt in my mind KO will succeed as a head coach. I want that to happen at UConn. But if he gets fired, I would bet he gets rehired immediately somewhere else and proves the mistake of that decision.

 

[Chief00]

Well that's a tangent that I didn't see coming. Leave it to you to point out that people have reigned him in on his public religious statements is behind the funk. I give you credit for an incredible imagination. I'm sure people here will fine it a welcome relief to know that's the reason for his funk as opposed to the divorce.

The two are very much interwoven. How can I explain this better? It's a subject which inherently walks on thin ice. I think when you built this public religious image - which I think was never his intent but what he did. Then you get publicly judge by it. I believe his faith is what he aspires to in life and the Bible teaches you to share it; so that's what he did. Not to be some role model he could not live up to.
But since that's what happened, you struggle more with divorce than the average person. You know what you did right or wrong by those standards and the last thing you want to do is share those results with the World. Since we all have imperfections - how do we learn from those without sharing the process with the World?

 

[Chief00]

Chief,

From my own experience playing and being around Ball players and coaches, all smart coaches take care of their X players, their is no downside only upside so to say we are not sure if KO is doing that it is silly.

KO wasn't even Kevin Durant's coach and KD still talks about him playing an important role in his development and OKC winning habits.

My true belief is....

No matter if KO is the coach at UConn or somewhere else KO will be successful, as a UConn fan I hope he stays for the next 20 years, our program will be in great hands.

Remember he already brought us a national championship.

I did not mean that as a criticism but rather it's too early to see how those work out. True, most coaches have relationships with ex players but if you went to Coach Calhoun's HOF induction - you would have noticed his number of ex players in attendance vs Boheim's. .

 

[ctchamps]

The two are very much interwoven. How can I explain this better? It's a subject which inherently walks on thin ice. I think when you built this public religious image - which I think was never his intent but what he did. Then you get publicly judge by it. I believe his faith is what he aspires to in life and the Bible teaches you to share it; so that's what he did. Not to be some role model he could not live up to.
But since that's what happened, you struggle more with divorce than the average person. You know what you did right or wrong by those standards and the last thing you want to do is share those results with the World. Since we all have imperfections - how do we learn from those without sharing the process with the World?

Chief, I totally understand the value his religious upbringing has in his life and the importance of expressing it.

Not everybody can adjust to being silenced over this. But I know people who have made the adjustment. I guess I find it difficult believing KO can't handle that adjustment. If he did, he should have moved on.

 

[pj]

"Everybody gets caught up in the system, the system, the system,'" Ollie said, pointing to Niels Giffey as a player he adjusted to. "I'm not this guy who is just in this rigid system."

I read it differently. Neils was a rigid player that KO adjusted to dealing with.

Niels defended the 3, 4, and 5 at various times, all capably. He rebounded effectively. He was a very flexible defensive player. On offense, he was a spot-up shooter, but that inflexibility was not a problem when you had Bazz and Boat in the backcourt. I don't see that Niels was a rigid player, certainly not rigid like Vance Jackson who couldn't defend anything and demanded to play the 3 and get shots.

I think KO just means that he adjusted his offense and defense to the capabilities of the players he had, e.g. slowing the game down to compensate for lack of rebounding by Amida and Deandre or lack of footspeed by Niels. There's no one system, in other words, there is a flexible repertoire of approaches and the best approach for his group of players is what KO will choose. He is rebelling against having a single "system" that everyone has to fit into.

 

[Chief00]

Chief, I totally understand the value his religious upbringing has in his life and the importance of expressing it.

Not everybody can adjust to being silenced over this. But I know people who have made the adjustment. I guess I find it difficult believing KO can't handle that adjustment. If he did, he should have moved on.

My friend, I am still failing at expressing this clearly. When you create these high public standards - it becomes more difficult to go through a divorce where all your failings compared to your personal expectations of yourself collide.

 

[CTBasketball]

I'm convinced Jacobs reads and actively posts on here. Which one of you clowns is Jacobs.

 

[ctchamps]

Niels defended the 3, 4, and 5 at various times, all capably. He rebounded effectively. He was a very flexible defensive player. On offense, he was a spot-up shooter, but that inflexibility was not a problem when you had Bazz and Boat in the backcourt. I don't see that Niels was a rigid player, certainly not rigid like Vance Jackson who couldn't defend anything and demanded to play the 3 and get shots.

I think KO just means that he adjusted his offense and defense to the capabilities of the players he had, e.g. slowing the game down to compensate for lack of rebounding by Amida and Deandre or lack of footspeed by Niels. There's no one system, in other words, there is a flexible repertoire of approaches and the best approach for his group of players is what KO will choose. He is rebelling against having a single "system" that everyone has to fit into.

Exactly. The evidence is there he's made adjustments given the personnel he's had and the capabilities of his players.

I saw in one of the threads someone insisted KO couldn't get his players to get an inbound pass successfully. That game certainly existed and it was a costly error, but it didn't happen after that possession. Same with the arguments people made earlier that KO wasn't successful drawing up plays after time outs until someone pulled up a statistic showing KO to be one of the most successful coaches after a time out.

 

[ctchamps]

I'm convinced Jacobs reads and actively posts on here. Which one of you clowns is Jacobs.

I thought it was you!

 

[Chief00]

Niels defended the 3, 4, and 5 at various times, all capably. He rebounded effectively. He was a very flexible defensive player. On offense, he was a spot-up shooter, but that inflexibility was not a problem when you had Bazz and Boat in the backcourt. I don't see that Niels was a rigid player, certainly not rigid like Vance Jackson who couldn't defend anything and demanded to play the 3 and get shots.

I think KO just means that he adjusted his offense and defense to the capabilities of the players he had, e.g. slowing the game down to compensate for lack of rebounding by Amida and Deandre or lack of footspeed by Niels. There's no one system, in other words, there is a flexible repertoire of approaches and the best approach for his group of players is what KO will choose. He is rebelling against having a single "system" that everyone has to fit into.

Let's be frank, lots of people say Niel's was slow because he was white. But, he actually was one of the faster guys on the team but not one of the quickest.

 

[CTBasketball]

I thought it was you!

I'm unsure if that is a compliment or an insult. But the short answer is no!

 

[ctchamps]

My friend, I am still failing at expressing this clearly. When you create these high public standards - it becomes more difficult to go through a divorce where all your failings compared to your personal expectations of yourself collide.

OK! This makes sense. Divorces are rarely easy. But if someone puts pressure on themselves to be a public model, when that image is perceived to be destroyed, the impacts are greater for those who have put more pressure on themselves to maintain that image.

It's the bigger you are the harder the fall concept. Except in this situation it's about the importance of living up to a standard as opposed to power or money. My wife who's extremely intuitive has felt that from the get go, KO was blindsided by the divorce and is struggling to get past it. It's why I have been concerned more about KO and how he's handling people than all the rest of the things people are pointing out in these threads.

 

[ctchamps]

I'm unsure if that is a compliment or an insult. But the short answer is no!

Just a joke. Jeff actually came to the forum using his own name. I hit him hard on his write ups over certain things and he took the time to respond to me. Didn't change my opinion about his conclusions, but it was a class act to take the time and reply to me.

 

[dennismenace]

Here's the key to KO's career:

Last month, Rodney Purvis tweeted out about "fake love." So did Jackson. It stemmed from a lyric by Drake, and while it was unclear if it was directed at Ollie, the term took on a life of its own among some fans and some around the program. ... I'm not buying for a minute that Ollie is a phony. Nevertheless, Ollie has to close out any notion of this with his players.

If KO truly loves his players and they are conscious of it, then no matter how tough and demanding a coach he is, they will love him back and everything will work. If they think he doesn't love them, then a demanding coach becomes tiresome, the players will get demoralized and look elsewhere. Ollie needs to make sure his actions live out his beliefs.

I think we have a great coach here, I really do. I'm looking forward to KO proving all the doubters here wrong.

I think we have a great coach as well. I think his motivation for his leadership is very high as well. When you say "If they think he doesn't love them, then a demanding coach becomes tiresome, the players will get demoralized and look elsewhere. Ollie needs to make sure his actions live out his beliefs" it presupposes that his players are "10 toes in as well". I suspect that the failure lies, for the most part, in the players who left not living up to their end of the bargain. I think Calhoun also got across his "love" message as a "tough love message" from the get go. I recall sometime ago reading about a player who comforted a teammate after an epic rant by JC as "don't take it personally, he does that because he just really wants you to do well". In the military, the leaders will tell you take everything they say about training as extremely important because your life and the life of your brothers depends on it. And they take their responsibility very seriously. They've been there and seen it in action. They will say that "I can use positive motivation or negative motivation but in the end I am going to get my way". You have to buy into that in your head in order to put your heart into it. It is not about "feelings." A mother gets up in the middle of the night to feed a hungry baby even though she doesn't "feel" like it. Running away from a demanding situation is not going to make someone in a better position necessarily. To each his own. Choices have consequences.
I think we are back on track and I think over the years KO has more than proved his resiliency. I am looking forward to the coming years because I think there is a unity in vision among the AD, Coach and assistants.

 

[Chief00]

How can someone who lives on this board and seems to be involved in every thread and mentioned by every other poster have as low a like to post ratio as Chief?

Quite frankly, many things I say are not popular and get shot down by conventional wisdom at the time - but then they happened. .. but people don't go back and like my old posts predicting what will happen. But, seriously it's never been a metric I care about. I like the exchange of ideas, opinions and information. It may be a surprise to the casual fan but Chief learns a lot reading this forum.

 

[aceboon]

"Everybody gets caught up in the system, the system, the system,'" Ollie said, pointing to Niels Giffey as a player he adjusted to. "I'm not this guy who is just in this rigid system."

I read it differently. Neils was a rigid player that KO adjusted to dealing with.

You read it that way because you wanted to read it that way, the reference to Giffey was already addressed in the Amore article.

 

[CTBasketball]

Just a joke. Jeff actually came to the forum using his own name. I hit him hard on his write ups over certain things and he took the time to respond to me. Didn't change my opinion about his conclusions, but it was a class act to take the time and reply to me.

Gotta respect that.

 

[Chief00]

OK! This makes sense. Divorces are rarely easy. But if someone puts pressure on themselves to be a public model, when that image is perceived to be destroyed, the impacts are greater for those who have put more pressure on themselves to maintain that image.

It's the bigger you are the harder the fall concept. Except in this situation it's about the importance of living up to a standard as opposed to power or money. My wife who's extremely intuitive has felt that from the get go, KO was blindsided by the divorce and is struggling to get past it. It's why I have been concerned more about KO and how he's handling people than all the rest of the things people are pointing out in these threads.

Your wife is smarter than you or I. What couple survives 13 years of the NBA then fails? It is amazing.
Again I don't think KO consciously created this image - it just happened with him openly sharing his faith.

 

[David 76]

I think Dove's "wink, wink" was the most offensive thing on this thread.

 

[David 76]

So, if I am following, Ollie was off to a great start then Chief told him to turn down his religiosity. This set off changes where Ollie was hiding his true self, leading to the downfall of the UConn dynasty.

Thanks Chief.

 

[ctchamps]

Your wife is smarter than you or I. What couple survives 13 years of the NBA then fails? It is amazing.
Again I don't think KO consciously created this image - it just happened with him openly sharing his faith.

Probably the decision to bring KO's mom to CT, whose health was failing, had a lot of impact. No matter what the cause, I subscribe to the position that the impact had to be tough for KO. And is it a coincidence that he has a deja vu this postseason - that is getting blind sided by players he thought would stay leaving?

 

[Chief00]

Besides Chief, there have been other people who have pointed this out on here. If it's true then I'd love to know why.

Complicated and besides you can only have one boss. Calhoun is going to be loyal to his ex players - that's why they all love him. Benedict's guidance is going to be sometimes in conflict with that. I can tell you it's often a no win for KO - while JC is loyal to Miller - my guess is the departure from man to man drive him crazy. That's a culture thing beyond X's and O's - so this season we broke the culture. Injuries etc as JC said in a recent quite are no excuse. It would have been better for Enoch to play through that.

 

[CTBasketball]

Complicated and besides you can only have one boss. Calhoun is going to be loyal to his ex players - that's why they all love him. Benedict's guidance is going to be sometimes in conflict with that. I can tell you it's often a no win for KO - while JC is loyal to Miller - my guess is the departure from man to man drive him crazy. That's a culture thing beyond X's and O's - so this season we broke the culture. Injuries etc as JC said in a recent quite are no excuse. It would have been better for Enoch to play through that.

JC and any UConn basketball fan doesn't care if we play man to man, zone, or a junk defense. As long as we implement it well and we win.

 

[JMick]

this is like a soap opera

 

[huskymedic]

Even on message boards referring to ones self in the third person is pretty funny, in a self absorbed kind of way.

Frankly, you're missing it... "Chief" is "@Chief00's" source.