nelsonmuntz
Point Center
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2011
- Messages
- 44,525
- Reaction Score
- 34,193
Ollie left over 4 years ago, and this board is still insane about him, with most of you sounding like bitter ex-girlfriends, bringing Ollie up in random threads all over the site in random acts of word vomit. There is a thread on the realignment board where a poster uses Kevin Ollie as an explanation for why Boston College has been bad at basketball forever. Enough is enough.
All Kevin Ollie did was win a National Championship faster than any coach since 1989. And other than Steve Fisher in 1989 (who was a very unique situation) the rest of the coaches that won a National Championship in their FIFTH season or sooner did so in 1961 or before. What Ollie did is basically impossible, but he did it. And he did it with one future journeyman NBA player, Napier, who is out of the League now, and no other player that played a minute of NBA basketball. By way of comparison, there are 5 players from the 2015 Duke Championship team still in the NBA. And Ollie beat 4 Hall of Fame Coaches along the way to winning that 2014 Championship.
Then, after winning the title, when he had a million job offers, Ollie stayed despite all the signs saying that the UConn athletic program had hit an iceberg. We were the northern outpost of a southern mid-major conference, and many of us said back in 2012 that staying in the stupid AAC league would destroy all of our athletic programs, which it ultimately did. I am 100% certain that Hurley knew we were leaving that hell hole of a league, or he would have never come to Storrs, and there is no way Mora comes here if UConn was still in the AAC. Auriemma likely would have retired by now if we had stayed in that league.
But Ollie stayed at UConn, and he tried to keep the program at a top level. Recruiting was getting more difficult in the AAC by 2015, both of new players and holding onto existing players, but Ollie didn't quit. If Gilbert and Larrier had not gotten hurt, UConn would still have been a reasonably competitive program in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 and probably made the NIT. But if Ollie had bailed, UConn would have fallen off a cliff. We would have ended up with some Fran Haith caliber retread serial failure, and the program would have nose-dived. 5-23 bad, and then we could turn the lights out. No one would come here ever again if that happened. If you take the absolutely least favorable characterization of Ollie's last two years at UConn, at least he held the program above water for the next guy.
Ollie bled Husky blue, including being one of Calhoun's first top recruits in UConn's first Top 5 recruiting class in history. Ollie had a lot of offers, but he came to UConn at a time when it wasn't cool to come to UConn. Ollie coming to UConn made it possible for Calhoun to get Allen and Hamilton and El-Amin and all the top players that came after. Kevin Ollie is a big part of the reason all of those banners hang from the rafters at Gampel. He helped build the program into what it is today. Ollie's dream job was to return to UConn and succeed Calhoun, and he did a great job and made the transition seamless. Ollie's first season had the most bizarre postseason ban in history, but Ollie stuck around. And his reward for all that loyalty was not a friendly parting of the ways as the program decided to go a different direction. Instead, UConn manufactured an NCAA violation against him, reported itself to the NCAA in an amazing act of self-sabotage, got Ollie slapped with a 3 year "show cause" penalty that effectively ended his coaching career, and then tried to cheat him out of $11.2 million dollars of his contract. I use the word "cheat" because an arbitrator ruled UConn owed the money after a multi-year legal fight. That is some hardcore sociopathic behavior by the UConn administration, especially towards someone that was a great Husky for most of his career.
We were not getting Ollie's A game as a coach in 2017-2018, and Ollie deserved to be fired. I am fine with that. I am not fine with the endless bashing of a former Husky and Head Coach that both won a national championship and left almost FIVE YEARS AGO. Fans need to credit Ollie for all the good he did, and move on. So does the administration. Or we can continue to be one of the worst fanbases in college sports.
All Kevin Ollie did was win a National Championship faster than any coach since 1989. And other than Steve Fisher in 1989 (who was a very unique situation) the rest of the coaches that won a National Championship in their FIFTH season or sooner did so in 1961 or before. What Ollie did is basically impossible, but he did it. And he did it with one future journeyman NBA player, Napier, who is out of the League now, and no other player that played a minute of NBA basketball. By way of comparison, there are 5 players from the 2015 Duke Championship team still in the NBA. And Ollie beat 4 Hall of Fame Coaches along the way to winning that 2014 Championship.
Then, after winning the title, when he had a million job offers, Ollie stayed despite all the signs saying that the UConn athletic program had hit an iceberg. We were the northern outpost of a southern mid-major conference, and many of us said back in 2012 that staying in the stupid AAC league would destroy all of our athletic programs, which it ultimately did. I am 100% certain that Hurley knew we were leaving that hell hole of a league, or he would have never come to Storrs, and there is no way Mora comes here if UConn was still in the AAC. Auriemma likely would have retired by now if we had stayed in that league.
But Ollie stayed at UConn, and he tried to keep the program at a top level. Recruiting was getting more difficult in the AAC by 2015, both of new players and holding onto existing players, but Ollie didn't quit. If Gilbert and Larrier had not gotten hurt, UConn would still have been a reasonably competitive program in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 and probably made the NIT. But if Ollie had bailed, UConn would have fallen off a cliff. We would have ended up with some Fran Haith caliber retread serial failure, and the program would have nose-dived. 5-23 bad, and then we could turn the lights out. No one would come here ever again if that happened. If you take the absolutely least favorable characterization of Ollie's last two years at UConn, at least he held the program above water for the next guy.
Ollie bled Husky blue, including being one of Calhoun's first top recruits in UConn's first Top 5 recruiting class in history. Ollie had a lot of offers, but he came to UConn at a time when it wasn't cool to come to UConn. Ollie coming to UConn made it possible for Calhoun to get Allen and Hamilton and El-Amin and all the top players that came after. Kevin Ollie is a big part of the reason all of those banners hang from the rafters at Gampel. He helped build the program into what it is today. Ollie's dream job was to return to UConn and succeed Calhoun, and he did a great job and made the transition seamless. Ollie's first season had the most bizarre postseason ban in history, but Ollie stuck around. And his reward for all that loyalty was not a friendly parting of the ways as the program decided to go a different direction. Instead, UConn manufactured an NCAA violation against him, reported itself to the NCAA in an amazing act of self-sabotage, got Ollie slapped with a 3 year "show cause" penalty that effectively ended his coaching career, and then tried to cheat him out of $11.2 million dollars of his contract. I use the word "cheat" because an arbitrator ruled UConn owed the money after a multi-year legal fight. That is some hardcore sociopathic behavior by the UConn administration, especially towards someone that was a great Husky for most of his career.
We were not getting Ollie's A game as a coach in 2017-2018, and Ollie deserved to be fired. I am fine with that. I am not fine with the endless bashing of a former Husky and Head Coach that both won a national championship and left almost FIVE YEARS AGO. Fans need to credit Ollie for all the good he did, and move on. So does the administration. Or we can continue to be one of the worst fanbases in college sports.
