So here's the thing...

[freescooter]

Beginning of the season I wrote that this team wasn't that bad and that Ollie should be expected to win 18 games to be taken seriously. I likened this team to a good mid-major team...strong backcourt and big but not overly athletic front line. But after reading all the supposed fans, all the guys who were way more knowledgeable than I, I revised my thinking and said well , maybe he just needs to finish with 16 wins...way too many, I was told. So I said well, they know lots more than I do...and revised my thinking further and said he's got to finish .500.

 

[UChusky916]

Ahh, freescooter still around huh?

Thought you had committed suicide with the program once you heard the news that Ollie got his extension?

 

[Dann]

2night is the begining of uconn devaluing athletics

 

[hungry husky]

This is the biggest game for the program since the '11 NC game.

 

[specialisthusky]

2night is the begining of uconn devaluing athletics

What the heck do u mean by that?

 

[Mots010]

Here we go. Gotta reset expectations so you can be disappointed at the end of the year and say 'I told you so'. No way you can give Ollie any credit.

 

[Dann]

What the heck do u mean by that?

lol that is free's position on uconn.

 

[Brochacho]

So we have 5 games left against USF, DePaul, and Providence. if we go 5-10 down the stretch is Ollie still serious?

 

[hungry husky]

So we have 5 games left against USF, DePaul, and Providence. if we go 5-10 down the stretch is Ollie still serious?

Many were not very confident we would win 1 out of this 3 game stretch. Even if we go 5-10, Ollie has me believing that we have a chance to win every game. Based on where we were picked to finish this year, how can you not be impressed?

 

[8893]

What does it matter? You don't have enough toes to get behind Ollie no matter what he does.

 

[AtlHusky]

Beginning of the season I wrote that this team wasn't that bad and that Ollie should be expected to win 18 games to be taken seriously. I likened this team to a good mid-major team...strong backcourt and big but not overly athletic front line. But after reading all the supposed fans, all the guys who were way more knowledgeable than I, I revised my thinking and said well , maybe he just needs to finish with 16 wins...way too many, I was told. So I said well, they know lots more than I do...and revised my thinking further and said he's got to finish .500.

So here's the thing...We get it, Ollie sucks and if we wait long enough, you will be proven right. In the meantime, since it's now evident that you were wrong, you try in vain to highlight why you are so right.

You remind me of the Black Knight from The Holy Grail. So far, he's :

- Proven to be a special person more than capable of leading young men
- Proven to be a quality game coach able to win against more talented teams and more experienced coaches
- Gained the respect of CBB coaching community
- Pulled in recruits that he believes can play his type of game AND represent the university in a positive way

Next on the list is landing a smattering of high-level recriuts that are needed to win at the highest level, but so far all the signs are there that he will also be successful there.

At this point, Mr. Black Knight, we are all just waiting for your "All right, we'll call it a draw" moment once you've been reduced to a stump. If it makes you feel better, we promise not to think any less of you when/if you admit you were wrong.

 

[RayRay19]

He is getting kids to play their heart out without a postseason...that can not be underestimated. On top of the fact that when they choose to come to UConn, they expect to play in the postseason. Try going to work everyday and not getting a paycheck at the end of the day. How long would you last?

 

[HuskyBballFan]

You will be saving us all a lot of time and aggravation if you would just admit that your mind is already made up and there is nothing that will change it.

 

[GlastonTim]

Beginning of the season I wrote that this team wasn't that bad and that Ollie should be expected to win 18 games to be taken seriously. I likened this team to a good mid-major team...strong backcourt and big but not overly athletic front line. But after reading all the supposed fans, all the guys who were way more knowledgeable than I, I revised my thinking and said well , maybe he just needs to finish with 16 wins...way too many, I was told. So I said well, they know lots more than I do...and revised my thinking further and said he's got to finish .500.

How do you feel about the team now?

 

[7774]

Beginning of the season I wrote that this team wasn't that bad and that Ollie should be expected to win 18 games to be taken seriously. I likened this team to a good mid-major team...strong backcourt and big but not overly athletic front line. But after reading all the supposed fans, all the guys who were way more knowledgeable than I, I revised my thinking and said well , maybe he just needs to finish with 16 wins...way too many, I was told. So I said well, they know lots more than I do...and revised my thinking further and said he's got to finish .500.

And yet when we all tell you to stop posting and go away, nothing.

 

[Waquoit]

This is the biggest game for the program since the '11 NC game.

Don't see that at all. A loss doesn't hurt, a win will be nice with no lasting import beyong trivia question status. The correct answer is last year's Iowa State game.

 

[Rico444]

Beginning of the season I wrote that this team wasn't that bad and that Ollie should be expected to win 18 games to be taken seriously. I likened this team to a good mid-major team...strong backcourt and big but not overly athletic front line. But after reading all the supposed fans, all the guys who were way more knowledgeable than I, I revised my thinking and said well , maybe he just needs to finish with 16 wins...way too many, I was told. So I said well, they know lots more than I do...and revised my thinking further and said he's got to finish .500.

Nicely done. This proves that you have a good eye for talent.

Can't get 'em all right, though. Even Hall of Famers fail 6 out of 10 times. Ollie is a stud.

 

[caw]

Beginning of the season I wrote that this team wasn't that bad and that Ollie should be expected to win 18 games to be taken seriously. I likened this team to a good mid-major team...strong backcourt and big but not overly athletic front line. But after reading all the supposed fans, all the guys who were way more knowledgeable than I, I revised my thinking and said well , maybe he just needs to finish with 16 wins...way too many, I was told. So I said well, they know lots more than I do...and revised my thinking further and said he's got to finish .500.

Let me ask, prior to the season, what would you have put their record at after 15 games?

UConn being 12-3 right now was not something you imagined (nor anyone did likely). I had them at 9-3 OOC or even 8-4 if they lost a winnable game. Vegas agreed with me, they were favored in 9 of the 12 OOC games they played. Marquette was a bit of a tossup for me, but Vegas had Marquette. ND was a loss (my expectations pre-season). I thought at best UConn would be 11-4 (2-1) right now, but at worst 9-6 (1-2). 16-18 games is right in the wheel house based on that. UConn has exceeded expectations, by a lot. Even your 18 game estimation may be low, especially as UConn could easily be 13-2 right now (darn Marquettes 18% 3PT shooter).

I think if you asked people now, they would think 18 is very doable, but not at the beginning of the season.

Of the 15 games remaining, 7 are against PCx2, USFx2, @Seton Hall, @SJU, @DePaul.

Remainder are: UL, @Pitt, Rutgers, Cuse, Nova, Cincix2, Georgetown.

Basically all the remaining games against top competition are at home and the games against the bad teams in the BE are on the road. Of course winning on the road in the BE is tough against any team, but it is probably the best/easiest schedule UConn could hope for in the BE. Only way it could be easier is if UConn had SHU twice instead of Cincy. PC, USF, DePaul and Cincy as the four home-away games...

 

[hungry husky]

Don't see that at all. A loss doesn't hurt, a win will be nice with no lasting import beyong trivia question status. The correct answer is last year's Iowa State game.

Respectfully disagree. We stumbled into that tournament game last year. A loss doesn't hurt us true, but a win shows that our relevance is still very high.

 

[freescooter]

Here's the thing though...I thought this was a good team, not great but good enough to win a bunch of games. If your expectations are low, as most of yours were, Ollie earned his extension by showing up and remembering to wear pants. I had higher expectations, still do, and given some of the dreck at the bottom of the Big East he is in a good position to meet or exceed those expectations. That shows me that he can actually coach. Given what's left, I don't think 6-9 is too much to expect. This team is doing about what I expected it would do. With 2 games with PC, another against Depaul, Rutgers, 2 against South Florida, plus St Johns, Seton Hall and Villanova, there's 9 potential wins without even upsetting one of the better teams. So basically, just as I originally thought, they need to win 6 of those 9 for 18 wins. Anyone think that is an impossible mountain to climb? Anyone think saying going 6-3 against that schedule is putting an unfair burden on anyone? Just for funsies I went back and looked at my preseason picks and I had UConn 12-3 at this point but I had them beating Marquette and New Mexico and losing to Michigan St and Washington (I didn't know much about Washington but a friend who was a Washington grad claimed they would be much improved this year.) At any rate, they are about where I thought they'd be. I had and posted a few times that 18 should be the minimum. After reading all the experts on here i reduced that to finshing .500 and still had people claiming I was being unreasonable in holding Ollie to such a "high" standard. I figured everyone gets an upset in the league and Notre Dame was my upset special, too.

 

[Senore]

You have an enthusiastic and highly-motivated coach. The players not only buy into Ollie, but they like him.

WINNING!! LOL, I think you hit the lottery and so does Pitino.

 

[aceboon]

I don't even know why you guys bother. He took his position early that he didn't want KO to get the job, degraded his prior status as an assistant as if KO was a video coordinator, has degraded his playing career, and degraded his standing in the NBA and the basketball word despite the clear evidence and testimonials from basketball people on how much they respect him. No matter what KO does there's nothing changing his mind, best to just leave him be and let him stay frustrated in his own miserable world.

 

[UChusky916]

SO HERES THE THING...

Either Calhoun, 90% of this board of rabid UConn fans, Bilas, Vitale, Pitino, Herbst, Warde and countless others are ALL wrong about Ollie.

Or freescooter is once again trolling for replies.

I'll go with the latter.

 

[caw]

Here's the thing though...I thought this was a good team, not great but good enough to win a bunch of games. If your expectations are low, as most of yours were, Ollie earned his extension by showing up and remembering to wear pants. I had higher expectations, still do, and given some of the dreck at the bottom of the Big East he is in a good position to meet or exceed those expectations. That shows me that he can actually coach. Given what's left, I don't think 6-9 is too much to expect. This team is doing about what I expected it would do. With 2 games with PC, another against Depaul, Rutgers, 2 against South Florida, plus St Johns, Seton Hall and Villanova, there's 9 potential wins without even upsetting one of the better teams. So basically, just as I originally thought, they need to win 6 of those 9 for 18 wins. Anyone think that is an impossible mountain to climb? Anyone think saying going 6-3 against that schedule is putting an unfair burden on anyone? Just for funsies I went back and looked at my preseason picks and I had UConn 12-3 at this point but I had them beating Marquette and New Mexico and losing to Michigan St and Washington (I didn't know much about Washington but a friend who was a Washington grad claimed they would be much improved this year.) At any rate, they are about where I thought they'd be. I had and posted a few times that 18 should be the minimum. After reading all the experts on here i reduced that to finshing .500 and still had people claiming I was being unreasonable in holding Ollie to such a "high" standard. I figured everyone gets an upset in the league and Notre Dame was my upset special, too.

I am fine admitting 17 was my guess for this team, give or take one. I didn't think they would beat any of NM, MSU, ND, or NCST pre-season and had Marquette as a loss because it was an away game.

Boatright and Napier were somewhat known quantities, but there were questions about leadership and if there would be an issues between the two.

Calhoun was a very good recruit and has played about as well as expected, though his shooting is off.

Giffey and Olander were also known quantities but neither were exactly lighting the world on fire last year.

Daniels had just come off a pretty poor freshman year.

Wolf hadn't played (under 60 minutes) in the past two years, anyone who really thought he would be doing this well needs to tell me the lottery numbers soon.

Nolan, Tolksdorf were project recruits.

Evans was a transfer who many questioned if his game would translate to BE caliber.

Ollie is a first year head coach.

.500 may have been setting expectations low, but either way they have exceeded expectations so far.

 

[phillionaire]

Here's the thing though...I thought this was a good team, not great but good enough to win a bunch of games. If your expectations are low, as most of yours were, Ollie earned his extension by showing up and remembering to wear pants. I had higher expectations, still do, and given some of the dreck at the bottom of the Big East he is in a good position to meet or exceed those expectations. That shows me that he can actually coach. Given what's left, I don't think 6-9 is too much to expect. This team is doing about what I expected it would do. With 2 games with PC, another against Depaul, Rutgers, 2 against South Florida, plus St Johns, Seton Hall and Villanova, there's 9 potential wins without even upsetting one of the better teams. So basically, just as I originally thought, they need to win 6 of those 9 for 18 wins. Anyone think that is an impossible mountain to climb? Anyone think saying going 6-3 against that schedule is putting an unfair burden on anyone? Just for funsies I went back and looked at my preseason picks and I had UConn 12-3 at this point but I had them beating Marquette and New Mexico and losing to Michigan St and Washington (I didn't know much about Washington but a friend who was a Washington grad claimed they would be much improved this year.) At any rate, they are about where I thought they'd be. I had and posted a few times that 18 should be the minimum. After reading all the experts on here i reduced that to finshing .500 and still had people claiming I was being unreasonable in holding Ollie to such a "high" standard. I figured everyone gets an upset in the league and Notre Dame was my upset special, too.

Why are you such a negative nancy