We can not close the deal with recruits

[mauconnfan]

No one has really said that, though. You're just arguing with yourself.

My biggest fear is UConn needing to hire again next year or the year after because at that point we may be way too far into the muck to ever climb out. Therefore it is best somehow that KO and staff pull us out now.

 

[Fishy]

This makes some sense also. Both do though because if you do look at the video, there's very little impressive about the kid. But he was a winner, on some very good teams.

The narrative that Christian Vital is scaring off recruits is just off the wall. He's a decent reserve shooting guard, but he's nothing special.

MAL committed to UConn when he knew we had Adams and Gilbert at point...and now he's scared of Christian Vital? No.

 

[mauconnfan]

The narrative that Christian Vital is scaring off recruits is just off the wall. He's a decent reserve shooting guard, but he's nothing special.

MAL committed to UConn when he knew we had Adams and Gilbert at point...and now he's scared of Christian Vital? No.

I pretty much agree there but I also see what Whtfd says, most guys have video's which are beyond ridiculous because you never see anything but their best. Well we can MAL is fast, it seems he can pass and maybe play D, but proof is in the numbers he can't shoot and getting to the hole won't be easy for him until he can. So to me this loss is the least of our problems and doesn't need to be revisited.

 

[TRest]

Has anyone said that verbatim? No, but it's what half of the board thinks.

I have bad news for you, the way things are going we will have to get a new coach. Regardless if there is a guarantee it works out better than what we currently have.

 

[Rocktheworld]

Heard the same. ru made a monster push

Pray tell, what happens with these "pushes"? Not just in this case (although it is extra weird with Rutgers; it's not like they have "the big guns" to pull out in desperation), I mean in general

Edit I'm not trying to be hostile here, you clearly have more idea how this stuff goes down than 99% of us. It's just we hear these nebulous terms "going all in", "making a push", etc that don't really tell us anything

 

[GemParty]

Pray tell, what happens with these "pushes"? Not just in this case (although it is extra weird with Rutgers; it's not like they have "the big guns" to pull out in desperation), I mean in general

Edit I'm not trying to be hostile here, you clearly have more idea how this stuff goes down than 99% of us

You know, the cannons. NBA legends, titles, past HOF coach, all the street legal power. Maybe an affidavit that he's a starter.

 

[zepfan]

Mal from my sources was scared off. He got the excuse that he needed with Miller. Here is what I think/speculate went down. He was a highly rated recruit who had a lot of holes in his game. He was eligible for 16 but did a postgrad yr to improve his shooting n point guard skills. It did not happen, he average like 14 and 3 assists. Shooting 50% form free throw line and 30% from 3. He was air balling 3s when the two times when I saw him play when he was challenge. He was going to be a defense specialist for us this yr. There was no way he was getting minutes over Vital. He did not want to be the 4th guard since he is already old. BTW, all the Brewster games r on utube. Check him out, grossly overated

If this is accurate, it takes some of the doom and gloom back a notch. Happy to hear it. There is still time to land a couple top 100 kids. If we do, things may be fine. If we don't, we better find some diamonds in the rough or we're in trouble year after next. Winning this year is obviously a must.

 

[zepfan]

No doubt there's issues but we are talking parents and their kids here. My parents went to every game me and my brother played until we were 30. When my brother played in the minors in the NY Penn League in the summer my dad took Fridays off and we went wherever the weekend series was despite it being anywhere from 4-5 hours away. They as parents want to be there - in Sids case they don't have to drive perfect fit at St Johns. In this case RU is 3 hours best from Baltimore, UConn is either a flight or 6-7 hours. It could be that simple right?

I'm not blind there's a HUGE issue and they both more than likely aren't that but I am sure of those 2 one of them are for that reason alone, at least one! It happens in close families and that's a good thing right?

I couldn't agree more. In both Sid's and Mathis' case, the travel situation for the family was heavily weighted against UConn. If all else is equal, the closer proximity factor is huge. Though I will say that if the promise of coming to UConn had the notoriety, prestige, glory of past years it may have been enough to pull them in our direction. Many variables involved is my guess. Bottom line is we have to put that gritty, exciting team back on the floor real soon or this will be the trend in the future (struggling to get top recruits). I hold out hope that it aint over till it's over with regard to recruiting for 2018. It only takes one or two of the right players, particularly if a couple of our current front court players surprise us this year. There certainly are a lot of them... having one or two develop into ball players seems likely.

 

[HuskyHawk]

So much crap thrown against the wall. Who know what is BS and what may have slivers of truth. I'll simply note this: where there is smoke, there is fire...and Storrs has a lot of smoke. The people choosing to pretend that these are all separately explainable, unrelated, isolated incidents are delusional idiots. All is not well.

Solutions? Put out the fires. Tell and show the world that the fires are out, and it is safe to return. If that means somebody needs to change...they need to change. If they need to go, then they must go. If they need to get in front of tv cameras and explain things, then do it. Instead what we seem to get is Kevin Ollie as the mayor of Amity. I'm pleased and happy to repeat the news that we have, in fact, caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers. But, as you see, it's a beautiful day, the beaches are open and people are having a wonderful time. Amity, as you know, means "friendship." But nobody was going in the water.

 

[UConniki]

My biggest fear is UConn needing to hire again next year or the year after because at that point we may be way too far into the muck to ever climb out. Therefore it is best somehow that KO and staff pull us out now.

And if they don't??????

 

[Husky pride]

Precisely why its so bad. We're not just losing to UK's & Duke's anymore. Rutgers & St. John's now.

Ollie lost his mojo when divorced, and the injuries last year were the nail in the coffee. Need an almost miracle season.

Label me an eternal optimist, but I'm in the camp that says we're turning things around this year. We still have a good line-up with superior guards. If we can get some help up front and if Kevin can abandon his NBA style of play, we can be very competitive. Go Huskies!

 

[UConnNick]

Pray tell, what happens with these "pushes"? Not just in this case (although it is extra weird with Rutgers; it's not like they have "the big guns" to pull out in desperation), I mean in general

Edit I'm not trying to be hostile here, you clearly have more idea how this stuff goes down than 99% of us. It's just we hear these nebulous terms "going all in", "making a push", etc that don't really tell us anything

I know what it is. These other coaches have photos of Ollie caught in compromising positions with farm animals.

Seriously, unless you're a close personal friend of these recruits or their family members, who really knows what goes into the decision making process of 16-18 year olds? What's important to one may be meaningless to another. The only constant here is it seems other programs are successfully throwing a lot of shade on UConn, including during the very late stages right before decisions are being made.

All we can do here is speculate about the reasons. Maybe it's Ollie's performance since the divorce. Maybe it's because he's an NBA insider who can't seem to get any of his players into the NBA anymore. Maybe it's because his X's and O's coaching strategies aren't suited to the college game. Maybe it's because we play in a crap conference with no big game exposure. It could be any one or all of the above. Other coaches are going to poke holes.

Our staff needs to figure this stuff out and do a better job of getting our message across, but a lot of it likely boils down to factors like personalties, fit, and offering the best perceived route to the NBA. The reality is that most of these kids, realistically or delusionally, think they're good enough to play at that level.

 

[superjohn]

The narrative that Christian Vital is scaring off recruits is just off the wall. He's a decent reserve shooting guard, but he's nothing special.

MAL committed to UConn when he knew we had Adams and Gilbert at point...and now he's scared of Christian Vital? No.

It's insane.

 

[upstater]

So much crap thrown against the wall. Who know what is BS and what may have slivers of truth. I'll simply note this: where there is smoke, there is fire...and Storrs has a lot of smoke. The people choosing to pretend that these are all separately explainable, unrelated, isolated incidents are delusional idiots. All is not well.

Solutions? Put out the fires. Tell and show the world that the fires are out, and it is safe to return. If that means somebody needs to change...they need to change. If they need to go, then they must go. If they need to get in front of tv cameras and explain things, then do it. Instead what we seem to get is Kevin Ollie as the mayor of Amity. I'm pleased and happy to repeat the news that we have, in fact, caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers. But, as you see, it's a beautiful day, the beaches are open and people are having a wonderful time. Amity, as you know, means "friendship." But nobody was going in the water.

A coach who is about to get fired isn't going to land recruits. That is seldom talked about on this board.

How well did Thad Matta recruit last year.

In and of itself, this can explain the horrible recruiting.

 

[Fishy]

So much crap thrown against the wall. Who know what is BS and what may have slivers of truth. I'll simply note this: where there is smoke, there is fire...and Storrs has a lot of smoke. The people choosing to pretend that these are all separately explainable, unrelated, isolated incidents are delusional idiots. All is not well.

Solutions? Put out the fires. Tell and show the world that the fires are out, and it is safe to return. If that means somebody needs to change...they need to change. If they need to go, then they must go. If they need to get in front of tv cameras and explain things, then do it. Instead what we seem to get is Kevin Ollie as the mayor of Amity. I'm pleased and happy to repeat the news that we have, in fact, caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers. But, as you see, it's a beautiful day, the beaches are open and people are having a wonderful time. Amity, as you know, means "friendship." But nobody was going in the water.

You are right.

We need to kill a shark.

 

[Tenspro2002]

I would love to go back and search through all of the threads calling for Miller's head and see who's done a complete 180 on him since he was let go.

I endorsed letting Miller go and still think it was the right move to replace him with Chillious.

The fact that we haven't had any recruiting success since then is likely less a reflection of Miller or Chillious and more a reflection of the fact that KO appears to be in over his head running a major program.

There may be nothing that any assistant can do to overcome that.

 

[upstater]

This idea that Pikiell is an up and comer because he's landing a few top 100s is questionable at best. New coaches always get a honeymoon. They sell their lack of a track record at the high levels. Then they become older coaches with a track record of going nowhere, and it is rinse and repeat. New coach tries the same schtick. This is why a coach like Tubby at Memphis can't sell the same way (though he may be 10x the coach of the newer guys), and why his recruiting suffers.

Rinse and repeat are words that start with R, like Rutgers. And the coaches before Pikiell landed the likes of Corey Sanders, Junior Etou, Myles Mack, Jerome Seagears, Kadeem Jack, etc.

Pikiell may be the next great up and comer. But that would be a rarity. People are thinking there's some magic to these Rutgers successes just because he's a UConn guy.

Heck, Dave Leitao got DePaul to the NCAAs!

 

[Hurleyman216]

The narrative that Christian Vital is scaring off recruits is just off the wall. He's a decent reserve shooting guard, but he's nothing special.

MAL committed to UConn when he knew we had Adams and Gilbert at point...and now he's scared of Christian Vital? No.

The narrative that Christian Vital sucks because he wasn't a top 100 recruit is also getting old. The guy had as good of a freshman year as anyone we've had in the program in the last 15 years (including Kemba, Shabazz and Adams). Give me a guy rated 150 who wants to play for a storied program and is going to work his butt off any day of the week. Those are the guys that are going to win us championships.

 

[8893]

You are right.

We need to kill a shark.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."

 

[The Funster]

My biggest fear is UConn needing to hire again next year or the year after because at that point we may be way too far into the muck to ever climb out. Therefore it is best somehow that KO and staff pull us out now.

We definitely need a big recruiting "win" to stop the bad mojo.

 

[pj]

You are right.

We need to kill a shark.

How about this one:

 

[UConnfan8]

Hurr durr we're UConn and because we're UConn and have some magic sparkly dust around the program, we're attractive to top coaching candidates no matter how barren our roster is, no matter what conference we're in, no matter how many bad seasons we have in a row, no matter if we won't be able to afford to pay anyone what we're paying our current coach hurr durr!

I am looking forward to you excoriating Ollie's replacement for failing to meet your expectations. And the guy after him. And the guy after him. You'll be whining with jealousy about "why can't we recruit like Kentucky and get Drake to come to our midnight madness?!?" for years to come.

You are unreal with your loyalty to KO. Once he leaves, so will you people. Can't wait for both.

 

[HuskyNationJE]

1 crappy few seasons
2 lack of nba development since ollie took over (i understand there are a few guys
3 conference
4 huge number of kids transferring
5 ollie is not the fatherly coach we developed our program on
6 serious negative recruiting

These are the few things my contacts have said why uconn is losing recruits

weren't all the AAU coaches big on Ollie for a while? What changed? I was a big Ollie supporter but I'm slowly losing faith as we keep losing recruits and are no longer the respectable program we have been for a long time.

 

[UConnNick]

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."

Or, as Al McGuire used to say, "an aircraft carrier."

 

[mauconnfan]

You are unreal with your loyalty to KO. Once he leaves, so will you people. Can't wait for both.

There's a lot more posters here hoping he turns it around and the likes of you are too embarrassed to return. Ahh fresh air.