Ollie lands a new job

[HooperScooper]

“I love my university, I love the experience that I had there,” Ollie said. “Our relationship now is we’re kind of on different sides. I’ll say the connection I have with the brick and mortar, and the roads I walked in Storrs, that’s never going to change.”

Kevin Ollie returning to coaching with Overtime Elite basketball league

From a four-year collegiate career at UConn to a 13-year NBA career to coaching his alma mater to a national championship, Kevin Ollie is a basketball lifer. So…

theundefeated.com

 

[WrenchFan69]

“I love my university, I love the experience that I had there,” Ollie said. “Our relationship now is we’re kind of on different sides. I’ll say the connection I have with the brick and mortar, and the roads I walked in Storrs, that’s never going to change.”

Kevin Ollie returning to coaching with Overtime Elite basketball league

From a four-year collegiate career at UConn to a 13-year NBA career to coaching his alma mater to a national championship, Kevin Ollie is a basketball lifer. So…

theundefeated.com

That's a good way to put it. He's on the side where he wanted to get paid whereas the school is on the side where they wanted him to do his job.

That said I don't think there's another coach on Earth that wins that 2014 title. He was the perfect guy at the perfect time. Everything went awry from there but those first two years were pretty special.

 

[superjohn]

The program would have nose-dived under Calhoun. Being the northern outpost in a weak southern mid-major conference was a terrible idea, as some of us pointed out from the very beginning. I predicted it was going to destroy both football and men's basketball back in 2013. Either I am a genius, or it was obvious to anyone that wasn't a moron. People can choose for themselves which they think it is.

I told everyone we should be in th Big East but the team flopped because Ollie stopped doing his job, he couldn't run a program. 2014 was one hell of a bandaid, it's amazing we got a national championship out of it but when Bazz left and Ollie's personal life got messy things started spiraling. Turning his back on Calhoun showed he was in too deep. He started mailing it in on recruiting and soon it was all over.

Sick of rehashing all of this but it is what it is, he was awesome his first couple of years and really bad after that. Let's hope everything gets figured out and he can patch things up with the school and Calhoun. He won us a championship and Calhoun ain't gonna be around forever.

 

[Fishy]

The program nose-dived because Kevin Ollie stopped working.

If you think that’s not the case, thanks for stopping by, but you’re a moron.

This new venture is an exercise in lighting VC cash on fire - there’s a 100% chance this thing is a rocketship into the side of a mountain.

Hiring Kevin Ollie to help kids improve...lol. UConn paid him three million dollars a year to do it and he wasn’t interested, so good luck with that!

 

[Dogdeacon]

The program would have nose-dived under Calhoun. Being the northern outpost in a weak southern mid-major conference was a terrible idea, as some of us pointed out from the very beginning. I predicted it was going to destroy both football and men's basketball back in 2013. Either I am a genius, or it was obvious to anyone that wasn't a moron. People can choose for themselves which they think it is.

So this is about you wanting to be right about something that is over and has been corrected? Did we forgot to send you the apology flowers?
Ok, you were right the conference stunk, congratulations!

In fact all of the conference realignment stunk. Yet somehow Gonzaga is in a crappy conference and has played in two national championship games. Butler did that too pre big east. Houston made the final 8 from the same crappy conference and Syracuse over-achieves every NCAA despite being an even more distant northern outpost in a conference it doesn't belong in. KO didn't get a show-cause & become an acupuncturist due to the American, it was cuz he didn't do his job.

 

[David 76]

I'm happy he is coaching anywhere but UConn.

 

[August_West]

If you think that’s not the case, thanks for stopping by, but you’re a moron.

This new venture is an exercise in lighting VC cash on fire - there’s a 100% chance this thing is a rocketship into the side of a mountain.

Hiring Kevin Ollie to help kids improve...lol. UConn paid him three million dollars a year to do it and he wasn’t interested, so good luck with that!

but he was interested, got divorced, and wheels fell off. It wasn’t the first wont be the last time in this world that is the case. Sucks that his time was a NC program. No doubt. But selling ko short on hoops tutoring? I’d bet against you.

 

[UCPharma11]

In the latter Ollie years he had a lotta "Come on Man!!" looks on his face when the games were getting away from him whether through fouls or otherwise.

 

[Chief00]

Will Jim Calhoun, or someone like him, attend nearly every practice and home game as in his first two years at UConn?
Or will KO not want to share credit, as in his last three years at UConn?

 

[Fishy]

but he was interested, got divorced, and wheels fell off. It wasn’t the first wont be the last time in this world that is the case. Sucks that his time was a NC program. No doubt. But selling ko short on hoops tutoring? I’d bet against you.

Stop. Please, for the love of God, stop.

The divorce angle is the stupidest thing going. Say, want to know why he got divorced? It wasn’t because he was paying so much attention to his job....

He got divorced in 2015 - he stopped picking up the phone to call recruits a year earlier.

 

[August_West]

Stop. Please, for the love of God, stop.

The divorce angle is the stupidest thing going. Say, want to know why he got divorced? It wasn’t because he was paying so much attention to his job....

He got divorced in 2015 - he stopped picking up the phone to call recruits a year earlier.

Stop . He won a national championship the year before. I bet you’re here to tell me @Dove could’ve won a title with that team. I’m preemptively here to tell you are mistaken.

 

[Spaceman213J]

Good for Ollie, but I have serious questions about the league. Look at how few really make it to the league and the increasing presence of oversea players in the draft. Are more kids going to get hurt by this when they don't receive a free college education and some never get to the NBA or even attend college. Plus, won't they constantly be one bad injury away from a lawsuit and bankruptcy?

 

[metsfan2323]

Stop . He won a national championship the year before. I bet you’re here to tell me @Dove could’ve won a title with that team. I’m preemptively here to tell you are mistaken.

2014 was a rocket ship built by Jim Calhoun. Ollie rode that rocket ship to the moon and pressed all the right buttons along the way. Ollie also got the parade and hero treatment when he landed, but make no mistake about it, Jim Calhoun built that rocket.

 

[Dove]

Stop . He won a national championship the year before. I bet you’re here to tell me @Dove could’ve won a title with that team. I’m preemptively here to tell you are mistaken.

I would have told the team to just watch Bazz go.

 

[Fishy]

Stop . He won a national championship the year before. I bet you’re here to tell me @Dove could’ve won a title with that team. I’m preemptively here to tell you are mistaken.

By the time we won a title, he was already pulling the plug on recruiting,

They don’t expect this guy to mentor anyone - he was the biggest name they could find who would attach his name to this disaster. It’s one step above lending his name to the yoga studios or whatever the last bit of nonsense was.

 

[CL82]

2014 was a rocket ship built by Jim Calhoun. Ollie rode that rocket ship to the moon and pressed all the right buttons along the way. Ollie also got the parade and hero treatment when he landed, but make no mistake about it, Jim Calhoun built that rocket.

Whose name do you remember from the moon landing the engineers or the guys who actually stepped out of the LEM?

 

[Husky68]

This will probably get you there a little quicker:

If I took over a team decimated by transfers from a coach that wasn't smart enough to game the APR system and in my second year with Bazz, Boat, Daniels, Giffey and Nolan as the starting team win it all; and then the lame fans give more credit to the ex-coach than me - I'd have a serious case of the ass.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

The program would have nose-dived under Calhoun. Being the northern outpost in a weak southern mid-major conference was a terrible idea, as some of us pointed out from the very beginning. I predicted it was going to destroy both football and men's basketball back in 2013. Either I am a genius, or it was obvious to anyone that wasn't a moron. People can choose for themselves which they think it is.

Please remind me what 3 choices that you favored at the time were available to the Athletic Department and the UConn Board of Trustees.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

This is like complaining about the food on the Titanic. The chicken may have been a little dry, but the chef wasn't the problem with that ship.

After the Titanic sank, nobody complained that the chicken was dry. Instead, it was salty. It's always something.

 

[Chief00]

Say, want to know why he got divorced? It wasn’t because he was paying so much attention to his job....

LOL - very true, that’s not where his attention seemed to be focused.
Moreover, the last 3 years his attention was focused on an employment related lawsuit against UConn, despite the NCAA banning him from performing his $3.5 million a year coaching job for 3 years. So his contention is that UConn should have paid him $10 million dollars to “coach”, despite KO not being eligible to actually coach a game or run a practice because he decided to break the rules. While UConn would have had to hire someone else and paid them something similar to actually coach games and run practices.
Despite, all that I wish KO well and hope this job means he is closing that chapter, yet based on his quotes it doesn’t appear that he is. Finally, and for Chief this is the most important thing, his disloyalty to a guy who stuck his neck out and forced the university to hire him as head coach in the first place, is something that doesn’t sit well and he should clean-up. That doesn't mean Chief approves of the nonsense GM did, I don’t. But, KO needs to make things right with Jim Calhoun.

 

[Chief00]

If I took over a team decimated by transfers from a coach that wasn't smart enough to game the APR system and in my second year with Bazz, Boat, Daniels, Giffey and Nolan as the starting team win it all; and then the lame fans give more credit to the ex-coach than me - I'd have a serious case of the ass.

Jim wasn’t exactly the “ex coach”, he was a guy who observed nearly every practice and game and gave priceless feedback. IMO, KO’s coaching decline started when he stopped listening to that pain in the neck but brilliant mentor. KO did not want to share credit associated with winning, instead the next 3 years he owned failure.

 

[mauconnfan]

2014 was a rocket ship built by Jim Calhoun. Ollie rode that rocket ship to the moon and pressed all the right buttons along the way. Ollie also got the parade and hero treatment when he landed, but make no mistake about it, Jim Calhoun built that rocket.

Rocket ship? Omg you are so far off it’s unbelievable. That rocket ship started as a 20-10 last Big East season which a bunch of kids who stayed despite the APR, not many of whom played meaningful minutes for JC, worked their tails off for their new coach. Then the new coach drove that”rocket ship” with a bunch of hard working kids to a NC. Please stop with your insane view. He was awful for whatever reason a couple years later but to give JC credit for 2014 is just plain lame!

 

[metsfan2323]

Rocket ship? Omg you are so far off it’s unbelievable. That rocket ship started as a 20-10 last Big East season which a bunch of kids who stayed despite the APR, not many of whom played meaningful minutes for JC, worked their tails off for their new coach. Then the new coach drove that”rocket ship” with a bunch of hard working kids to a NC. Please stop with your insane view. He was awful for whatever reason a couple years later but to give JC credit for 2014 is just plain lame!

My view? More like 60% of the fanbase's view, and Twitter skews young which would probably be in Ollie's favor.

Why do you not want to give any credit to Calhoun, Hobbs and Miller for 2014? Did you forget about Miller's free throw shooting routine that was vital to that season? How about Hobbs bringing in his former player Kromah? You think it was all Ollie and his inspirational quotes? LOL!! You are the one who is lost in space.

You don't like the rocket analogy? How about this one, Jim Calhoun was very much the general manager of the 2014 team. He hired all of the coaches including the head coach, he brought in the 4 key starters and mentored them. He still had a desk in the building and watched the practices and most certainly gave feedback. Jim Calhoun was the Theo Epstein of the 2014 team, or do you not give Epstein any credit for what happened with the Red Sox?

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Please remind me what 3 choices that you favored at the time were available to the Athletic Department and the UConn Board of Trustees.

A case for football independence | The Boneyard (the-boneyard.com)

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The program nose-dived because Kevin Ollie stopped working.

If you think that’s not the case, thanks for stopping by, but you’re a moron.

This new venture is an exercise in lighting VC cash on fire - there’s a 100% chance this thing is a rocketship into the side of a mountain.

Hiring Kevin Ollie to help kids improve...lol. UConn paid him three million dollars a year to do it and he wasn’t interested, so good luck with that!

P6 and all that. Got it.