KO and this season | Page 3 | The Boneyard

KO and this season

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WM didn't choose KO - JC did. He kept his impending retirement close to the vest so that WM had to choose KO - at least in an interim basis. In JC we trust!

KO earned his contract with the great job he did last year and he's followed it up with another very good year - that's not over BTW (maybe a little inappropriate to be talking about next year and incoming players while our conference tourney stating any day and March Madness following right behind).

Players play the game & coaching only goes so far sometimes. - it happens.
 
pj said:
call it what you will -- toughness, tenacity, dedication, competitive spirit -- but when March came around JC's teams were sometimes defeated, but they were never beaten.

This is KO's first March so we shall see.

For the record, I was defending KO, arguing that there is little he can be criticized for. But if you don't think competitive fire and tenacious drive matter, or that the coach has something to do with whether teams have those, then I don't know what to say.
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Welp, I guess all I can say is I'm glad you've recovered from whatever ailment caused you to slip into a coma and miss the Iowa St game, because that UConn squad was beaten the moment they hopped off the plane.
 
No doubt Iowa State hammered that Husky team……but that team was mentally flawed as we all know thanks to some veterans who weren't happy. Never had a shot without 2 returning starters form a NC team leading and instead they came back unprepared and never bought into the year and they felt they had it coming to them. While some is on JC, most was on the veteran leadership, included in that Shabazz, for not putting "tea" ahead of themselves.

This team, minus a couple games of mental breakdown, has been solid and I believe will bring the mentality and teamwork required to compete at the highest level. Not predicting wins here but by no means will they be beaten off the plane!!
 
The 2012 team became disfunctional the day Drummond tweeted he was coming. That team had the opposite problem of this one in the sense that they had too many good front line players and never quite figured out a rotation that both worked effectively and kept everyone happy and into the game. Throw in Lamb's inability to really be the man, which I attribute to immaturity because he certainly had the talent, and that team was just a mess.

This team on the other hand is flawed in a different way. Lacks any real front court presence and relies on a pair of very talented but smallish guards. If you have guards who can play with them, take them out of their game, UConn usually lacks the alternatives to over come that.
 
While not a bad season, I don't think you can call it an unqualified success either. Before the season someone posted a question on what the team's regular season record would be. Most predicted 4 or 5 losses and the result was 7. We were picked 2nd or 3rd in the conference.....We lost both games to Louisville (badly) and SMU. The team did not improve since the start of the season and Ollie never really got a handle on the personnel.
 
UCweCONN said:
While not a bad season, I don't think you can call it an unqualified success either. Before the season someone posted a question on what the team's regular season record would be. Most predicted 4 or 5 losses and the result was 7. We were picked 2nd or 3rd in the conference.....We lost both games to Louisville (badly) and SMU. The team did not improve since the start of the season and Ollie never really got a handle on the personnel.
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I think that's a decent summary. A solid post season performance will wipe out the disappointing, and I use the term advisedly because it wasn't awful by any means, regular season. Losing both SMU games, both Louisville games and losing to Houston were the biggest disappointments. Stanford was too, but it was a non-conference affair and early in the year.
 
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UCweCONN said:
While not a bad season, I don't think you can call it an unqualified success either. Before the season someone posted a question on what the team's regular season record would be. Most predicted 4 or 5 losses and the result was 7. We were picked 2nd or 3rd in the conference.....We lost both games to Louisville (badly) and SMU. The team did not improve since the start of the season and Ollie never really got a handle on the personnel.
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This is a fair summary to date.

I think the average semi-realistic projection going into this year was: 26-5, 2nd in conference, solidly ranked ~10-15th throughout the year, AACT finals, 3 seed, Sweet 16/Elite 8.

The returns so far are: 24-7, 4th in conference, fringe top 25 throughout the year, ~50% chance of making the AACT semis, likely 5-6 seed, ~30% chance of making the Sweet 16.

There's still some season left to go, but short of an AACT finals and a Sweet 16 appearance, it will be hard to say that we fully met our expectations going into the year.
 
The other thing I'd say is that if we were to lose in the first round of both the AAC and the NCAA this will have gone from an OK year to a pretty disappointing year.
 
Ollie is young, but should have acquired enough knowledge through his years in the pros etc to understand when it's time to look to the future. Omar is not the future and Samuel is. He should have played more. Boat, for all the things he can do he can't or won't try to make the players around him better. He is a ME player not a WE player. PT is important to players and the coach can control PT. We are a flawed team but the coaches flaws have not helped.
 
Some of you seem to think that Ollie is a miracle worker. 26-5, make the AAC finals, cure the blind. Those are lofty expectations based on...what? When we lost Wolfe, even though he was a middle of the road player, he was an experienced middle of the road player and would have been better than anyone we have. You had to know there would be a big donut hole in the middle. No legit power forward since DD plays like a small forward. It’s hard to win when you can’t rebound. I think we were pretty successful this year given those issues.
 
sparky said:
Ollie is young, but should have acquired enough knowledge through his years in the pros etc to understand when it's time to look to the future. Omar is not the future and Samuel is. He should have played more. Boat, for all the things he can do he can't or won't try to make the players around him better. He is a ME player not a WE player. PT is important to players and the coach can control PT. We are a flawed team but the coaches flaws have not helped.
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By playing Omar in short intervals hoping he gets going KO is thinking of the future, because if you plant him on the bench completely and don't give him a shot at recapturing his game, you can expect to see him suiting up elsewhere in 2 years and likely putting up dbl figures.
 
BigErnMcCracken said:
I mean, that's just completely untrue. I'm sorry but in Calhoun's last game as a coach they got embarrassed.
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JC wasn't the same his last few years, but from roughly 1986 to 2006 his teams were quite consistent. He had a great run. No one quits at the top. He stayed on long enough to get KO ready to take over, I'm happy with that.
 
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Fairfield_1st said:
Some of you seem to think that Ollie is a miracle worker. 26-5, make the AAC finals, cure the blind. Those are lofty expectations based on...what? When we lost Wolfe, even though he was a middle of the road player, he was an experienced middle of the road player and would have been better than anyone we have. You had to know there would be a big donut hole in the middle. No legit power forward since DD plays like a small forward. It’s hard to win when you can’t rebound. I think we were pretty successful this year given those issues.
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I'm not criticizing Ollie, just stating that those were our expectations. In retrospect, it's easy to point out our flaws and say "no wonder the season turned out that way". At the beginning of the year, there wasn't much talk of these flaws, and DD was expected to be a monster.
 
sparky said:
Ollie is young, but should have acquired enough knowledge through his years in the pros etc to understand when it's time to look to the future. Omar is not the future and Samuel is. He should have played more. Boat, for all the things he can do he can't or won't try to make the players around him better. He is a ME player not a WE player. PT is important to players and the coach can control PT. We are a flawed team but the coaches flaws have not helped.
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By that standard, Facey should play more than Daniels. Omar did lose nearly all his minutes, but to Kromah and Giffey, so it's they you'd have to sit to play Samuel, or Boatright or Napier. It is hard to say Samuel is as good as any of those. His minutes are mostly learning minutes now. I am a bit surprised Facey hasn't managed to get more time to be honest, he must be a slow learner because minutes have been there to be had.
 
I expected a 5 loss regular season, but I also expected Boat to be better than what he was last season, and for DD to be somewhere around the player we saw from the first Cincy game of last year until the Providence season finale. The fact that they lost 7 with both of them being as mediocre as they were is an accomplishment, but then where does the blame lie with the lack of improvement with those two guys? If DD can play like he did against Memphis, or play like he did against Temple(a bum team, but he still dominated them, something he rarely did), why can't he show something like 80% close to those games on a consistent basis? I don't think any blame should lie at KO's feet for whatever is lacking in DD that can't get him to perform like what we see in occasional flashes, just like I didn't think it was JC's fault that Rudy or Stanley couldn't dominate or consistently perform at the level of their best games. I know the west coast AAU mafia likes to blame Boat and Bazz for DD not being in the NBA already or an All American, but at this point its on him to step up and be a consistent sidekick for Bazz.

Same thing with Boat, all off season he talked about how he was going work on his jump shot so that he would be automatic on open jumpers because every NBA guard can hit an open jump shot. I have no doubt that he put in work this summer, so I'm not sure of the disconnect with his game this season where he either passes up open 3s or bricks them completely, and it's been pretty much like that from game 1 against MD. Is it KO's fault that Boat basically can't make shots from the field? I don't believe it should but I'm sure the guys who never wanted KO to get the job in the first place will blame him for that. The bigs are what they are and what we expected, a work in progress, our role players have been even better than what we expected with the way Giffey and Kromah have played. Omar, no more needs to be said and if it could be done over he probably should've been redshirted, but Giffey and Kromah have helped to offset what we haven't got from him. What nobody expected was the play of Boat and DD, and at this point its on them to step up, it's not like we haven't seen them play well in spurts in the past. From Bazz's comments in the courant about the help the other POY candidates have, I think he's frustrated with them as well and I don't blame him.
 
There are some aspects this team has improved on as the season has progressed. Rebounding is much better, maybe not individually but as a team. Defense is better.

Individually two of the freshmen have improved fairly dramatically in some aspects.

Samuel was a nervous freshman who I wouldn't have trusted to dribble the ball with only a chair defending. He now is a decent spark off the bench.

Brimah was as raw as any player I've seen. Now he has a decent hook and plays much less of a raw game (with a long way to go).

Calhoun started off relatively hot and is now as cold as an icebeurg. His confidence is shot.

Nolan is up and down. He has games where he is very solid an games where he looks lost.

Boat, Napier, Giffey, Olander are pretty consistent.

Kromah has been good but has been slumping a bit.

Daniels has regressed after a pretty strong middle to the season. I'm not sure he is fully healthy, but unfortunately that's not a good excuse.

Daniels being injured/not effective has been the biggest issue recently. He needs to be a solid second or third option. He just hasn't been good since he got hurt. Either he's still somewhat hurt or it's psychological.

As for Ollie, he was very good all year, but not great. He's still got some learning to do but he clearly is on his way.

Memphis will be a tough game but it's winnable because UConn matches up pretty well against them. Daniels has to play well though.
 
sparky said:
Ollie is young, but should have acquired enough knowledge through his years in the pros etc to understand when it's time to look to the future. Omar is not the future and Samuel is. He should have played more. Boat, for all the things he can do he can't or won't try to make the players around him better. He is a ME player not a WE player. PT is important to players and the coach can control PT. We are a flawed team but the coaches flaws have not helped.
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Don't be too quick to write off Omar. Taking a summer off can mess up a good player. A good, but not great, analogy is Bria Hartley on the girls' team. A sophomore All-American, she had a miserable Jr. year after recovering from injury over the summer. This year she looks unstoppable. Not playing screws with your timing. It's easy to struggle to come back, push too hard to overcome and end up with your confidence shot. I think that is what happened to Omar. Next year he'll be back to being the kind of player we've expected.
 
pj said:
JC wasn't the same his last few years, but from roughly 1986 to 2006 his teams were quite consistent. He had a great run. No one quits at the top. He stayed on long enough to get KO ready to take over, I'm happy with that.
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He won the National Championship 1 year before retiring. Not to mention a Final Four in 2009. That's pretty much quitting on top. He's always had up and down teams, missing the tournament every few years (1993, 1997, 2001, 2007, 2010). Those had to do with recruiting cycles and/or missing on a few recruits.

It may have seemed like a downturn, but it's more that the expectations were raised.
 
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Boat and Daniels inconsistency is a serious issue. Daniels lazy boxouts and lack of hard cuts prove he has little mobility in his ankle... or he is just lazy. There is no reason for him to turn the volume up like that vs memphis only to be nonexistent the rest of the year( Ville begged him to do anything) . Boatright on the otherhand still plays basketball like plays for east aurora. All those forays to the rim, he attracts so much attention at the point he still can't KICK OUT. what frustrating is both these guys are big time talents. One is an athletic freak, the other is 6'9 (with a 7'1 winspan) with deft touch out to 25 feet.
 
intlzncster said:
He won the National Championship 1 year before retiring. Not to mention a Final Four in 2009. That's pretty much quitting on top. He's always had up and down teams, missing the tournament every few years (1993, 1997, 2001, 2007, 2010). Those had to do with recruiting cycles and/or missing on a few recruits.

It may have seemed like a downturn, but it's more that the expectations were raised.
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only an idiot would suggest JC wasn't the same his last few years. 2012 was due to personal health, his coaching in the 2011 tourney had hall of fame written all over: even announcers (Kerr) would gush at his adjustments.
 
sdhusky said:
Its amazing. I can't figure out if the previous posters in this thread are stupid or just s.

In the case of freescooter (the fashion critic), I know its both.
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Been impresed with Ollie in the post season so far, has a fire to him.
 
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