Long Goodman article on the program

[baako1]

not usually a fan, especially of his silly Twitter persona, but this is a pretty reasonable and fair take:

Can Kevin Ollie save UConn from irrelevance?

 

[Mazhude]

not usually a fan, especially of his silly Twitter persona, but this is a pretty reasonable and fair take:

Can Kevin Ollie save UConn from irrelevance?

"Nobody wants to fling dirt on a family member," one ex-Husky said. "But at the end of the day, I want what's best for the program and Kevin's not what's best for the program right now." Ouch.

 

[Storrs South]

not usually a fan, especially of his silly Twitter persona, but this is a pretty reasonable and fair take:

Can Kevin Ollie save UConn from irrelevance?

RE Diallo/Ashton-Langford:
Sources with direct knowledge of both recruitments said Ollie's lack of effort cost him in both cases.

That about wraps this one up folks.

Also very happy to see this thrown in:

RE: Ollie's buyout
One source told ESPN there is a chance that the two sides could also come to an agreement after the season, with Ollie walking away with a portion of the money.

 

[Rico444]

RE Diallo/Ashton-Langford:
Sources with direct knowledge of both recruitments said Ollie's lack of effort cost him in both cases.

That about wraps this one up folks.

A few posters here have been saying this for awhile now; guess this pretty much confirms it to be true.

Not sure what else needs to be said here; Ollie needs to leave after the season is over.

 

[Fishy]

Despite some ridiculous claims to the contrary here, no one wanted him to fail.

But all of the reasons listed in that article have been mentioned here for some time....he doesn’t work hard enough.

This is all on Kevin Ollie. All of it.

 

[Huskybass]

Despite some ridiculous claims to the contrary here, no one wanted him to fail.

But all of the reasons listed in that article have been mentioned here for some time....he doesn’t work hard enough.

This is all on Kevin Ollie. All of it.

I agree 100%, we were all rooting for him to succeed and hoped that he would be our coach for the next two decades. But once it became apparent that that was never going to happen many of us realized that it was time to move on.

 

[pj]

Very good article. Brings out KO's strengths and weaknesses well. This year's team had a dearth of talent so it absolutely needed toughness, defense, and rebounding. It's a terrible indictment that even the players acknowledge that is lacking. Recruiting failures would be forgivable if it were clear they were being fixed. I like the class coming in (which attempts to address the critical needs of point guard, shooter, and center), but not much noise re 2019 yet and with the NCAA nosing around and all the chatter around Ollie, recruiting for 2019 and beyond will be difficult. The concerns over player development -- Vance Jackson leaving for lack of a development plan, the hint that coaches aren't as available as they should be for individual instruction -- are touched on. Finally, it comes down to does Ollie have the strategic sense he needs to be a successful head coach? It's been lacking, can he acquire it? Losing Hobbs and having no assistant with head coaching experience and not maintaining the help from Calhoun are a concern.

 

[jibsey]

Despite some ridiculous claims to the contrary here, no one wanted him to fail.

But all of the reasons listed in that article have been mentioned here for some time....he doesn’t work hard enough.

This is all on Kevin Ollie. All of it.

This goes against everything we know about Kevin Ollie who prides himself on being a hard worker. This is a fringe NBA player who worked and willed himself into a decent career and financial independence. I don’t understand how he could go to watch these coveted recruits only one time while Calipari saw them multiple times. We know he must have sent other staff but is this just that he delegated? Does he fly all over the country to see recruits? If he is not seeing Diallo because he is all over the US on other guys I guess that is a reason. The average fans like us don’t know his schedule, who does what and if he is really negligent or lazy. Is it possible that one of the the reasons for his divorce was not spending enough family time and he pulled back to compensate?

 

[TRest]

This goes against everything we know about Kevin Ollie who prides himself on being a hard worker. This is a fringe NBA player who worked and willed himself into a decent career and financial independence. I don’t understand how he could go to watch these coveted recruits only one time while Calipari saw them multiple times. We know he must have sent other staff but is this just that he delegated? Does he fly all over the country to see recruits? If he is not seeing Diallo because he is all over the US on other guys I guess that is a reason. The average fans like us don’t know his schedule, who does what and if he is really negligent or lazy. Is it possible that one of the the reasons for his divorce was not spending enough family time and he pulled back to compensate?

Pulling back for family time after the divorce seems counter-intuitive. I know his son is college age or older now, don't know about any other kids. For me, it goes back to too much success, too early.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Not buying “But the kids have to play better!” Crap. During the Cincy game JT3 was like “ you know what I just noticed, these guys always dribble in place immediately after they catch a pass, it’s really easy for defenders to adjust when you don’t snap quick passes or make quick decisions.” You’d think someone getting paid 3 million dollars to teach these kids how to play ball could have fixed that by the 20th game and millionth practice of the season. That’s just one example of fixable coachable things we see every game while KO has his head in his hands.

I wouldn’t be surprised if KO negotiates on the buyout. He can go make several hundred thousand dollars a year holding a clipboard in the nba in a no-stress assistant job getting tail in a random city every night. This job is literally killing him, and I believe he doesn’t want the program that has done everything for him to die too. 10 million or not.

 

[8893]

I agree 100%, we were all rooting for him to succeed and hoped that he would be our coach for the next two decades. But once it became apparent that that was never going to happen many of us realized that it was time to move on.

99% of the disagreements about this here are because it became apparent to different people at different times, for a variety of different reasons.

You know as well as I do that there was a very vocal minority who were against him from the start. Some believed he was too green. Some believed he simply lacked the skills and/or ability to be a head coach. Now they feel vindicated and want to crow about it.

I think most believed he had potential and were willing to believe in him unless or until he proved otherwise. Some of those believe he simply never developed; others believe something about him changed; still others believe he was a fraud from the start, with mounting innuendo about various bad deeds.

I don't know exactly when it hit critical mass, but certainly it was some time this season. No matter how anyone felt before, the most damning thing is the observed and reported lack of effort. That flies in the face of the most bedrock quality of both this program and Ollie himself.

I am obviously one who was willing to believe. He has not developed as I had hoped or expected. I don't know if he ever will, but I'm a never say "never" guy about most things, and I hate to give up on anyone unless I believe they are irredeemable. I'm not there with Ollie--not by a long shot--but I do agree that his future is not here.

I think that will always make me sad. I'm trying to avoid having it make me mad.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

This goes against everything we know about Kevin Ollie who prides himself on being a hard worker. This is a fringe NBA player who worked and willed himself into a decent career and financial independence. I don’t understand how he could go to watch these coveted recruits only one time while Calipari saw them multiple times. We know he must have sent other staff but is this just that he delegated? Does he fly all over the country to see recruits? If he is not seeing Diallo because he is all over the US on other guys I guess that is a reason. The average fans like us don’t know his schedule, who does what and if he is really negligent or lazy. Is it possible that one of the the reasons for his divorce was not spending enough family time and he pulled back to compensate?

He worked hard and is now complacent. Not that hard to understand.

 

[AntG168]

This goes against everything we know about Kevin Ollie who prides himself on being a hard worker. This is a fringe NBA player who worked and willed himself into a decent career and financial independence. I don’t understand how he could go to watch these coveted recruits only one time while Calipari saw them multiple times. We know he must have sent other staff but is this just that he delegated? Does he fly all over the country to see recruits? If he is not seeing Diallo because he is all over the US on other guys I guess that is a reason. The average fans like us don’t know his schedule, who does what and if he is really negligent or lazy. Is it possible that one of the the reasons for his divorce was not spending enough family time and he pulled back to compensate?

Being outworked on Diallo who was a 5 star burger boy in our backyard who had sincere interest interest in coming here is cause for firing alone. We knew about MAL and many of us didn’t use that as a major indictment on him and considered there were other factors. But to find out Diallo didn’t come here because Ollie was simply outworked is infuriating

 

[TRest]

Being outworked on Diallo who was a 5 star burger boy in our backyard who had sincere interest interest in coming here is cause for firing alone. We knew about MAL and many of us didn’t use that as a major indictment on him and considered there were other factors. But to find out Diallo didn’t come here because Ollie was simply outworked is infuriating

Firing the assistant coach with the best relationship with the players and who was working the hardest on recruiting seems like a head scratcher. It must have been all those junk zone defenses and academic plans Miller was forcing on everyone.

 

[Paesano]

Someone said lazy. Lazy is often a symptom of depression. If that is an issue for him, I feel for the guy, I really do. And I hope he gets help. No one should suffer through that.

I was skeptical when he was hired. But I trusted Calhoun. And the first season had some nice moments. And the second season had a great ending. I was sold. But then it slowly degraded and it is clear this is unrecoverable. It is about performance.

 

[the Q]

Really hard to argue with much of the article.

Ollie getting outworked is the most shocking thing of all (that or current players openly admitting the team isn’t playing hard enough).

I hate the Vance Jackson thing. He wasn’t my favorite player, but if any version of that is true, that hurts. A lot.

 

[tcf15]

 

[Matrim55]

Really hard to argue with much of the article.

Except for the part about Jalen's buzzer beater, anyway. We were into the tourney that year regardless.

 

[Waquoit]

Ollie just has to go.

 

[the Q]

Except for the part about Jalen's buzzer beater, anyway. We were into the tourney that year regardless.

Yeah, I agree. I knew I should’ve gone there, don’t wanna start a holy war about it.

Yes hats the biggest part in dispute for the entire article article, but with features like these, you can make that story sound better cause there isn’t much of a way to prove it false.

I think lunardi was not as high on us as the committee turned out to be, hence the dichotomy of opinions.

 

[nadav]

Be nice to have one named source behind any of Goodman’s quotes. Reads like a boneyard collaboration. We lost out on Diallo solely because KO didn’t try hard enough. Good one

 

[jcp33]

The most concerning thing I read, regarding Vance:

"Jackson, who averaged 8.1 points and 26 minutes per game as a freshman, met with Ollie after last season and wanted to know what the plan was for him to be able to develop into more than just a spot-up shooter."

"[Jackson] wanted a clear plan going forward," the source said. "He didn't want to transfer, but there was no plan."

Huh? No plan for a player that we could've really used this season and beyond? No plan for a player who actually wanted to stay? If this is true then this is finally does it for me. He needs to be gone and we need a change.

 

[superjohn]

Except for the part about Jalen's buzzer beater, anyway. We were into the tourney that year regardless.

In retrospect we most likely would have gotten in without that prayer because Tulsa got in but as we know things don't always make sense with the committee, especially when it relates to UConn. The reality is, everyone was billing that as a bubble game at the time.

 

[Kenny11]

Good article. The only thing I’m not buying is the Vance Jackson story. He was gone regardless of how his meeting with Ollie went at the end of the season.