This has become just plain sad

[SECONN]

KO was forced to make a staff change last year after an abysmal season. He needed a fix.

If I remember correctly Miller was shocked that he was let go. Said some questionable things upon his exit or denied comments. Then he “re-joins” Calhoun when he comes calling at St. Joe’s.

After Miller is let go as well as the S&C coach too, Jackson and Enoch flee the program. Our roster is in trouble.

Chill was hired out of the blue and came in with the hopes of landing Washington commits/prospects after the Romar exodus, which he failed to do so. Some of them were highly touted. Rest of his recruiting impact remains to be seen. Coaching prowess is TBD, but it’s not looking good right now.

Then we were left scrambling because once Miller was fired, his top recruit which he recruited, decommited and signed with Providence. Chill didn’t sign any of his “boys” and we were relegated to a late transfer market and picked over 2-3* players.

So what you see right now is a direct result of what happened. Mismanagement and lack of control.

Didn't Hobbs leave first then Miller was fired........so no coaching without those two...also Dunham left as well

For me, I always wondered why DHam left early.......it seemed that one more season would have really increased his chances in the NBA

 

[BlueDogs]

This pic is not cool. KO deserves what's coming to him if his team to continue lose and play at a mid major level, but to bash him in false pics and something I doubt he stand for is just wrong. Not to mention you have a Uconn logo on dudes who probably never even heard of Uconn. The product of our program means a lot and history of winning NCs and big games....Can't take those away.
Please keep it Basketball

Has some pretty racist overtones, which isn't cool. I think he's a terribly incompetent coach in many areas (player eval, player development, game management, team play). In fact, I can't stand the guy for what he's done to this program, and I do think he thinks he's entitled and doesn't have to earn it. But, let's keep the criticism focused where it's deserved.

 

[USNA90]

I don't understand the narrative of KO being a good recruiter, and recruiting not being part of the problem. Recruits only help if they stay at the school and play. The fact that MAL committed at one point means nothing. The fact that AG was a good player before all the injuries only means KO was successful at landing a guy who probably had injury red flags. The guys who were recruited in what should be the current senior class we’re DHam and Lubin. Where are they? The next class also had only two recruits: Adams and Enoch, and we know that story. The highly touted incoming class of 2016 lost two of the five recruits, and a third is chronically injured. Who are the impact players on this current team? It’s basically Adams and a bunch of role players filling out the roster. A good recruiter doesn’t bring in classes of two people in consecutive years, and when he finally does have a good, full recruiting class, lose half of them after their freshman year.

 

[August_West]

Has some pretty racist overtones, which isn't cool. I think he's a terribly incompetent coach in many areas (player eval, player development, game management, team play). In fact, I can't stand the guy for what he's done to this program, and I do think he thinks he's entitled and doesn't have to earn it. But, let's keep the criticism focused where it's deserved.

Oh you tired of the ko rumors and innuendo here?

Me too.

 

[Huskybass]

Didn't Hobbs leave first then Miller was fired...so no coaching without those two...also Dunham left as well

For me, I always wondered why DHam left early..it seemed that one more season would have really increased his chances in the NBA

Hobbs left a year before Miller. He is the current Associate Head Coach at Rutgers.

 

[Waquoit]

But what about the new facilities? I thought they were supposed to help recruiting.

 

[Matrim55]

I don't understand the narrative of KO being a good recruiter, and recruiting not being part of the problem. Recruits only help if they stay at the school and play.

You're talking about, at the very least, four different issues.

1. Talent identification
2. Talent acquisition
3. Talent retention
4. Talent development

All four can be filed under "recruiting" if you want a discussion that lacks for nuance. If you want something a little deeper, though, you can break the recruiting process up into its constituent parts and see some areas in which KO & staff have been pretty good (talent ID), and others in which they've been not so good (talent development especially).

Here are our incoming players by year (note that I consider transfers to be functionally part of the class during which they played their first season at the school) under KO:

2013-14: Kentan (4-star), Samuel (high 3-star), Brimah (3-star), Kromah (highly regarded grad transfer)
- Not a great class, but one that had three guys contribute meaningfully to a national champion. None really lived up to their long-term potential, though.

2014-15: Hamilton (5-star), Purvis (5-star transfer), Sam Cassell (high-3-star JuCo transfer), Lubin (2-star)
- There are as many 5-stars in this class as the rest of the AAC has had, combined, in its existence. One left after two years even though he was about to be handed the keys to the program, and the other freely admits he underachieved in college. For some reason.

2015-16: Adams (borderline 5-star), Enoch (4-star), Miller (highly sought-after grad transfer), Gibbs (highly sought-after grad transfer)
- Miller & Gibbs were two of the three most-recruited grad transfers that spring. Adams was a top 30 player, and Enoch top 80. This is probably the best recruiting class any AAC team has had even though we missed on two guys (Abdul-Malik Abu & Bonzie Colson) we should've locked in.

Nonetheless, Miller & Gibbs were good in their year here. Enoch never developed and transferred after two years, and Adams has not progressed as hoped.

2016-17: Gilbert (borderline 5-star), Durham (high 4-star), Jackson (4-star), Diarra (low-4/high-3 star depending on service you use), Vital (high 3-star), Larrier (high-4-star transfer)
- Or maybe this is the best incoming class in conference? Consensus top 10 nationally, but Durham & Jackson both transferred, Larrier, Gilbert & Diarra have nursed injuries, while Vital has been destructively inconsistent. Bad luck for sure, but it also seems like a theme is developing with regard to player development and retention.

Very good teams want the guys who are leaving UConn. Is that a talent issue or a development issue?

2017-18: Carlton (high 3-star), Polley (high 3-star), Whaley (3-star), Cobb (JuCo), Williams (JuCo), Anderson (grad transfer), Onuorah (grad transfer)
- None of these guys were particularly high-rated, and a few of them were clear "oh crap, we had a bunch of transfers this spring." As a class it's not up to the quality of previous UConn classes under either Ollie or Calhoun, but in comparison to the rest of the AAC it's above average.

2018-19: Wilson (4-star), Akinjo (4-star), Kisunas (high 3-star), Matthews (high 3-star)
- This is not a "great" class in the sense that 2016/17 should've been, but it's exactly the type of class that could/should be the lifeblood of a program looking to re-establish itself as a second-weekend/top 25 team: three pretty clear 4-year players, including one (Matthews) with big "sleeper" potential because of his length and shooting, and one guy at the top of the class (Wilson) who has raw athletic talent just waiting to be harnessed.

If UConn gets classes like this each of the next 5 seasons, we should have no problem climbing up to the top of the AAC. But we had classes better than this in 2014, 2015 & 2016, and here we are just waiting for WSU, Cincy, SMU and Temple to drop the hammer.

So if superior talent acquisition leads to results like this, what does that tell you about how we got here? And what does it tell you about where we're headed?

----------------------------

"Recruiting" has not been the issue(*), and will continue to not be the issue regardless of who the head coach is. The issue is making the guys we're able to land 1) play like a team, and 2) better as individuals. Both those are issues with talent development, and are compounded by our catastrophic issues with talent retention (Jackson, Durham, Enoch, MAL, Ali, Jackson, arguably Abu, Diallo and Mathis as well).

(*)Of course our recruiting hasn't been good enough to make us a top-10 team, but we're not freaking out b/c we can't break into the top 10. We're freaking out because we're about to have back-to-back losing seasons for the first time in 30 years. There's no reason, given our recruiting over the last 4 seasons, that should be the case.

 

[Sonova]

You're talking about, at the very least, four different issues.

1. Talent identification
2. Talent acquisition
3. Talent retention
4. Talent development

All four can be filed under "recruiting" if you want a discussion that lacks for nuance. If you want something a little deeper, though, you can break the recruiting process up into its constituent parts and see some areas in which KO & staff have been pretty good (talent ID), and others in which they've been not so good (talent development especially).

Here are our incoming players by year (note that I consider transfers to be functionally part of the class during which they played their first season at the school) under KO:

2013-14: Kentan (4-star), Samuel (high 3-star), Brimah (3-star), Kromah (highly regarded grad transfer)
- Not a great class, but one that had three guys contribute meaningfully to a national champion. None really lived up to their long-term potential, though.

2014-15: Hamilton (5-star), Purvis (5-star transfer), Sam Cassell (high-3-star JuCo transfer), Lubin (2-star)
- There are as many 5-stars in this class as the rest of the AAC has had, combined, in its existence. One left after two years even though he was about to be handed the keys to the program, and the other freely admits he underachieved in college. For some reason.

2015-16: Adams (borderline 5-star), Enoch (4-star), Miller (highly sought-after grad transfer), Gibbs (highly sought-after grad transfer)
- Miller & Gibbs were two of the three most-recruited grad transfers that spring. Adams was a top 30 player, and Enoch top 80. This is probably the best recruiting class any AAC team has had even though we missed on two guys (Abdul-Malik Abu & Bonzie Colson) we should've locked in.

Nonetheless, Miller & Gibbs were good in their year here. Enoch never developed and transferred after two years, and Adams has not progressed as hoped.

2016-17: Gilbert (borderline 5-star), Durham (high 4-star), Jackson (4-star), Diarra (low-4/high-3 star depending on service you use), Vital (high 3-star), Larrier (high-4-star transfer)
- Or maybe this is the best incoming class in conference? Consensus top 10 nationally, but Durham & Jackson both transferred, Larrier, Gilbert & Diarra have nursed injuries, while Vital has been destructively inconsistent. Bad luck for sure, but it also seems like a theme is developing with regard to player development and retention.

Very good teams want the guys who are leaving UConn. Is that a talent issue or a development issue?

2017-18: Carlton (high 3-star), Polley (high 3-star), Whaley (3-star), Cobb (JuCo), Williams (JuCo), Anderson (grad transfer), Onuorah (grad transfer)
- None of these guys were particularly high-rated, and a few of them were clear "oh crap, we had a bunch of transfers this spring." As a class it's not up to the quality of previous UConn classes under either Ollie or Calhoun, but in comparison to the rest of the AAC it's above average.

2018-19: Wilson (4-star), Akinjo (4-star), Kisunas (high 3-star), Matthews (high 3-star)
- This is not a "great" class in the sense that 2016/17 should've been, but it's exactly the type of class that could/should be the lifeblood of a program looking to re-establish itself as a second-weekend/top 25 team: three pretty clear 4-year players, including one (Matthews) with big "sleeper" potential because of his length and shooting, and one guy at the top of the class (Wilson) who has raw athletic talent just waiting to be harnessed.

If UConn gets classes like this each of the next 5 seasons, we should have no problem climbing up to the top of the AAC. But we had classes better than this in 2014, 2015 & 2016, and here we are just waiting for WSU, Cincy, SMU and Temple to drop the hammer.

So if superior talent acquisition leads to results like this, what does that tell you about how we got here? And what does it tell you about where we're headed?

----------------------------

"Recruiting" has not been the issue(*), and will continue to not be the issue regardless of who the head coach is. The issue is making the guys we're able to land 1) play like a team, and 2) better as individuals. Both those are issues with talent development, and are compounded by our catastrophic issues with talent retention (Jackson, Durham, Enoch, MAL, Ali, Jackson, arguably Abu, Diallo and Mathis as well).

(*)Of course our recruiting hasn't been good enough to make us a top-10 team, but we're not freaking out b/c we can't break into the top 10. We're freaking out because we're about to have back-to-back losing seasons for the first time in 30 years. There's no reason, given our recruiting over the last 4 seasons, that should be the case.

I agree with just about all of what you wrote above. I’d add one more issue or component when it comes to recruiting - team building/assembly. Assembling pieces that add up to a team is a very under appreciated part of recruiting. And recruiting beyond next year or for more than just the starting 5 is a skill that even experienced coaches struggle with. Add in the uncertainty of which players may declare or leave early (due to parents being in their ear over a lack of playing time, development, etc) as well as the 5th year grad transfer market, and being able to keep a style and culture is harder than it used to be. That being said, KO is failing at the basics of this (which is why individual recruiting rankings can be very misleading). We’ve been caught since Bazz and Boat without enough ballhandlers. We don’t have 1-on- break you down guys for the type of offense we run. And shooting the basketball seems to be a low priority for KO based upon who we’ve brought in (outside of Vance Jackson). Bluntly, KO stinks at recruting skills and players where the total (team) is greater than the sum of its parts. Who cares what the individual rankings are you don’t have the pieces that go together.

 

[RJScootin]

Has some pretty racist overtones, which isn't cool. I think he's a terribly incompetent coach in many areas (player eval, player development, game management, team play). In fact, I can't stand the guy for what he's done to this program, and I do think he thinks he's entitled and doesn't have to earn it. But, let's keep the criticism focused where it's deserved.

Come that's funny he's from LA, people need to lighten up, racist overtones... get back to your yoga class, huge a tree if you need to feel better after the offense you just witnessed.

I'm surprised this thread didn't get locked down after that was posted.

 

[Matrim55]

I agree with just about all of what you wrote above. I’d add one more issue or component when it comes to recruiting - team building/assembly. Assembling pieces that add up to a team is a very under appreciated part of recruiting.

Yup – basically the "you're also the GM" part of the job. Geno's the best I've ever seen at this, while on the men's side it's Roy Williams.

Who cares what the individual rankings are you don’t have the pieces that go together.

I think this is a little overstated – SMU has cleaned our clock despite lacking a real center for years. Brown and Jankovich have just been able to figure out how to make those pieces fit together pretty well on both sides of the court.

Until March, anyway.

 

[USNA90]

I appreciate all of what you're saying, but the analysis doesn't have to extend past the makeup of the current roster to show that recruiting has been poor. There is no legitimate D1 center on the team, no outside shooting threat, and no legitimate point guard (currently playing). There are no recruited, four-year seniors on the roster, and only one three-year junior. There are a bunch of interchangeable, low-level players who are on the team for the purpose of filling out the roster. Next year's class could be okay if they all stay, but it's not the type of class needed to turn a program around. Looking at stop-gap grad transfers and guys who never played a meaningful minute for UConn as evidence of recruiting success is fool's gold. One last thing: who are the recruits in the NBA? Who is the next UConn NBA player? If the talent was really that good, UConn should at least have someone on the team who could find themselves on an NBA roster some day.

 

[formerlurker]

I'm not reading 15 pages

 

[Matrim55]

I appreciate all of what you're saying, but the analysis doesn't have to extend past the makeup of the current roster to show that recruiting has been poor. There is no legitimate D1 center on the team, no outside shooting threat, and no legitimate point guard (currently playing). There are no recruited, four-year seniors on the roster, and only one three-year junior. There are a bunch of interchangeable, low-level players who are on the team for the purpose of filling out the roster. Next year's class could be okay if they all stay, but it's not the type of class needed to turn a program around. Looking at stop-gap grad transfers and guys who never played a meaningful minute for UConn as evidence of recruiting success is fool's gold.

The point I'm making is that we could've signed absolutely anyone – a good class, a bad class, a great class – and we'd be in the same position: A team of mismatched parts with few 4-year contributors.

So call it a "recruiting issue" if you want, but if literally every path leads to the same outcome, it feels like it'd be wiser to take a deeper look.

 

[BlueDogs]

You're talking about, at the very least, four different issues.

1. Talent identification
2. Talent acquisition
3. Talent retention
4. Talent development

All four can be filed under "recruiting" if you want a discussion that lacks for nuance. If you want something a little deeper, though, you can break the recruiting process up into its constituent parts and see some areas in which KO & staff have been pretty good (talent ID), and others in which they've been not so good (talent development especially).

Here are our incoming players by year (note that I consider transfers to be functionally part of the class during which they played their first season at the school) under KO:

2013-14: Kentan (4-star), Samuel (high 3-star), Brimah (3-star), Kromah (highly regarded grad transfer)
- Not a great class, but one that had three guys contribute meaningfully to a national champion. None really lived up to their long-term potential, though.

2014-15: Hamilton (5-star), Purvis (5-star transfer), Sam Cassell (high-3-star JuCo transfer), Lubin (2-star)
- There are as many 5-stars in this class as the rest of the AAC has had, combined, in its existence. One left after two years even though he was about to be handed the keys to the program, and the other freely admits he underachieved in college. For some reason.

2015-16: Adams (borderline 5-star), Enoch (4-star), Miller (highly sought-after grad transfer), Gibbs (highly sought-after grad transfer)
- Miller & Gibbs were two of the three most-recruited grad transfers that spring. Adams was a top 30 player, and Enoch top 80. This is probably the best recruiting class any AAC team has had even though we missed on two guys (Abdul-Malik Abu & Bonzie Colson) we should've locked in.

Nonetheless, Miller & Gibbs were good in their year here. Enoch never developed and transferred after two years, and Adams has not progressed as hoped.

2016-17: Gilbert (borderline 5-star), Durham (high 4-star), Jackson (4-star), Diarra (low-4/high-3 star depending on service you use), Vital (high 3-star), Larrier (high-4-star transfer)
- Or maybe this is the best incoming class in conference? Consensus top 10 nationally, but Durham & Jackson both transferred, Larrier, Gilbert & Diarra have nursed injuries, while Vital has been destructively inconsistent. Bad luck for sure, but it also seems like a theme is developing with regard to player development and retention.

Very good teams want the guys who are leaving UConn. Is that a talent issue or a development issue?

2017-18: Carlton (high 3-star), Polley (high 3-star), Whaley (3-star), Cobb (JuCo), Williams (JuCo), Anderson (grad transfer), Onuorah (grad transfer)
- None of these guys were particularly high-rated, and a few of them were clear "oh crap, we had a bunch of transfers this spring." As a class it's not up to the quality of previous UConn classes under either Ollie or Calhoun, but in comparison to the rest of the AAC it's above average.

2018-19: Wilson (4-star), Akinjo (4-star), Kisunas (high 3-star), Matthews (high 3-star)
- This is not a "great" class in the sense that 2016/17 should've been, but it's exactly the type of class that could/should be the lifeblood of a program looking to re-establish itself as a second-weekend/top 25 team: three pretty clear 4-year players, including one (Matthews) with big "sleeper" potential because of his length and shooting, and one guy at the top of the class (Wilson) who has raw athletic talent just waiting to be harnessed.

If UConn gets classes like this each of the next 5 seasons, we should have no problem climbing up to the top of the AAC. But we had classes better than this in 2014, 2015 & 2016, and here we are just waiting for WSU, Cincy, SMU and Temple to drop the hammer.

So if superior talent acquisition leads to results like this, what does that tell you about how we got here? And what does it tell you about where we're headed?

----------------------------

"Recruiting" has not been the issue(*), and will continue to not be the issue regardless of who the head coach is. The issue is making the guys we're able to land 1) play like a team, and 2) better as individuals. Both those are issues with talent development, and are compounded by our catastrophic issues with talent retention (Jackson, Durham, Enoch, MAL, Ali, Jackson, arguably Abu, Diallo and Mathis as well).

(*)Of course our recruiting hasn't been good enough to make us a top-10 team, but we're not freaking out b/c we can't break into the top 10. We're freaking out because we're about to have back-to-back losing seasons for the first time in 30 years. There's no reason, given our recruiting over the last 4 seasons, that should be the case.

There is a difference between recruiting success as measured by rating services and player evaluation for your program. The later is much more relevant to success as is being able to improve players to be productive in your system. How you don't have a pure 3- shooter on your bench is inexcusable. How you don't have at least one dominant rebounder is inexcusable. How we don't have a real PG is inexcusable. What we have is a random assortment of good gets that don't amount to a team.

 

[UCweCONN]

I'm not reading 15 pages

SCSU's finest.

 

[MuchoDogYears]

Are you kidding me, it's been known for years. He got fat and happy after winning it and hasn't put in the time. The soundbite KO is a very different guy than the real KO.

I’m surprised to hear this about KO.

Its a complete about-face from the well documented narrative of KO getting to the NBA, and staying in the NBA, by outworking everyone else.

 

[UCweCONN]

I’m surprised to hear this about KO.

Its a complete about-face from the well documented narrative of KO getting to the NBA, and staying in the NBA, by outworking everyone else.

When you get divorced, you no longer feel like out-working anyone. Work gets balanced with the need to maintain good relationships with your kids. When his wife was there, he could focus 110% on recruiting and the rest. Now his attention is divided. I've been there and know what it's like. He'll never be the coach he was the first two years unless as someone else mentioned, one of his kids Parent Traps him.