KO gets an "A"

[Huskybass]

I am very impressed with what KO has done over the first 12 games of his career as head coach. He has earned my admiration and respect, and I feel we are very fortunate to have him as our head coach.

KO was dealt a tough hand:
Post Season Ban;
Udermanned frontcourt;
Undersized (though very talented) backcourt;
A handful of transfers/departures to the NBA;

Yet he has done a fantastic job of leading this team to a 10-2 record. The kids really relate to him, work very hard and look like they are having a great time playing for him. More imprtant than the record is how KO carries himself and instills his work ethic. He is a rock. Solid in every way. I will admit, I had my doubts about handing over the reigns to a coach with no head coaching experience. But in KO we have a true leader.

Congrats to Coach Ollie on the new contract. It is well deserved and makes me very optimistic about the future of the program.

 

[patrick]

The way our program is looking recently we are lucky he signed that contract ;-)

 

[mauconnfan]

Well stated bass-man!

Bravo!!

 

[RichZ]

I leaned toward KO as JC's replacement from the beginning. I thought (hoped?) he would have another year or two to develop under JC's tutelage, and envisioned him in GB's old associate head coach position for a year before JC stepped down. But when JC's health cast the die as early as it did, I still wanted KO. Be cause KO breathes Husky air. He could have stayed with OKC in a coaching position. But chose UConn. I could be wrong, but I don't believe he looks at this job as an audition for the next bigger offer to come along, but as the position he has been working towards since his first year as our point guard.

Glad he got the 5 year deal, and look forward to having him on our sideline for years to come.

 

[mauconnfan]

2 coaches in well over 50 years would be very nice RichZ I agree...................good luck to KO

 

[Waquoit]

Now that KO has his new deal, I'm hoping the poormouthing of the talent level on this team can come to an end. UConn starts 4 Top 50 players. This doing more with less notion is just not so.

I give Ollie a B to date. My main issue is the play of Bazz and Boat. They were awful yesterday. And not just because they missed some shots. Too many times this season whichever guy took the ball down the court, shot it. This happens way too much. I'm sick of those guys trying to beat the double team instead of finding the open man. You can get away it with for a time, but in the grind of a season that selfishness takes a toll on team chemistry. When those two did give up the rock, the rest of the team played some nice halfcourt ball. They did it despite the PG's, not because of them. That's ass backwards.

On the good side, that shows that Ollie can teach offense. On the bad side, KO has to do a better job getting through to his star players.

 

[Clockshop]

"The kids really relate to him, work very hard and look like they are having a great time playing for him. More imprtant than the record is how KO carries himself and instills his work ethic. He is a rock. Solid in every way"

Well said and couldn't agree more. Watch this post game interview w/ Andy Katz and how the team relishes in what KO is saying, especially Boatright, Nolan, and Omar. I hope they continue to do this post game, whole team interview thing.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?categoryId=2459792&id=8792584

 

[mauconnfan]

Now that KO has his new deal, I'm hoping the poormouthing of the talent level on this team can come to an end. UConn starts 4 Top 50 players. This doing more with less notion is just not so.

I give Ollie a B to date. My main issue is the play of Bazz and Boat. They were awful yesterday. And not just because they missed some shots. Too many times this season whichever guy took the ball down the court, shot it. This happens way too much. I'm sick of those guys trying to beat the double team instead of finding the open man. You can get away it with for a time, but in the grind of a season that selfishness takes a toll on team chemistry. When those two did give up the rock, the rest of the team played some nice halfcourt ball. They did it despite the PG's, not because of them. That's ass backwards.

On the good side, that shows that Ollie can teach offense. On the bad side, KO has to do a better job getting through to his star players.

And if he takes them both out? I hear ya Waq but he has no choice but to put it on their shoulders and hope they play under control, they didn't yesterday and they came out when they really screwed up but what are his options? And 4 Top 50's is being generous.....I know Omar was and he's starting to show it........Ryan was about there or worst on some, Bazz i don't think ever got close and DD showed absolutely nothing last year and already has improved........Olander? Awful but KO is stuck there for now in hopes of getting positive minutes from him......

It's an "A" ........the only thing I see is we need more offense run and someone needs to be held accountable for movement......1st half last night was stagnant and the 2nd half they came out and ran some nice sets early and then kind of made some real bad decisions.......worst case A- but this is not a very good team he was left with!!!!

 

[diggerfoot]

I don't necessarily disagree in "reading between the lines" of your message, that many people want to give Ollie the benefit of the doubt in every possible way and you want to add some perspective. But the perspective you interject is a bit off the wall. From what I can tell Ollie has a similar philosophy to Calhoun (and Auriemma for that matter) of wanting his floor generals to evaluate and perform on the fly. You can criticize that as a philosophy, and perhaps you do, but if you accept it then Boatright's and Napier's performance, and consequently Ollie's, has to be assessed in that light.

Everything Boatright says, and much of his body language, point to him wanting to be "the man." The only way to control that in a system where floor generals get free reign is to bench him, but how practical is that with our roster? To lay that all on Ollie is misguided; it's in large measure out of his hands given the system he wants to employ. To brand Napier as selfish is just a headscratcher. Yes, he chooses to be "the man" at times, but he's always evaluating that in context of the team. He thinks others need to get involved at times and he consciously goes out of his way to make that happen. He thinks he needs to take over at other times and he consciously does that, too. Yet he has demonstrated his overall goal is what the team needs. His flaw then is not in being selfish but mistakes in judgment. Even if he was selfish, once again in Ollie's system of floor generals thinking for themselves the solution is benching, but that's not practical, particularly if they're giving the effort shown by both floor generals right now.

That leads us to your gem of "four players with top 50" talent. Yes, that's true, but put forth in the best tradition of misleading people with false objectivity. There is considerable overlap in that top 50 talent. Seriously, in constructing your team of four top 50 talent do you want half of it to be undersized combo guards? I call bull**** in using that as an example of how Ollie is working with more than we give him credit for. We have no Big East caliber talent in the post, period. Perhaps Ollie can develop them into that, but he certainly would need more time than what you imply. Even the early Calhoun days was working with better post talent than what we are putting on the floor right now. Only two top 50 players with a better spread on their skill set is better than the four top 50 we currently have for building a team. Using "four top 50 players" as an argument is think tank material.

I think you have a valid point that people are bending over backwards to give Ollie credit; I also think you are bending over backwards to discredit that.

 

[Gurleyman]

Now that KO has his new deal, I'm hoping the poormouthing of the talent level on this team can come to an end. UConn starts 4 Top 50 players. This doing more with less notion is just not so.

I give Ollie a B to date. My main issue is the play of Bazz and Boat. They were awful yesterday. And not just because they missed some shots. Too many times this season whichever guy took the ball down the court, shot it. This happens way too much. I'm sick of those guys trying to beat the double team instead of finding the open man. You can get away it with for a time, but in the grind of a season that selfishness takes a toll on team chemistry. When those two did give up the rock, the rest of the team played some nice halfcourt ball. They did it despite the PG's, not because of them. That's ass backwards.

On the good side, that shows that Ollie can teach offense. On the bad side, KO has to do a better job getting through to his star players.

While you make some valid points, recruiting rankings don't define a team's talent level. Those are from a kid's junior year of high school and can be wrong (or things change). It's pretty clear that Daniels was ranked much too highly, for example.

This team has a Division II caliber frontcourt. And while our backcourt is talented, we might not have any first round NBA picks on this team (always a chance someone in those four starters sneaks in there with some improvement). And certainly no lottery picks (barring a huge leap from Daniels or Calhoun). What was the last UConn team without a lottery pick on the roster? I believe it has been 20 years since the Burrell-Smith team after the dream season before Donyell came. Since then, it has been a steady stream: Donyell-Ray-Rip-Caron-Emeka/Ben-Rudy/Hilton-Thabeet-Kemba-Lamb/Drummond.

If we indeed don't have a first rounder on this team, we'd have to go back to Dom Perno's Besselink and Tim Coles team.

The cupboard isn't totally bare the way it was for JC's first team (post Cliffy/Gamble suspension). But this is clearly not a typical UConn team talent-wise.

 

[Adios]

I think he might be the best man for the job. He'll continue our tradition better than anyone else could. The man learned under legends and tutored players who will be legends.

 

[Waquoit]

This team has a Division II caliber frontcourt.

C'mon, G-man.

 

[aceboon]

C'mon, G-man.

that bit of hyperbole aside, why did you ignore the rest of his post?

 

[pj]

I don't see how anyone can question the job Ollie has done. It's better than the job Calhoun did in 2011-12 (20-13, 8-10 Big East) or 2009-10 (18-16, 7-11 Big East), even though Calhoun had greater talent both seasons. Moreover the team is fun to watch and root for. That wasn't the case in too many seasons in the later Calhoun years.

 

[joober jones]

Now that KO has his new deal, I'm hoping the poormouthing of the talent level on this team can come to an end. UConn starts 4 Top 50 players. This doing more with less notion is just not so.

I give Ollie a B to date. My main issue is the play of Bazz and Boat. They were awful yesterday. And not just because they missed some shots. Too many times this season whichever guy took the ball down the court, shot it. This happens way too much. I'm sick of those guys trying to beat the double team instead of finding the open man. You can get away it with for a time, but in the grind of a season that selfishness takes a toll on team chemistry. When those two did give up the rock, the rest of the team played some nice halfcourt ball. They did it despite the PG's, not because of them. That's ass backwards.

On the good side, that shows that Ollie can teach offense. On the bad side, KO has to do a better job getting through to his star players.

I think the issue here is more that Shabazz wants to lead the team and Boatright wants to lead in scoring.

 

[Gurleyman]

I admit it was hyperbole, but we really aren't that far above a DII level frontcourt. You find a lot of Tyler Olander types at the DII level, who are maybe 6-6 or 6-7, instead of 6-9. Wolf would tower over most DII big men and would certainly be effective, but not really sure he would be able to use that advantage to dominate.
Daniels would be the type of guy that DII teams couldn't match up with at 6-8, although to be honest I didn't think of him as a frontcourt (i.e. post) player when I made that comment. I was thinking mostly of the Olander-Wolf-Nolan rotation.

AIC's center (a 6-5 widebody) pretty much played our bigs to a standstill - Omar was terrific that day at least so we won by 15 or so. And Quinny isn't all that much above a top-level DII program.

 

[Waquoit]

I think you have a valid point that people are bending over backwards to give Ollie credit; I also think you are bending over backwards to discredit that.

Not guilty. Wanting your best two guys to share the ball more is unreasonable?

 

[8893]

Not guilty. Wanting your best two guys to share the ball more is unreasonable?

No, but ignoring the glaring weakness in our front court is.

As for the Bazz/Boat dynamic: (a) I'm not sure what the other options are; and (b) I'm not sure there's a whole lot that Ollie can do about it. They are our two best players, but they overlap a lot in skill set, and each seems to struggle at times to know his role and play in a manner that helps both the others and himself. They struggled with this a lot last season, too. Seems better this season, but still lots of rough patches that I am hopeful time and maturity will help improve further.

 

[60'sfan]

Not guilty. Wanting your best two guys to share the ball more is unreasonable?

I think some of you are missing something that I noticed last night. Last night on ESPN, the discussion about Ollie taking his team to visit those kids at Sandy Hook was a big deal. It reminded me of the way that Kemba pulled the team together prior to the 2011 season. Not only are they bonding as a team but he is teaching them to be men and to do things right. If any of the parents of potential recruits were watching, they had to be impressed. So far, given the talent level, Uconn has over-achieved. I expect that they will continue.

 

[mauconnfan]

I think some of you are missing something that I noticed last night. Last night on ESPN, the discussion about Ollie taking his team to visit those kids at Sandy Hook was a big deal. It reminded me of the way that Kemba pulled the team together prior to the 2011 season. Not only are they bonding as a team but he is teaching them to be men and to do things right. If any of the parents of potential recruits were watching, they had to be impressed. So far, given the talent level, Uconn has over-achieved. I expect that they will continue.

+1 60's

 

[The Funster]

I'd like to see if KO can reach out to someone he played with, or against, that can teach big men. We had our best, most consistent low post play when Clyde was here. I thought Josh stopped improving after Clyde left and I'd say that our big men have been more likely to under acheive as opposed to over achieve as low post players. I know Jake used to go to Pete Newell's big man camp but I'm not sure there is anything like that now.

 

[mauconnfan]

I'd like to see if KO can reach out to someone he played with, or against, that can teach big men. We had our best, most consistent low post play when Clyde was here. I thought Josh stopped improving after Clyde left and I'd say that our big men have been more likely to under acheive as opposed to over achieve as low post players. I know Jake used to go to Pete Newell's big man camp but I'm not sure there is anything like that now.

While I agree Funster there's no doubt Clyde was the best there also haven't been as many solid big men since.....Jeff was as good as he could be for his size mainly because he listened, worked hard every off season on his weaknesses and came back better at something every year and for that I commend him......it's on the kids mostly as all of these coaches, including the little guys like Hobbsy and Ricky, and especially Free know how to teach what they need to do, just need to work, work, work and have the natural gifts to make it happen!! Get a couple solid, young bigs who get stronger and learn and work in the off season I think we all find out our coaches there now are fine.....just my thoughts!!

 

[dogpause]

I too am pleased that Kevin got his contract. There were just a few other coaches who I would have been happy with, but I think Kevin is the perfect choice. Not only can he coach, but he is a rock solid person who's both passionate and humble. I think he'll prove to be a strong recruiter.

However, there's one other thing that makes Kevin the perfect choice -- this job is not a stepping stone for him. I truly believe that he's here long term. This is really important, and it's something I haven't seen mentioned.

UConn fans were fortunate to not only have a great coach in Jim Calhoun, but a man who stayed loyal and stayed put. Many of the most successful college coaches have moved from one place to another. We never had to endure getting jilted, and I'm confident that Kevin will not only be successful, but he'll be rooted here, just as Coach Calhoun was.

 

[GemParty]

I'd like to see if KO can reach out to someone he played with, or against, that can teach big men. We had our best, most consistent low post play when Clyde was here. I thought Josh stopped improving after Clyde left and I'd say that our big men have been more likely to under acheive as opposed to over achieve as low post players. I know Jake used to go to Pete Newell's big man camp but I'm not sure there is anything like that now.

You have to think, Blaney was here for Ollie's transition only to a deal. I'd be surprised if he remained on staff much more than 1 yr. Maybe a bigs coach can join us. Donyell Marshall?

 

[ctchamps]

KO gets an A. He deserved the contract!!!!

Only player with experience and BE caliber on the team he inherited was SN. RB missed a third of a season last year. TO would be getting off the bench minutes or scrub minutes on most UConn teams. OC is a freshman and DD didn't play much last season. RJE is experienced but not with the UConn players.