Rothstein: "UConn’s struggles shouldn’t be a massive surprise"

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Hot take: Ollie derailed Jalen’s development as a point guard and overall career trajectory with the Gibbs situation in 2015-16. I feel like Gibbs was told he could come here and it’d be a 30 game NBA tryout as a point guard. That didn’t go so well. He sold out his career to make it to the tournament that year.

 

[intlzncster]

Hot take: Ollie derailed Jalen’s development as a point guard and overall career trajectory with the Gibbs situation in 2015-16. I feel like Gibbs was told he could come here and it’d be a 30 game NBA tryout as a point guard. That didn’t go so well. He sold out his career to make it to the tournament that year.

I think the concept was the right move. Bring in a vet whom Adams can learn from as a frosh. Most of UCONN's best PGs had that. Bazz had Kemba, Kemba had AJP, AJP had MW and Taliek, and so on. The only guy who got hung out to dry was Taliek. KEA stepped in right away, but he still had Ricky and Jones.

The only problem is that Gibbs, through no fault of his own, couldn't fulfill that role. It didn't work out, but based on the situation at the time, it was the right move. As to how it affected Jalen's overall development, idk.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Hot take: Ollie derailed Jalen’s development as a point guard and overall career trajectory with the Gibbs situation in 2015-16. I feel like Gibbs was told he could come here and it’d be a 30 game NBA tryout as a point guard. That didn’t go so well. He sold out his career to make it to the tournament that year.

Regardless of what was best for Adams's development, KO failed the team by not recognizing until the season was practically over that Gibbs had no business running his offense as a ball-dominant guard.

Gibbs needed to be used as a spot-up 2-guard, either with Adams at the 1, or with Hamilton as point forward. Gibbs shot a solid 39% from 3 (meaning he could shoot), but also a horrible 39% from inside the arc (meaning he struggled to finish on drives to the rim). Somebody else needed the ball in their hands, and the head coach was the last person to acknowledge it.

 

[SouthBayHusky]

Wow. This is true, I hadn’t thought of it that way. It feels like we’ve been terrible for ever. This last year and a half has been brutal

We have. Making the tournament 1x out of 4 seasons, and that was as a “bubble team” is terrible for a program like Uconn. 1x out of 4 seasons as a bubble team. Let that sink in. Then, ask yourself when Larrier and Jalen are missing from lineup next year and replaced by 3 freshman (only 1 being a 4*) and KO at helm, what will be more likely - making tournament; or missing again for a record of 1 tournament appearance in 5 seasons?

We can’t afford another rerun. Chances are his performance will be similar to his performance in the last four seasons, minus season number three when we had a lot of talent and experience (pre-season Top 15) and still limped into the tournament.

 

[AdamaNation]

Player recruitment, Player retention, Player growth- do we have any semblance of this at all? It's not like we've had some sort of fluky string of out of the blue injuries. Gilbert and Durham were hurt before they even arrived here. - As Head Coach he's responsible for all of these choices. - "If they want you to cook the dinner, at least they ought to let you shop for some of the groceries.”- Our restaurant needs a new cook imo.

Did rique get hurt AFTER signing his LOI? I can’t for the life remember.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Regardless of what was best for Adams's development, KO failed the team by not recognizing until the season was practically over that Gibbs had no business running his offense as a ball-dominant guard.

Gibbs needed to be used as a spot-up 2-guard, either with Adams at the 1, or with Hamilton as point forward. Gibbs shot a solid 39% from 3 (meaning he could shoot), but also a horrible 39% from inside the arc (meaning he struggled to finish on drives to the rim). Somebody else needed the ball in their hands, and the head coach was the last person to acknowledge it.

That Offense needed to be run through Miller and Hamilton. Open looks for Purvis and Gibbs as a bonus. The dude is definitely on UConns all time missed layup team. He was a great shooter and that team was doing nothing without his shooting but he probably should have been just catch and shooting not running the team.

 

[SubbaBub]

That was a strangely kind take.

 

[Stainmaster]

Its amazing isn't it? The Ollie haters move the bar around so much on here. I have seen time and again people saying " I want to be competitive and compete for tournament berths"

and then as soon as you bring up times where we have done that you get posts like this:



People moving the bar and trashing National Championship seasons to prove Kevin Ollie sucks.


If you ever need to look any further on why there is a big group of Men's fans that will NEVER be happy unless we are the UConn Women, look no further than that post.

People want the peaks of the Calhoun years. If they say otherwise, they’re lying through their teeth.

 

[Stainmaster]

YES. It's astounding to me that you actually have to ask this question, and it's Exhibit A as to what an entitled fan base looks like. 2014 should be remembered for one thing: a national championship. There are adults who root for storied programs who have not seen a national championship in their lifetime. Have a modicum of perspective.

I spent much of my Saturday afternoon dealing with a buddy who’s a diehard Arizona fan and doesn’t understand how UConn fans can be upset at anything given the championships.

 

[jibsey]

Vance Jackson hurt bad. He was a starter with big minutes coming. Easily good for 12-16 ppg. I still don’t know what happened with KO. My guess was that he wasn’t played enough, mouthed off, and his father got pissed and things went downhill. KO probably torched his defense and effort. You don’t make 18 year old kids walk the plank, got to use psychology and get them to buy in because they are young and immature. Enoch the same.

 

[SouthBayHusky]

I spent much of my Saturday afternoon dealing with a buddy who’s a diehard Arizona fan and doesn’t understand how UConn fans can be upset at anything given the championships.

Cool story

 

[Javjudah]

We wouldn’t be better if Jackson was in Polley’s roll, Durham was in Whaley’s roll and Enoch was in DO’s roll?

I never said we wouldn't be better if Jackson was in Polley's role. I like Durham and think he is talented but he thought that he should have played more last season when he really should have been redshirted to work on his body and health. Now Enoch never improved. He was terrible on defense and everytime he touched the ball on offense it was a turnover. I wish him luck at Louisville, hope he improves.

 

[Javjudah]

Vance Jackson hurt bad. He was a starter with big minutes coming. Easily good for 12-16 ppg. I still don’t know what happened with KO. My guess was that he wasn’t played enough, mouthed off, and his father got pissed and things went downhill. KO probably torched his defense and effort. You don’t make 18 year old kids walk the plank, got to use psychology and get them to buy in because they are young and immature. Enoch the same.

His father thought he was as good as Paul George and wanted the ball in his hands. He could have been really good had he played his role.

 

[uconnbill]

Maybe I am missing something but they don't play as a team. The offense is ragtag to say the least and on defense, they have good moments but more bad moments. How do you not get out of shooters when you know they can shoot. Communication is poor as well and this starts at the top. Losing Gilbert hurt, but so did losing Mal.
This is on Coach Ollie and his staff.

 

[Towney007]

Again the record is just so secondary to me with this team. 10-9 doesn't bug me given the roster, given the schedule, all of it. What i'm worried about is how absolutely out of our depth we look. How totally matched we always look. How the same problems persist year after year. I mean if we're 10-9, and 2-3 of em are blow outs, 2-3 of them are competitive and 2-3 we lose in close contests and whatever... well then we're having a totally different conversation. If we're 10-9 now and push Nova and Wichita hard on the heels of what was a really good effort until the last few minutes of the Arizona game.. hey, things aren't good but we're getting better.

But we're not. We're just getting worse. And it's the same story every year. They give you 10 minutes every game where you go 'wow, we ight be figuring it out' or a great game against a bad to middling team where everything looks really great... they give you JUST ENOUGH to kind of hold onto a little bit of hope before they go out immediately thereafter and absolutely get blown out of their shoes. And then it's the same body language, it's the team just going through the motions behind...

It's the same offense that's literally leading nowhere. We're honestly not THAT BAD defensively. We can stop good teams and our guard defense is actually really good. But we're outsized, get brutalized on the boards. We don't run.

And No - I don't think it's the talent. We're not at mid 00's recruting levels, but we mostly never were before or after and were good. And there's enough talent on this team to warrant playing above the crappy roster construction. We shouldn't have been a losing team in any sense last year - and def. shouldn't be this year either.

Then there's just the mind boggling turnover, the inability to develop core players past a point, the rumors of silliness with the coaches off the court, there jsut being heaps of analogies and yeah ra ra without ANY semblance of substance as to what's wrong.

And it's all snowballing and taking a bad situation - and uninteresting, albeit underrated conference that fans don't want to come watch... the P5 pressure, the changing landscape, financial constraints, etc... It's all there and just melding into an awful cocktail where what's been going on can't continue. It just can't. Even if it's not as much Ollie's fault as myself, or others on the board think it might be.

The buy out sucks, but it won't be as big an obstacle as it appears up front. The issue with it to me is it just severely limits (even more) the program's upward mobility and margin for error. They have to absolutely freaking NAIL the next guy. They 100% can't miss. Because if they do - it's probably over. That to me is more the risk in the buy out than the dollars up front. And I think Benedict is a massive upgrade over previous administrators, but the fact remains even if they get a big name and a better fit (like they did with football) it's stil not a guarantee and they're on the clock. But they are even if they stick with Ollie, if not moreso.

So it's not a good option, but it's certainly the least bad one. But they've gotta tee it high and let it fly at this point.

 

[KodiacKemba]

People talk about the wins .. oh we went into OT with this team and that team .. people talk about the losses, oh we wasn’t in it from the tip, that’s a bad loss .. I’m sorry everything’s a learning experience .. a win is a win don’t matter how we win, a loss a loss don’t matter how we lose ... believe me coaches all have game plans , a coach is never unprepared, sometimes the kids don’t execute it correctly

How many times out of a timeout Ollie draws up a play and the kids either miss the shot or fumble it out of bounds.. people can talk about his body language or his pressers which do suck but at the end of the day it’s UCONN and it shouldn’t matter who the coach is winning or losing I’m going to still think my team has every shot to win vs anybody

Let’s worry about the next 8-12 games and win those go UCONN

 

[Javjudah]

Again the record is just so secondary to me with this team. 10-9 doesn't bug me given the roster, given the schedule, all of it. What i'm worried about is how absolutely out of our depth we look. How totally matched we always look. How the same problems persist year after year. I mean if we're 10-9, and 2-3 of em are blow outs, 2-3 of them are competitive and 2-3 we lose in close contests and whatever... well then we're having a totally different conversation. If we're 10-9 now and push Nova and Wichita hard on the heels of what was a really good effort until the last few minutes of the Arizona game.. hey, things aren't good but we're getting better.

But we're not. We're just getting worse. And it's the same story every year. They give you 10 minutes every game where you go 'wow, we ight be figuring it out' or a great game against a bad to middling team where everything looks really great... they give you JUST ENOUGH to kind of hold onto a little bit of hope before they go out immediately thereafter and absolutely get blown out of their shoes. And then it's the same body language, it's the team just going through the motions behind...

It's the same offense that's literally leading nowhere. We're honestly not THAT BAD defensively. We can stop good teams and our guard defense is actually really good. But we're outsized, get brutalized on the boards. We don't run.

And No - I don't think it's the talent. We're not at mid 00's recruting levels, but we mostly never were before or after and were good. And there's enough talent on this team to warrant playing above the crappy roster construction. We shouldn't have been a losing team in any sense last year - and def. shouldn't be this year either.

Then there's just the mind boggling turnover, the inability to develop core players past a point, the rumors of silliness with the coaches off the court, there jsut being heaps of analogies and yeah ra ra without ANY semblance of substance as to what's wrong.

And it's all snowballing and taking a bad situation - and uninteresting, albeit underrated conference that fans don't want to come watch... the P5 pressure, the changing landscape, financial constraints, etc... It's all there and just melding into an awful cocktail where what's been going on can't continue. It just can't. Even if it's not as much Ollie's fault as myself, or others on the board think it might be.

The buy out sucks, but it won't be as big an obstacle as it appears up front. The issue with it to me is it just severely limits (even more) the program's upward mobility and margin for error. They have to absolutely freaking NAIL the next guy. They 100% can't miss. Because if they do - it's probably over. That to me is more the risk in the buy out than the dollars up front. And I think Benedict is a massive upgrade over previous administrators, but the fact remains even if they get a big name and a better fit (like they did with football) it's stil not a guarantee and they're on the clock. But they are even if they stick with Ollie, if not moreso.

So it's not a good option, but it's certainly the least bad one. But they've gotta tee it high and let it fly at this point.

I am sure you're not suffering from loss of memory. Anderson, Cobb, Williams, onuorah were bandaids for this season. God bless them and thanks that they came aboard so we can have enough players but these guys are what they are. They are not very talented basketball players. These are all older players, they are what they are, they've been playing college basketball for 4 or 5 years already. We as a fan base expectations are too high. Vital is not the third best player on any high major team. Polley, Whaley and Carlton are young and have potential to be good but they are Freshmen and not game changers yet. Gilbert is injured. Diarra and Larrier are coming along after major injuries. What we need is an infusion of talent and help is on the way.

 

[KodiacKemba]

I think Jalen Adams said it best when you winning they love you and when you’re not they’re against you

 

[PAHusky]

I am sure you're not suffering from loss of memory. Anderson, Cobb, Williams, onuorah were bandaids for this season. God bless them and thanks that they came aboard so we can have enough players but these guys are what they are. They are not very talented basketball players. These are all older players, they are what they are, they've been playing college basketball for 4 or 5 years already. We as a fan base expectations are too high. Vital is not the third best player on any high major team. Polley, Whaley and Carlton are young and have potential to be good but they are Freshmen and not game changers yet. Gilbert is injured. Diarra and Larrier are coming along after major injuries. What we need is an infusion of talent and help is on the way.

1. We only brought on the older "bandaid" players this year because the roster was in shambles. It's a stop gap to a problem created by some KO recruiting failures and transfers (not willing to cast all of the blame for those on Ollie).

2. Tired of hearing that our expectations are too high as a fanbase. It's a strawman argument to keep accusing KO's detractors of expecting things to return to the Calhoun days. I think the majority just want to consistently make the tournament, put a team on the court that beats the teams it should and occasionally the ones it shouldn't, and to challenge for a title every once in awhile.

3. What help is on the way? I like our recruiting class next year and think they're probably underrated on the recruiting websites, but one guy is barely top 100 and the others aren't. We had the number 8 class in the country come in two years back and we still didn't make the tournament (albeit for a variety of reasons). I don't think it's sane to expect that we add three kids who are good but probably not huge contributors from day one and think we're going to be better next year. If Adams and/or Larrier leave we're going to struggle again to beat anyone with a pulse.

 

[jibsey]

Maybe our expectations are too high from our past success but I think most would be happy now to see a team showing growth and actually being competitive in most of the games and not getting blown out. Even with the blowouts continuing I sense that KO gets another year.

 

[Huskybass]

And thats been my thing.

Absolutely hold Ollies feet to the fire for player retention. and the off the court stuff that effects it. I get it. And if last April happens again I will be the first one in line donating to the buyout. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

But with the pieces gone and the injury to Alterique (and even stretching back to last year with the injury to Alterique and Terry) I can't muster up the hatred for the floor game we have shown. I obviously like everyone else wish it was better, and Im sure KO couldve paddled through some of these turbulent waters a bit better on the game floor (for example the worst sub patterns in the country for my money) , but he is still a young coach in that manner... I just can't judge him fully on his actual full coaching ability, and I still think there may be something to work with. It's not like he is losing with a loaded squad. We are severely, severely undermanned. He gets a pass from me for last April ONCE.

There's more to it though. How can this UConn team need to go to overtime against a team like Columbia? Or get blown out regularly? I get that the talent is not great, but beating the Columbia's of the world shouldnt be a struggle. And the 25 point losses shouldnt be THAT big. This roster should still be a good bit more competitive than it is. Simple things like good spacing on offense aren't happening.

 

[olehead]

The takeaway is that if you don’t like to recruit and you tend to alienate players, your job will get a lot harder than it needs to be.

So, just to be clear, you are aware that Ollie does not like to recruit?

 

[olehead]

The incoming players- Akinjo, Lukas, Mathews, and Wilson. None are shooters.

I have watched complete games, yes hs games, but complete games, rather than highlight tapes of Akinjo. This kid can shoot and has pure pg sensibilities. Additionally, he is taller than Gilbert, has Gilbert's burst and is faster than Gilbert. Watched quite a bit of game tape of Matthews as well. He can also shoot. It remains to be seen whether their shooting ability translates at the DI level, but it would not surprise me if Matthews, for example is a more athletic, more fluid version of V. Jackson.

 

[CTFIRERETIRED]

The way you’ve supported Ollie just have a hard time believing you will adjust your thoughts on him if some players transfer. So many people blamed the players or players parents but Ollie took very little blame.

is this the 'same' KO, that was talked about to be the next coach of the Lakers, not so long ago?

 

[Candyman]

I am sure you're not suffering from loss of memory. Anderson, Cobb, Williams, onuorah were bandaids for this season. God bless them and thanks that they came aboard so we can have enough players but these guys are what they are. They are not very talented basketball players. These are all older players, they are what they are, they've been playing college basketball for 4 or 5 years already. We as a fan base expectations are too high. Vital is not the third best player on any high major team. Polley, Whaley and Carlton are young and have potential to be good but they are Freshmen and not game changers yet. Gilbert is injured. Diarra and Larrier are coming along after major injuries. What we need is an infusion of talent and help is on the way.

I'd like to know what they are a baind-aid for? What help is on the way? Mathews and Lukas will not be game changers next year either regardless of what people on here say. We lose Adams and replace him with Akinjo, we lose Larrier and replace him with Wilson both who have never played D1 ball. Vital will still be third best player on team Not really sure how anyone thinks next year will be different. Ollie will run same predictable offense with Akinjo and Gilbert (if he is the same player) going one on one at end of shot clock.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Maybe I am missing something but they don't play as a team. The offense is ragtag to say the least and on defense, they have good moments but more bad moments. How do you not get out of shooters when you know they can shoot. Communication is poor as well and this starts at the top. Losing Gilbert hurt, but so did losing Mal.
This is on Coach Ollie and his staff.

You aren't missing anything. UConnBlog is piling on now too. Highlighting the very obvious differences in style or play, and roster construction between UConn and Villanova. Calling Ollie's whole approach outdated (which it is). Seeing UConn against Villanova highlighted the mistakes of the Ollie era

 

[Stainmaster]

2. Tired of hearing that our expectations are too high as a fanbase. It's a strawman argument to keep accusing KO's detractors of expecting things to return to the Calhoun days.

It’s not a strawman. Many here will not be happy until the Calhoun days return.