Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="pj, post: 2286524, member: 2524"] This is the puzzle. A lot of what KO has gone through is normal for a first-time head coach. Strategic program management, finding the right complementary group of assistants, developing an identity on the court (zone vs man, run vs half-court, etc), learning how to assess high school players for fit to program (including character fit to your style of coaching), learning how to develop the positions you didn't play, learning ins and outs of recruiting, developing a coherent plan so that all coaches are on the same page and pulling together -- it's normal to fail early at these things. If you're going to be a good coach, after about 5 years you've figured these out. We forgot that Hall of Fame coaches often had losing records in their first five years. KO appears to be on his way to solving some of these things. They seem to be committed to developing a running team with a man-defense mentality. He seems to have found a staff he's comfortable with. The recruiting plan seems to make a lot more sense, in terms of who they are targeting. We'll have to see if the results on the court and the player development get better. I do think KO got a little complacent with the national championship and diverted by the divorce, and took longer than he should have to address these issues and figure them out. Let's hope he has time to remedy everything and get results. He has to show it on the court. As for Fishy's "scrapple," at least it's top 200 scrapple. There's no reason, if KO is going to be a great coach, he can't win with top 200 talent. There are about 800 top 200 players in NCAA D1, spread over 300 schools. The average school has 3 of them. If KO can get 7 and coach them up, UConn can be a top-60 NCAA team and make the NCAA tourney more often than not. Get a few of them to the NBA, and top 100 players will come. There's no reason he can't build a reputation the same way Cooley and other competing coaches have. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach

Forum statistics

Threads: 164,432

Messages: 4,396,065

Members: 10,209

Latest member: gemini*trvl