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

[ctchamps]

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

It was a conscious decision on his part. He was the leader of the anti Dyson faction in this forum and had a huge following of supporters. He continued it for years following Dyson's departure, initially took heat from BigErn primarily but as time went on a lot of posters hit him for his stance.

When that happened he changed his style of posting including speaking in this third person manner. It was a smart way of deflecting the resentment he generated over Dyson. It made the Chief statements and BigErn comebacks some of the funniest things in this forum. Like it or not this persona is preferable to the past. Still think he needs to tone down opinion as expressed as fact. But his style doesn't bother me in the least.

 

[ctchamps]

this is like a soap opera

Good to know you can express yourself religiously KO!

 

[Chief00]

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.

That's not what I said. Just that it makes divorce harder when you struggle with your personnel failings against that standard and the result is often withdrawing from some long term relationships.

 

[pj]

What couple survives 13 years of the NBA then fails? It is amazing.

She may have expected that after the NBA travel ended he'd be home with her and found that didn't happen with college recruiting. She had a reduced financial incentive to stay every year as their wealth rose relative to his earnings. It was a selfish and loveless move no doubt, but it's not too surprising that a selfish person might prefer to be rich and free to play around to being rich at home alone.

 

[ctchamps]

That's not what I said. Just that it makes divorce harder when you struggle with your personnel failings against that standard and the result is often withdrawing from some long term relationships.

He's referring to this statement you made:

I told KO a few years ago in a joking way - to tone down all this open public religious stuff - cuz people will hold you to that standard. I always thought that assistant football coach from ND got screwed at UConn in his first few months by making a comment about Jesus - that was probably fine in his former job but wasn't tolerated here for better or worse, while KO was held to a different standard. He did not disagree. And I do think KO has pulled back some - but while he may feel it's something he aspires to each day and uses it as a goal - many in the public hold him to that standard because of the image he built. I think that all makes it harder to let other people in.

 

[JMick]

That's not what I said. Just that it makes divorce harder when you struggle with your personnel failings against that standard and the result is often withdrawing from some long term relationships.

TL;DR Ollie holds himself to high expectations both publicly and privately so the divorce embarrassed him to himself and his friends causing him to just drift away from people? Am I getting that right?

 

[ctchamps]

this is like a soap opera

The soap opera began with the op emphasizing something and the next two or three posts conjecturing about it.

There are very few threads that are not soap operas imo. But this soap opera is salient to everything. Some people have expressed overtly or cryptically that the exodus was the result of KO's personality. I don't buy into this but since gossip is allowed to go on in this forum, I'm trying to push the point to determine how much of this is factual or not.

 

[hoopsknowitall]

Chief had reported the Calhoun relationship non-communication some time ago and several other criticisms were valid including the Coach in the lockerroom vs the presser.
Having said that, its not very becoming the focus of Glen Miller and his buddies. At this point, he should be focus on finding a job rather than backstabbing his former boss, which makes the former more difficult because what coach wants to hire a back stabbing assistant?
Glen failed as a Bigs coach - don't blame KO on that. The gimmick zones poor execution - that's on Glen as well. He also had some well documented recruiting failures. If anything KO gave Miller too much recruiting autonomy and he wasn't up to the task.

True, though KO needs to break out of his funk.

Chiefs deep insight into Ollie's mind sight reminds me of someone just can't put my finger on who....

 

[NielsisGood]

It was a conscious decision on his part. He was the leader of the anti Dyson faction in this forum and had a huge following of supporters. He continued it for years following Dyson's departure, initially took heat from BigErn primarily but as time went on a lot of posters hit him for his stance.

When that happened he changed his style of posting including speaking in this third person manner. It was a smart way of deflecting the resentment he generated over Dyson. It made the Chief statements and BigErn comebacks some of the funniest things in this forum. Like it or not this persona is preferable to the past. Still think he needs to tone down opinion as expressed as fact. But his style doesn't bother me in the least.

You know you spend too much time on these forums when you can recite an oral history of a message board feud.

 

[Fishy]

It was a conscious decision on his part. He was the leader of the anti Dyson faction in this forum and had a huge following of supporters. He continued it for years following Dyson's departure, initially took heat from BigErn primarily but as time went on a lot of posters hit him for his stance.

When that happened he changed his style of posting including speaking in this third person manner. It was a smart way of deflecting the resentment he generated over Dyson. It made the Chief statements and BigErn comebacks some of the funniest things in this forum. Like it or not this persona is preferable to the past. Still think he needs to tone down opinion as expressed as fact. But his style doesn't bother me in the least.

This is the strangest thing I have read here in a very long time.

 

[Danzz]

He was saying he changed what they wanted to do offensively when Giffey started hitting the 3 his senior year. Giffey shot up like 15-17% from 3 in the one off season.

　"My philosophy on the offensive end, I want flexible basketball players. I want versatile basketball players. I want basketball players that have great basketball IQs. Everybody gets caught up in the system, the system, the system. I'm a coach, 'Make me change my system.' For instance, Niels Giffey. I didn't know he was going to come back and be this prolific three-point shooter. I didn't have that in my system. We were pick-and-pop DeAndre [Daniels]. He came back and I adjusted my system to the development of my players. I'm not this guy who is just in this rigid system. This is how I got to be. I think the greatest coaches are the ones who are able to make adjustments to their personnel. I played big mostly the whole year with Kentan Facey and Amida Brimah."

Giffey was pretty much one dimensional until the last half of his senior year then all of a sudden we saw a different player who could rebound, play good D and of course hit 3's. Either Giffey figured it out on his own or he got some really good coaching but we don't win a national championship without his improved play.

 

[Banta55]

I've said this on here before ,Kevin has changed because of his divorce and will continue to do things his way without much regard of the outcome..He feels that the only one he can trust is himself, the only way he will see things differently is with professional help....I hope I'm wrong but this isn't going to end well.

 

[Dove]

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.

The quote I cited seemed to be from Jacobs' readers digest column. Someone later afded the whole quote that made your point correct.

 

[superjohn]

She may have expected that after the NBA travel ended he'd be home with her and found that didn't happen with college recruiting. She had a reduced financial incentive to stay every year as their wealth rose relative to his earnings. It was a selfish and loveless move no doubt, but it's not too surprising that a selfish person might prefer to be rich and free to play around to being rich at home alone.

What???

 

[Stainmaster]

Am I the only one who finds it a little sick how in-depth posters here are going in hashing out the details of Kevin Ollie's divorce and psychoanalyzing his mental state?

 

[Robertelamin]

Am I the only one who finds it a little sick how in-depth posters here are going in hashing out the details of Kevin Ollie's divorce and psychoanalyzing his mental state?

No, you're not the only one.

 

[Tenspro2002]

I don't know if this means anything, but I found very interesting the juxtaposition that was pointed out between KO's NBA career where he had to scrap and fight for every opportunity, vs. his head coaching career where he was anointed the position without doing much to earn it and in any objective sense was badly underqualified.

 

[JMick]

Am I the only one who finds it a little sick how in-depth posters here are going in hashing out the details of Kevin Ollie's divorce and psychoanalyzing his mental state?

people want to know why we haven't been very good. they will draw their own conclusions and articles coming out about him being distant and distrusting do not help. I think many are hoping that the divorce is why we haven't been very good because they think he can just "get over it" and get us back to winning championships. It's easier to blame it all on the divorce than it is to consider a multitude of possibilities.

Personally, I think the divorce definitely has something to do with it, but you can't attribute all of the blame towards it. I don't think we need to have a group therapy session to determine the why's and how's it has effected him and the program.

 

[ctchamps]

You know you spend too much time on these forums when you can recite an oral history of a message board feud.

You think!

 

[UConn990411]

Am I the only one who finds it a little sick how in-depth posters here are going in hashing out the details of Kevin Ollie's divorce and psychoanalyzing his mental state?

It's one thing to privately wonder if the divorce has had an impact, but the armchair therapists really need to tone it down with their analyses.

 

[ctchamps]

This is the strangest thing I have read here in a very long time.

Almost as strange as the angry post you directed towards me two nights ago but chose to remove.

 

[JMick]

Almost as strange as the angry post you directed towards me two nights ago but chose to remove.

oh no. the infighting has moved on from the basketball team to the boneyard moderator team. we really are in a bad place

 

[Chief00]

She may have expected that after the NBA travel ended he'd be home with her and found that didn't happen with college recruiting. She had a reduced financial incentive to stay every year as their wealth rose relative to his earnings. It was a selfish and loveless move no doubt, but it's not too surprising that a selfish person might prefer to be rich and free to play around to being rich at home alone.

I wouldn't blame his wife or assume it was a calculating plan. Wealth can also bring ego which can lead to bad things. Divorce can be complicated and no one should judge from a far. Emotions not calculations can ignite divorce, the calculations come later.

 

[Doctor Hoop]

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.

Some of this "lack of 10 toes in" by recent players may be due to the presentation during recruiting. You can't promise playing time, or shots, or NBA probability. All of that comes from hard work. As I recall, Calhoun's approach was geared toward getting high-character, resilient sons-of-b*$ by telling them about how playing in the BE would challenge them to better themselves and prove it against great competition, and by telling them that they would earn PT with effort and attention to detail as much as ability. Part of the problem is that the top 150 recruiting lists are chock full of guys that have had it handed to them on a platter based on ability. Ollie (and Chillious) need to identify guys that fit the high-character, resilient mold who are willing to work hard to earn their time and laurels, and sell them on UConn history, his NBA career and credibility, and NCAA tournaments. And it's been tough to sell the AAC and NCAA tournament widgets, particularly lately.

 

[Fishy]

No, the problem is that kids are being told to put ten toes in by people who are keeping some of their own toes out.