Kevin Ollie Benchmarks Year One:

[Husky Dad]

1. Recruiting- If he brings in team that wants to play for him and his staff hard to think he can get replaced unless he messes up elsewhere
2. Showing he can manage overall program
3.Leadership making sure team and program stay clean
4. ??

 

[CL82]

1. Recruiting- If he brings in team that wants to play for him and his staff hard to think he can get replaced unless he messes up elsewhere
2. Showing he can manage overall program
3.Leadership making sure team and program stay clean
4. ??

Game management.

 

[uconnfan68]

1. Recruiting- If he brings in team that wants to play for him and his staff hard to think he can get replaced unless he messes up elsewhere
2. Showing he can manage overall program
3.Leadership making sure team and program stay clean
4. ??

I think 1-3 are a given. I think what people want to see is game management, and how it improves over the year. If he's on the right path we'll be OK.

 

[huskymedic]

1. Recruiting- If he brings in team that wants to play for him and his staff hard to think he can get replaced unless he messes up elsewhere
2. Showing he can manage overall program
3.Leadership making sure team and program stay clean
4. ??

Focus on academics... (at least walk the walk).

 

[hungry husky]

Will recruits be scared off the fact he is guaranteed only 1 year? Is it not the same situation recruits were going through with Calhoun and Ollie. It's a really sticky situation for Ollie.

 

[ctchamps]

I think 1-3 are a given. I think what people want to see is game management, and how it improves over the year. If he's on the right path we'll be OK.

I agree with this. One caveat is that recruiting expectations should have a footnote given KO has only a one year contract. It is hard for any of us to assess the impact this contract has on recruiting. Jay Bilas thought it was a big mistake.

 

[Kitaman]

4. Take leadership and control of the team
5. Gain respect from his staff
6. Be himself

 

[TheChamps990411]

RECRUITING! RECRUITING! RECRUITING! if he signs a highly rated class and the team finishes above .500 in the conference and overall he will be back. i agree that he should have gotten a 2 year contract but i think ko thrives on this type of situation and he will succeed. i have no doubt.

 

[UCweCONN]

Use his LA roots to pull in some top West Coast talent. New York is great but Cali has ballers too.

 

[imno1]

I don't think recruiting will be that big a factor in evaluating KO. He's proven he can do a good job there. Nor do I think he will be judged too harshly on wins and losses especially if SN continues to have foot issues. Hopefully Warde just wants to make sure he is not in over his head.
Thankfully Calhoun did not retire last year as the results would have be blamed on Ollie and he would probably would be shown the door.

On a separate note and maybe this has been discussed in other threads but did anyone else feel KO was sticking it to AO and RS as he repeatedly brought up loyalty in his speech

 

[upstater]

1. Recruiting- If he brings in team that wants to play for him and his staff hard to think he can get replaced unless he messes up elsewhere
2. Showing he can manage overall program
3.Leadership making sure team and program stay clean
4. ??

Boy, recruits will be dying to come to UConn. Let's keep #1 a secret, shall we?

 

[upstater]

RECRUITING! RECRUITING! RECRUITING! if he signs a highly rated class and the team finishes above .500 in the conference and overall he will be back. i agree that he should have gotten a 2 year contract but i think ko thrives on this type of situation and he will succeed. i have no doubt.

Let me get this straight, however. Ollie is supposed to accomplish what Calhoun couldn't in the last 3 years? Above .500 in conference play?

And what are all these recruits going to think when UConn is sub .500, and people are whispering in their ears about Manuel giving Ollie the hatchet?

 

[freescooter]

I think we're stuck with Ollie for at least 3 years. This year is a washout and will be very difficult to evaluate. We need to be back in the NCAA tournament by 2015, though. That is the sole benchmark that counts for anything...

 

[RS9999X]

Handle the press and project charisma.
No Bruiser Flint at UMass imitators needed.

 

[Dogdeacon]

Given that plenty folks on this board have been critics of Jim Calhoun I think we are in for a lot of angst.

Heck even Fishy was critical of JC due to the annual "I may retire" gag. Arguably he did that on purpose last year so that he could do it again this year. I.e. people would believe he really might come back but his intention all along was to turn the reigns over to Ollie just as soon as he could guarantee doing so without an interim tag. Arguably. Certainly not 100% of why it played out the way it did these last years but setting it up that way was a foreseeable side-benefit of the non-committal plan.

 

[junglehusky]

I don't think recruiting will be that big a factor in evaluating KO. He's proven he can do a good job there. Nor do I think he will be judged too harshly on wins and losses especially if SN continues to have foot issues. Hopefully Warde just wants to make sure he is not in over his head.

I think this is correct. I'm guessing WM wants to give himself an out if KO isn't ready for prime time, but that KO doesn't need to blow the doors off in terms of wins or recruiting but show he can be a HC and represent the University. KO knows what he has to do , it's not about chasing wins at any cost or anything like that.

 

[Dogbreath2U]

I think that he will need to show that he can be "The Boss," including verbally kicking some ass at times. He will certainly need to do it in his own style and not try to be JC2 or anyone else. When I look at the top coaches, they tend to have an intensely competitive nature that shows that they are running the show and are not going to take any crap from a hotshot recruit, an opponent, or a referee. My concern about KO is that he may be too nice and not expressive enough. I will be mostly glad to not watch JC publicly lambasting our players in front of the whole country any longer (the only thing I won't miss), but KO will need to be able to create the fire and intensity that young players can draw from when the going gets rough. Maybe Kevin can do it in an entirely different way than JC, but he has to be able to have a will to win and excel that projects outside himself and demands the best from all involved.

 

[Chief00]

Not impressed with Manuel. With the tough scehdule and rebuilding team extending KO's contract will be at Manuel's whim since it willnot be s strong season record wise - and everything else is arbitrary.

 

[PhilG]

Another positive Kevin "sells" is that (I believe) he actually graduated from college and still got his 13 years in the NBA.

 

[tzznandrew]

Everyone seems to think that recruiting is the only thing that matters. Listen, there is only one coach in the country who isn't a good game coach but is a killer recruiter (and wins): Roy Williams. And he was at Kansas and UNC, where he pulled in the best recruits.

Calipari is a fantastic recruiter and a good (not great) game coach.
Bill Self is a great recruiter and also a good game coach (better than Cal? probably).
Jim Boeheim is a very good recruiter and a good game coach.

Other than Roy Williams--who has a system, and gets the best talent out there--all the other coaches who are fantastic recruiters and sub-par game coaches would be the type of coach we would want to run out of town.

Think: Lavin at UCLA (he may have gotten better in the interim, so we'll see at St. John's)
Think: Barnes at Texas
Think: Drew at Baylor

So I'm looking to see not just how hard they play (very important), but how he's able to manage game situations. We went from someone who was rarely ever outcoached to someone who has never drawn up plays or managed a game. I know KO keeps talking about how he should be judged on how he transforms players into men with character--and explicitly not on Xs and Os. That's an admirable goal. But I don't think that excludes wins. See Jim Calhoun. And Xs and Os are part of it.

I think his team will buy in. I'm not looking for that unless they inexplicably don't (they won't).
I think he can recruit. He's proven that. I think if he doesn't, it's the contract situation.
A good coach turns a toss up (in terms of talent), in a 60% chance of winning, and often wins the games where the more talented team is coached by someone else. Calhoun could beat you with his guys, and then switch teams and win again. That's a high bar; a bar Ollie doesn't have to hit year one. But this is the problem with this hire. UConn is one of the best 10 jobs in the country. There definitely are better, more proven coaches out there. Ollie needs to be able to justify his coaching ability with more than inspirational preacher speak.

I think he can do it. But that's what I'm looking for.

 

[CL82]

Let me get this straight, however. Ollie is supposed to accomplish what Calhoun couldn't in the last 3 years? Above .500 in conference play?

Good point. I'd be willing to substitute a national championship for a winning conference record, but that just me.

 

[warbler1055]

WINNING !!!!! And he will OK. 1-3 are given.

 

[johnhuskies95]

Here's what I want to see:

1. Better defense of the three point shot. This has killed us over the years. JC came from the Dean Smith school of coaching where you play the "percentages", but clearly the game has changed where you have to defend the three well.

2. More boxing out. We struggled with this last year a lot. For the great rebounders, like Barkley and Rodman, it actually makes more sense to not box out and just go for the ball, but there aren't any Rodman's or Barkley's on this team.

3. More ball movement on offense. We probably won't see a lot of this in year one, because we're going to rely on the two guards so much. But still, I want to see more moment on offense.

4. Consistent effort. The 2010-2011 team showed that if you play hard, win the turnover battle, and hit free throws, you can keep yourself in games and win a lot of them. This team doesn't have a Kemba Walker, but they still have enough talent to compete night in and night out.

 

[Go_Huskies]

Game management.

Game management is the only question mark. He has proven he is a hard worker, that he will be prepared, that he can motivate, that he is leader, and that he can recruit. If he can coach a game we got ourselves a great coach.

 

[dapriest]

Nor do I think he will be judged too harshly on wins and losses especially if SN continues to have foot issues . . . .
Thankfully Calhoun did not retire last year as the results would have be blamed on Ollie and he would probably would be shown the door.

1. I disagree wholly. He will be judged harshly on wins and losses. If he has a sub-500 year, or finished in the bottom third of the conference, I think he's a sure goner. The fact that he only got a 7 month contract tells you that the AD has him on a very short leash. To conclude that he's going to survive a very poor season is wonderfully optimistic. He needs to win and win now.

2. Regarding results blamed on Ollie - I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, if Ollie was coach, we would have done better.