There is no disagreement about K.O. having other or better strategies that could have been explored that would have mitigated the hit to his brand however once you get to a point where you feel you have nothing more to lose he is the type of guy that will go against the obvious path out of faith. We forget K.O. remains a man in faith so when you have someone that operates like that this worse case scenario was foreseeable. I still put the burden on the Administration to have found a way to avoid this worst case scenario we find ourselves in now. It was foreseeable so maybe the UCONN Administrations hands were tied or they exhausted their tool kit. Either way I believe the burden was on the Administration to make sure this scenario was avoided at all costs.
Clearly you didn't watch any games from his last two seasons as coach!
Sure, Hurley was a great bet given the tools at UCONN's disposal however we are all paying the cost so that is what I'm referring to. UCONN had other options early on even the year or two before firing K.O. I've always and continue to put the burden on UCONN to clean up this up this mess. It's convenient for people to character assassinate K.O. when UCONN and K.O. implemented nuclear options however the burden remains on our beloved university to clean this up.
Presume less, e.g., "Everyone on the board is moving forward as if everything is final". This may be your opinion, but referencing "everyone" and "everything is final" are each clearly absolute statements. Instead, most reasonable adults with much life and professional experience are less likely to foolishly believe "everything is final".
It was a bad bet if the assumption was made that K.O. would not go nuclear right back at UCONN and if they expected him to lay down and go off into the sunset with his tail between his legs. That is what I'm referring to. Sure if UCONN ultimately prevails without having to pay anything from the broken contract or additional sanctions and impact to our recruiting classes then sure I'll agree with you it was a bet worth taking.
I was just making a joke about who KO might sue next given he's now battling on 2-3 fronts (vs UConn, vs NCAA, vs Miller). No other commentary intended.
He was an idiot for not taking the 2.5M offer. That is what other train wreck coaches do. They take the settlement and resign. Then he pulled the race card and threw Calhoun under the bus. No matter how much you say it or he says it, he is not a victim. He is a fool with more ego than wisdom. He is only a victim of his own poor judgement. UConn has made the right moves the whole time. Ollie has responded with one boneheaded decision after another, effectively burning his own life to the ground.
“Backstabbing of the snake?” You know Kevin Ollie fired Glen Miller unceremoniously just before his pension kicked in right?
Maybe so but we will see how this plays out. I've always and will continue to put the burden on the administration to get this cleaned up and resolved. This was foreseeable and could have been avoided even going back a year or so prior to his firing. There are people that get paid at UCONN to make sure the University doesn't end up in the position they are in now. Sure they've made some steps in the right direction to right the ship but they need to get this resolved. The burden is on them to do so.
What should they have done a year before he got fired?
I'm sure he had his reasons. If you were running an organization and you found out that your right hand man, VP etc. was undermining what you were trying to do behind your back then what would you do? How would you handle that situation? How does Glenn the snake Miller not have any responsibility in his firing based on his actions of undermining the head coach of the UCONN basketball program? Does K.O. sit there and say..."Oh...that is O.K. I'll roll with this until he get's his pension because that is the right thing to do". I'm sure whatever he found out Glenn was doing was irreconcilable to their relationship and I'm sure Glenn knows this. It's a tough deal but how would you handle that kind of scenario?
How closely related to KO are you? Direct relative or through marriage?
They did not have to renew or extend his contract in the first place. They could have fired him a year or so prior with the player defections for performance. There is no dispute about the need for the University to move on. It's more about the process and how it was done. The University has to take some responsibility in all of this and why we are here. The Hurley move was a good one however one with significant costs however maybe not as costly as passing on firing K.O. This has yet to be determined. The bottom line for me is that I place the burden on the UCONN Administration to get this cleaned up and resolved. I don't care how they get it done. Once you go Nuclear everything is on the table.
IIRC from some filing, allegation, related news report, etc., wasn't Miller 3 years away from potentially collecting a pension?
There has been no character assassination of KO by the university. The notion that Kevin's current attempts to smear the university (which, ironically enough, have only served to destroy Kevin professional reputation and burn through the considerable goodwill he once had among much of the fanbase) somehow mean that it is incumbent upon the university to pay him millions of dollars to which he has no lawful claim so that he will go away (and that is, apparently, the only way to "avoid this scenario") is ludicrous.
I don't personally know K.O. but certainly if you reflect on those seasons you could see that something was off with the team's chemistry and no one could put there finger on what it was. Dis-function like this bleeds into recruiting, the team, the staff; it bleeds into everything. I guarantee you that this wasn't done for an invalid reason. I'm sure this undermining was also indirectly tied to the fractured relationship he had with Jim Calhoun prior to the GM firing. It's all related and it would have been great of Jim Calhoun was able to fix this. However typically what happens is when things don't play out the way you hoped you start to look deeper at potential causes and I'm sure K.O. found out that he had a cancer on his staff as it related to where he was trying to take the program. It's clear that GM did not buy into what K.O. was doing and had an issue with it. I'm sure this even went back to when K.O. was selected over him by Jim Calhoun. The bottom line is when the trust is gone you have to go in a different direction. It's clear that is what happened here.
Clear to most of us, yes.
I disagree with the UCONN approach to firing K.O. It could have been done years earlier and they did not have to extend his contract in the first place. In most cases when a coach doesn't work out you agree to a buyout. UCONN didn't have the money to do this based on the remaining money left on K.O.'s deal. Ultimately UCONN when nuclear and so did K.O. so I do put burden on the University to avoid this situation all together and to clean it up. It was very foreseeable. We are where we are now and there are costs to be paid with decisions. I think the core disagreement on this board is around approach however I don't understand when folks on the board act like UCONN had absolutely no role to play in this situation and feel the burden still remains with the University to clean this up. Folks on the board character assassinate K.O. at the expense of letting the UCONN Administration completely off the hook for getting us in this situation.
