Kevin Ollie congratulates his alma mater | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Kevin Ollie congratulates his alma mater

If and only If he ever finds in his heart to make good with his mentor and father-like Jim Calhoun…the man handcuffed the university to ensure his succession. until then, he is dead to the program.
 
Listening to JWill this morning, the rest of the country views the KO situation completely different than UConn fans do. He’s one of 3 African American coaches with a national title. In today climate it would behoove the University from a pure prospective standpoint to bury the hatchet and welcome him back into the family publicly. It’s a stain that Hurley and this administration doesn’t deserve
 
whosurdaddy2720 said:
Btw time to update the ol signature huh? ;)
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Absolutely! I think that Tom may have reduced the character limit since I set that up. I may need to ask for a dispensation on that.
 
AntG168 said:
Listening to JWill this morning, the rest of the country views the KO situation completely different than UConn fans do. He’s one of 3 African American coaches with a national title. In today climate it would behoove the University from a pure prospective standpoint to bury the hatchet and welcome him back into the family publicly. It’s a stain that Hurley and this administration doesn’t deserve
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No one cares about Kevin Ollie nationally.

Lol.
 
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Danny should have let Ollie give the Pre-Game speech to the team last night like he allowed Calhoun for the Semi game. We need to be one big, happy family and promote diversity and culture. Its a good look for recruitment. BTW, its a good thing we have 3 Title Coaches, even though we know Calhoun will always be the Architect of the Dynasty.
 
Let's have an alumni Charity event with half of the proceeds going to Cancer Research and the other half going to the UConn NIL foundation. A four team tournament :

-Team of former Calhoun Players
-Team of former Ollie Players
-Team of former Hurley Players
-Team of former Auriemma Players

....could we get a group of 10 former UConn players willing to represent Ollie given the history?!
 
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Kevin Ollie is a part of this program's redemption story, for better or worse. Without the dark days of the final Ollie years, yesterday's win would not taste nearly as sweet. I am happy to see Ollie has moved past his personal agenda, and he should be welcomed back into the Husky brotherhood with open arms.
 
CL82 said:
No, but maybe he can take back the allegations of racism and apologize for smearing our Hall of Fame coach?

In life, choices have consequences. The scorched earth approach of Kevin Ollie’s attorneys is an exempt from that rule. As it turns out, it wasn’t even necessary for him to prevail since the arbitrator effectively crossed out the provision in Kevin always contract that you can relied on to fire him. Kevin decided that $15 million was worth more than his continued affiliation with the school. I respect his decision but it has consequences. Not being a part of celebrations like last night and what’s happening over the next few days or a part of them.
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100%spot on
 
AntG168 said:
Listening to JWill this morning, the rest of the country views the KO situation completely different than UConn fans do. He’s one of 3 African American coaches with a national title. In today climate it would behoove the University from a pure prospective standpoint to bury the hatchet and welcome him back into the family publicly. It’s a stain that Hurley and this administration doesn’t deserve
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The only ones who view it differently are the guys who have personal relationships with Ollie.

Everyone else knows either very little about the situation, or they really know what happened. There’s a reason he hasn’t gotten an actual coaching job since UConn.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Ollie kept UConn at or near the top for several years before the AAC finally started to sink the entire athletic program. Hurley would not have come here if Ollie had not left him something to build on.
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Ollie did keep UConn relevant. I agree that the AAC hurt UConn, but I think the biggest AAC problem was once Ollie blew up the program, the AAC would have hurt UConn's ability to turn around the program after Ollie was fired. Look at Ollie's recruiting classes in 2015 and 2016. Here were the top recruits and their recruiting rankings:

Jalen Adams #24
Steven Enoch #84
Alterique Gilbert #35
Juwan Durham. #50
Vance Jackson #77
Mamadou Diarra. #125
Christian Vital. #166

On paper, the recruiting looked good, yet his records were:

2016/2017: 16-17
2017/2018: 14-18

The problems Ollie had were poor scouting of recruits, injuries (some were previously known), poor development, and he didn't seem to recruit players to have an effective basketball strategy. I'm sure his cutting off Calhoun and his divorce didn't help either.
 
For whatever else went wrong, that 2014 run was a super well-coached team. We beat Martelli, Wright, Hoiberg, Izzo, Donovan and Calipari.

Every game had different coaching tests, St. Joe's had the point forward thing going on, we opened up a lead on Nova with Bazz on the bench in foul trouble, we had to withstand a big-time counter punch from Michigan State when we were down 10 in the second half, Florida took Bazz out the game entirely and looked like they were going to beat us 100-10, and we made adjustments. We looked way better prepared for Kentucky than vice versa and only some foul trouble to Daniels and Boat after we got up 30-15 gave them some life.

Florida threw a 1-3-1 zone at us in the second half and we torched it with three lobs, and then when we got a lead we played with Giffey at center and let Young have his, but we matched them basket for basket. Then the lob worked again against Kentucky in the final in a key spot, and when they ran a double at Bazz on the last possession, we were ready for it and got Kromah to the line. Some of that is Bazz being savvy too, but the only time in that tournament when it felt like we were getting outcoached was at the start of Florida when their gameplan smothered us, and we couldn't do anything. And we won by double digits.

Maybe the assistants did most of that work and KO got lucky, but man, that team was super well coached. It was downhill from there, but I'll always say that title is his. Yeah Bazz and Boat were Calhoun recruits, but he had to take that team over after everyone else bailed and build up over two years with an entirely different system (and no offense to Olander, Nolan, and Brimah, but with a frontcourt that was typically outmatched).
 
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wingsfan055 said:
Danny should have let Ollie give the Pre-Game speech to the team last night like he allowed Calhoun for the Semi game. We need to be one big, happy family and promote diversity and culture. Its a good look for recruitment. BTW, its a good thing we have 3 Title Coaches, even though we know Calhoun will always be the Architect of the Dynasty.
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Worst idea I have ever heard.
 
I‘m pro-healing, but also realize that the kind of damage that was done is not something you instantly cure with a Natty. Last night we reached a big milestone in the healing process. The damage was proved not to be irreparable and KO’s expression shows the kinship is still there. There is still a long road ahead and actions warranted on both sides to complete the healing but I‘m a lot more hopeful about it today than I was before.
 
Will always be grateful for every Ollie has done for this program and he does deserve more credit for that national championship which was a 2 year plan.

As far as having a relationship with Hurley, I could see it but it would just be awkward. It would be like having a friendship with somebody who married your ex wife..
 
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Gurleyman said:
For whatever else went wrong, that 2014 run was a super well-coached team. We beat Martelli, Wright, Hoiberg, Izzo, Donovan and Calipari.

Every game had different coaching tests, St. Joe's had the point forward thing going on, we opened up a lead on Nova with Bazz on the bench in foul trouble, we had to withstand a big-time counter punch from Michigan State when we were down 10 in the second half, Florida took Bazz out the game entirely and looked like they were going to beat us 100-10, and we made adjustments. We looked way better prepared for Kentucky than vice versa and only some foul trouble to Daniels and Boat after we got up 30-15 gave them some life.

Florida threw a 1-3-1 zone at us in the second half and we torched it with three lobs, and then when we got a lead we played with Giffey at center and let Young have his, but we matched them basket for basket. Then the lob worked again against Kentucky in the final in a key spot, and when they ran a double at Bazz on the last possession, we were ready for it and got Kromah to the line. Some of that is Bazz being savvy too, but the only time in that tournament when it felt like we were getting outcoached was at the start of Florida when their gameplan smothered us, and we couldn't do anything. And we won by double digits.

Maybe the assistants did most of that work and KO got lucky, but man, that team was super well coached. It was downhill from there, but I'll always say that title is his. Yeah Bazz and Boat were Calhoun recruits, but he had to take that team over after everyone else bailed and build up over two years with an entirely different system (and no offense to Olander, Nolan, and Brimah, but with a frontcourt that was typically outmatched).
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That’s one of the interesting things about the KO era - after that near loss to St. Joe’s, the game plans against every other team and coach were on point all tourney.

That 2014 was so in sync, from the coaches all the way down to the end of the bench. They took away everything Nova wanted to do, frustrated the hell out of Izzo and MSU, and the second-half adjustments against Florida were ridiculous.
 
I love KO. He just got caught up in some personal challenges that many of us face in our lifetime. He’s still a great man. I empathize with his situation (as many of us have faced) - to one extent or another. Unfortunately, it impacted many due to the public nature of all of it. I think he is okay now (survived). He will always be a husky - and I would always participate in the wagon circle.
 
UConnJim said:
Ollie did keep UConn relevant. I agree that the AAC hurt UConn, but I think the biggest AAC problem was once Ollie blew up the program, the AAC would have hurt UConn's ability to turn around the program after Ollie was fired. Look at Ollie's recruiting classes in 2015 and 2016. Here were the top recruits and their recruiting rankings:

Jalen Adams #24
Steven Enoch #84
Alterique Gilbert #35
Juwan Durham. #50
Vance Jackson #77
Mamadou Diarra. #125
Christian Vital. #166

On paper, the recruiting looked good, yet his records were:

2016/2017: 16-17
2017/2018: 14-18

The problems Ollie had were poor scouting of recruits, injuries (some were previously known), poor development, and he didn't seem to recruit players to have an effective basketball strategy. I'm sure his cutting off Calhoun and his divorce didn't help either.
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I think it’s important to note that only 2 of these guys played for 2 full seasons under Ollie. Everyone else either transferred or was hurt. Injuries and transfers over a very bad 2 year stretch pretty much sunk Ollie.

After that mass transfer exodus, combined with mass injuries, and then recruiting taking a nosedive while being in the AAC, there was nothing Ollie could do to get out of that hole.
 
This run was huge for this specific collection of guys and the program in general. Basketball is a collective. Seeing all those Huskies along with some of Hurley’s former players, going back to his Wagner days, being at that championship game and celebrating was special.
 
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