Staff Changes Needed

[UConniki]

So if we'd held onto a 12-point lead, would we still need a staff overhaul? If we were on a four-game winning streak, would you have posted this? If not, you are basing this on five minutes of game action. Which seems excessive.

Yes, because your basing your post on what ifs ( fantasy). We didn't hold onto a 12 pt lead and were not on a 4 game winning streak and with the season winding down and the importance of these games I think you have to look at the truth (reality). The coaching sucks!

 

[SubbaBub]

We have guys that make boneheaded mistakes. It's only a coaching problem if you have other guys to replace them, we don't. I'd give a bunch of Gibbs minutes to Calhoun and Adams. I'd also yank Purvis for his brain cramps. That's about it.

The defense has become a lot better, that's coaching. The offense actually looks good at times, that's coaching. Guys not being able to stay on the bull for more than 8 seconds, that's on the players.

 

[Jerry1714]

So, you're content with our staff? You feel that we make good in game adjustments and that players are developing in their time here?

I'm not saying the world is over but to suggest a shake up isn't lunacy.

This thread is only 1 of the ridiculous threads (this is actually not the most ridiculous of the lot and maybe I should have saved this observation for one of them) that would only be posted if we lost. If we won the Temple game this thread and 5 other fire Ollie threads, we are irrelevant threads, ect, would not appear. It demonstrates the fickle nature and lunacy of this board, and if you do not see how ridiculous it is then I do not know what to say, but maybe I am crazy and our entire staff, head coach included, and program relevancy was dependent on a early February game against Temple.

Half of the posters tearing down the team and staff were raving about their excellence in getting the team to come together recently, the other half only show up after a loss to troll. There is zero middle ground, it is either we are the best or the worst. It is insane.

 

[Fishy]

This is not a well-coached team. The players aren't improving and the in-game coaching situation is an abortion on fire in the middle of a nuclear reactor melting down.

No one, but no one will try to poach any of these assistant coaches. No one will consider them for low-major head coaching gigs. It reminds me of when Calhoun wanted rid of Andre LaFleur, but couldn't find anyone willing to hire him, but was too loyal to fire him.

 

[boog204]

I wouldn't mind a change with Hobbs and Miller, but I wouldn't want to loss Ricky More. He has great connections down south and was a great on ball defender which adds great value to this team. JMO

I wouldn't want to lose Ricky either since he seems to be a pretty strong recruiter down south. But the 2nd part is utterly meaningless. Ted Williams is arguably the greatest hitter in history and he was a terrible manager. We have a staff of heady point guards and our guards make hideous decisions. On the converse, we also have a staff of pass first, non-shooting point guards and a max effort undersized PF and our offense is embarrassing. I have no idea what each assistant brings to the table as a coach. It's impossible to know. If there's someone out there who can improve our team, then UConn loyalty, I'm sorry, should not factor in.

 

[Stainmaster]

Just to clarify, Freeman is the DBO and does absolutely zero on-court work with players.

 

[intlzncster]

Listen, the 1999 team is always going to be my favorite team....but that being said, I haven't seen or heard much about how Ricky or Free are making the current players improve. Say what you will about Clyde Vaughan, but his work with our front court was spoken of highly and often. Leitao and Howie D as well. Maybe they're young and still finding their way, but I think you have to assume this coaching staff has a big hand in the lack of development in this team so far.

I never understood this. Vaughn was only here for 2 years. Two. What the hell did our bigs do the other 25+ years?

Both Leito and Moore were far more influential in player development.

 

[Stainmaster]

I never understood this. Vaughn was only here for 2 years. Two. What the hell did our bigs do the other 25+ years?

All he did was of note was go out drinking with Chief. That's literally the entire source of his legend.

 

[intlzncster]

In general, fixing the team overall is pretty simple.

Give them a consensus 1st team AA point guard, and they are a Final Four lock. And Ollie has his coach on the floor.

 

[Deepster]

Just to clarify, Freeman is the DBO and does absolutely zero on-court work with players.

My bad. I didn't know that.

 

[TRest]

All he did was of note was go out drinking with Chief. That's literally the entire source of his legend.

Well, that's more than I would do with Chief.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

This thread is only 1 of the ridiculous threads (this is actually not the most ridiculous of the lot and maybe I should have saved this observation for one of them) that would only be posted if we lost. If we won the Temple game this thread and 5 other fire Ollie threads, we are irrelevant threads, ect, would not appear. It demonstrates the fickle nature and lunacy of this board, and if you do not see how ridiculous it is then I do not know what to say, but maybe I am crazy and our entire staff, head coach included, and program relevancy was dependent on a early February game against Temple.

Half of the posters tearing down the team and staff were raving about their excellence in getting the team to come together recently, the other half only show up after a loss to troll. There is zero middle ground, it is either we are the best or the worst. It is insane.

Disagree entirely. People have been up in arms over the assistants the past two seasons. Honestly Napier and Kemba were all time legends. Since 2009,we haven't had a consistent top 10 regular season (2011 being the closest). Those two runs were legendary and I wouldn't trade them for anything but as a Giant fan I can't help but draw parallels between our unexpected titles sandwiched between mediocrity.

 

[Stainmaster]

Disagree entirely. People have been up in arms over the assistants the past two seasons. Honestly Napier and Kemba were all time legends. Since 2009,we haven't had a consistent top 10 regular season (2011 being the closest). Those two runs were legendary and I wouldn't trade them for anything but as a Giant fan I can't help but draw parallels between our unexpected titles sandwiched between mediocrity.

How does anybody have any way of knowing that the assistants are the root of the problem? Or is it just that they're the most convenient scapegoat?

 

[Citrusdog]

Listen, the 1999 team is always going to be my favorite team....but that being said, I haven't seen or heard much about how Ricky or Free are making the current players improve. Say what you will about Clyde Vaughan, but his work with our front court was spoken of highly and often. Leitao and Howie D as well. Maybe they're young and still finding their way, but I think you have to assume this coaching staff has a big hand in the lack of development in this team so far.

I agree. I am not convinced that Ricky and KFree are making that much of a difference yet. I don't know about Hobbsie. I believe in Miller primarily what has been said about him by JC. I think he is very helpful identifying talent, etc...

If I were on the staff - I would have looked at Rodney Purvis (last year) and would have told him... "Dude, we need you to shoot 75-80% from the FT line... so at the end of a game (when we begin to act foolish on the offensive end.. you can take the ball from 35 feet and drive to the hoop to get us a desperately needed bucket or 3 point play - just like Ben Gordon did on the 2004 team. You see... we are UCONN and we have the ability to act foolish on the offensive end - near the end of games. Dude, did you see Sterling get manhandled when he tried it? Temple is decent defensive team - no pushover. So this 46% or whatever the fudge you shoot is completely unacceptable. You are a small linebacker - playing football."

Over the years... my only complaint about JC was that his offensive mindset was not the what I thought it could be. I see a little more in KO. But you can't always hope that everyone will just figure it out. We are blessed to have Shonn Miller because the kid can get a decent most of the time. Kemba, Shabazz and Ryan could mask the deficiency most of the time.

So can KFree and Ricky help on the offensive end?

 

[Northbound]

Disagree entirely. People have been up in arms over the assistants the past two seasons. Honestly Napier and Kemba were all time legends. Since 2009,we haven't had a consistent top 10 regular season (2011 being the closest). Those two runs were legendary and I wouldn't trade them for anything but as a Giant fan I can't help but draw parallels between our unexpected titles sandwiched between mediocrity.

Actually a really good comparative.

 

[CallMeBruce]

Those five minutes were a snapshot of all the problems this team has demonstrated in games the past 2 years. And we weren't up 12 because we were playing great, Temple just couldn't get a good look. If we were playing great the game would have been out of reach. How long was Temple stuck in the 30's, the first ten minutes of the second half? Then suddenly the dam broke.

What a crock. Temple couldn't get a good look because we have one of the best defenses in the country. Then a 21% 3-point shooter hit three in a row, and they closed the gap, the guys panicked, and we blew it. You're being a reactionary. Please don't try to pretend otherwise.

 

[uconngb]

What a crock. Temple couldn't get a good look because we have one of the best defenses in the country. Then a 21% 3-point shooter hit three in a row, and they closed the gap, the guys panicked, and we blew it. You're being a reactionary. Please don't try to pretend otherwise.

Every one of those 3s was WIDE open.....give any decent college shooter a wide open look with time to set his feet and he's gonna bury way more than his overall average when he's actually being guarded. Making those shots was no fluke.

 

[Kitaman]

The amount of lunacy posted on this board after a loss is disturbing. The board simply becomes unreadable.

Ironically that's when its most busy.

 

[tcf15]

Every one of those 3s was WIDE open.....give any decent college shooter a wide open look with time to set his feet and he's gonna bury way more than his overall average when he's actually being guarded. Making those shots was no fluke.

21% is not "decent college shooter" tho.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

How does anybody have any way of knowing that the assistants are the root of the problem? Or is it just that they're the most convenient scapegoat?

Something isn't right in Storrs.

You're not firing KO, the kids are here, so where else do you look? I don't think they add much as our in game subs and offense still seems horrible.

It's been this way the past two seasons. Given the options we have, I think we need to look at this.

 

[CallMeBruce]

Every one of those 3s was WIDE open.....give any decent college shooter a wide open look with time to set his feet and he's gonna bury way more than his overall average when he's actually being guarded. Making those shots was no fluke.

You're talking about a guy was like 7-33 on the season coming into the game and went 4-5. It was absolutely a fluke.

 

[CallMeBruce]

Something isn't right in Storrs.

You're not firing KO, the kids are here, so where else do you look? I don't think they add much as our in game subs and offense still seems horrible.

It's been this way the past two seasons. Given the options we have, I think we need to look at this.

So in other words, something must be done, this is something, ergo this must be done?

 

[TRest]

You're talking about a guy was like 7-33 on the season coming into the game and went 4-5. It was absolutely a fluke.

Let's not pretend we weren't defending him because he's not their top shooter. It was a meltdown in all phases. And results matter in sports.

 

[Da_Aisijimo_Gou]

All he did was of note was go out drinking with Chief.

Wait, Chief's a lady of the night impersonator to boot? Andre needs to stay away!

 

[Gurleyman]

The truth is obviously somewhere in the middle - in between they are bumbling fools and they are a basketball Mensa society on their way to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a collective group. These were the guys game planning and making adjustments in March and April of 2014, which not many staffs can brag about, and they are the ones who have game planned and adjusted us to 7 winnable losses this year, which they deserve some criticism for. But a couple things in this thread jump out at me.

Ricky is the best defensive guard I've ever seen in college. All of our perimeter guys in the last few years have gotten exponentially better on defense. Could be coincidence, I suppose. I'm not privy to what goes on in practice and maybe he just supervises the managers while others coach defensive principles for all I know. But if you fail to imagine what coaching acumen he could possibly be bringing to the table, I'm not sure how to lay out any dots that are easier to connect than our guards improve defensively. A lot.

Bazz was awesome in 14, but to act like the coaches just went along for the ride is nonsense. Bazz stunk against St. Joe's, got in foul trouble against Nova and was effectively game planned out of the game by Florida. Every time, we adjusted. And those last three games saw our opponents struggle to score 50 points. That wasn't any one player doing that. That was an organized, well-coached team. We show some of that now with our defensive effort too, but we still haven't quite put it all together yet. Five minutes left against Tenple, I felt great about how we were progressing over a month-long arc - now we got ourselves a nut punch that pretty much flattens that arc out straight again in a matter of minutes. Sports does that to you sometimes. It's now about how we respond to it.

Also, the original poster has a blind spot for micro/macro issues. He'll opine that if we miss a free throw in a tie game in the first half, it's an epic disaster that will start the ball rolling for the entire state university system to collapse. So grain of salt.