I have gone back and forth multiple times on the KO debate. I am equally as appalled as anyone in here. Its been at least three years since I first told my brother that KO had major deficiencies in his coaching (scheme, substitution patterns, time/score decisions) and that was coming off of a national championship. He promptly told me to shut up we just won a national championship. So I listened because he was right. I still admired KO for his passion at the time and his ability to recruit and connect with the young athlete and the truth was he was still a very green head coach (lots of head coaches struggle early in their careers). I subsequently continued to try and ignore many of the same mistakes I had seen over and over in the following years. I made some excuses here and there (conference, injuries, divorce, young team due to defections, etc.) all the while knowing that KO wasn't progressing, wasn't learning from his mistakes, wasn't improvising, wasn't teaching and progressing his players, and wasn't working to his players skill sets, rather forcing the square peg into the round hole. It reached a gross breaking point for me this year as I watched his disgusting demeanor on the bench, first perpetually confused and the second half of the season finished with complete pathetic apathy. It was as if he even gave up on motivating his own players. This year has clearly culminated in the lowest of the lows. As a UConn fan from the mid 90's I've never seen the program in this disarray. He seems to have lost certain players (not all, at least he gets public support from many), lost the desire to be fiery, lost the ability to take a suggestion (if he is getting them, and if he ever did). He is, simply put, not getting better.
With all of that said, I think for this NEXT year and only this next year, the best, albeit seemingly highly improbable case scenario, is that KO learns, puts forth more effort, brings in quality assistants or listens to his assistants, becomes a better game manager and while doing this keeps this roster together. This roster who although isn't nearly the best or even a top 20 roster we have had is SOMEWHAT talented of a roster. Now I have little to no faith left that he does any of that but next year will only be worse or equally as dismal if we lose our young core players (some have shown gains and potential-- Tyler Phommachanh, JC, CV) combined with Akinjo and JA due to his firing. The last thing I want to see is a squad full of transfers next year and D2 quality players.
Now, in order for this to happen he truly needs his Come to Jesus moment, a moment of career path clairvoyance maybe, or deep enlightenment or perhaps a transcendent awakening. He must think critically about himself and his staff and have a major self-reflecting purge. If his post game press conferences aren't a blatant sign that he needs this then I don't know what is.
The way I see it though, is if we keep KO and none of our top 7 or so returning players transfer, with the additions that we have coming in and barring injuries we can only be better. The players leaving are all net minuses (DO, AA, TL,). Even if AG can't perform or is limited Akinjo is going to be better than AA. Kisunas better than DO. And I will even say EM as a freshman will probably show way more hustle energy and defensive IQ than TL ever did. You also add a highly skilled, and somewhat highly ranked Sid Wilson to the mix and if you take into effect gains from other players as they get older and stronger. Yes these gains more than likely will be minimal due to KO but you should at least see a stronger and slightly more confident JC, IW, and Tyler Phommachanh. If AG does come back healthy than it could actually be a top 4 AAC team (big, whoop, yea I know I get it).
So I get the arguments coming my way. It's a band-aid for the year and not a long term plan. The decision on my part obviously is heavily financially motivated as if his contract were up I would say cut him loose in a heart beat. But I also see it more likely that if we can win 20-22 games next year (in the AAC big whoop, yea I know I get it) with a low performing coach, if we seek to fire him next year, it will cost a whole lot less, and it might mean we have a better chance at keeping our key pieces around after experiencing some success and realizing their future potential is high.
What it comes down to is I just don't see any immediate gain in firing him this year unless there is another mass exodus of guys not named (EC, KW, IW). Or maybe an outside shot of a major coach bringing in a slew of top recruits. Now if JA leaves or a combo of Tyler Phommachanh, JC, MD, CV, AG decide to leave than go ahead and break it down and start over.
A big question for me would be: Would I rather be rooting for a 14-16 somewhat overachieving team coached by a good coach with grad transfers and D2 level players next year or would I rather be rooting for KO and a 20-12 under achieving squad. Both give you hope for different reasons. Both drive you nuts at times. I guess in the latter case with KO, I'm hoping that the players will bring their own energy and fire and play for the team name on their jersey. KO clearly has struggled with establishing a tough nosed, blue collar culture, I just hope he has started to recruit it (signs point towards......maybe).
I will say that I never thought it could get this bad. But if you told me a couple of years ago that a handful of players with big egos or dads with big egos, chemistry stunters, me-first players, guys who had a warped sense of their value or skill level, or guys missing heart especially defensively were going to be unidentified as such in the recruiting process and they would snake their way in and it was going to knock us down a peg I would've told you I could picture that scenario. KO recruited them yes but sometimes attitude chameleons are tough to pick when recruiting. They will say anything to get the schollys they want. Regardless KO handled them and the situations poorly. So for the money he makes he should endure the criticism.
I don't know. Just my two cents. I know the pitchfork crew will not like this take and trust me I get you guys. I have been there and might even be there again soon enough. I honestly would totally understand if he was let go tomorrow and I wouldn't fuss. I just go back and forth on what I want for next year because I can't stand another season of this crap.
