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What could have been

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maineuconnfan

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The thing about a lot of the criticism of ollies recruiting is really so ridiculous. I was just watching a bit of the first couple games of the season to get a feel for Larrier and Gilbert, and what they bring to the table. Those guys are really talented. People can say "well, they lost their first two games with them." But many times, teams with new parts struggle early on. UConn would have been quite good this year with them. Gilbert and Adams, would have hands down, been the best backcourt in the league this year and one of the best in the country. Just think, around this time last year, he anticipated having all of those recruits, plus Hamilton. really we were a couple of injuries and a bad decision by hamilton away from being a top 10 team. Just think(believe me I know hypotheticals and could have been, should have been means nothing) but if we had a starting lineup of Gilbert, Adams, Hamilton, Larrier and Brimah with Purvis, Facey, Vital, Jackson, Enoch and Durham off the bench. Really, a lot of bad breaks this year for UConn.
 
maineuconnfan said:
The thing about a lot of the criticism of ollies recruiting is really so ridiculous. I was just watching a bit of the first couple games of the season to get a feel for Larrier and Gilbert, and what they bring to the table. Those guys are really talented. People can say "well, they lost their first two games with them." But many times, teams with new parts struggle early on. UConn would have been quite good this year with them. Gilbert and Adams, would have hands down, been the best backcourt in the league this year and one of the best in the country. Just think, around this time last year, he anticipated having all of those recruits, plus Hamilton. really we were a couple of injuries and a bad decision by hamilton away from being a top 10 team. Just think(believe me I know hypotheticals and could have been, should have been means nothing) but if we had a starting lineup of Gilbert, Adams, Hamilton, Larrier and Brimah with Purvis, Facey, Vital, Jackson, Enoch and Durham off the bench. Really, a lot of bad breaks this year for UConn.
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A P5 team that Northeastern beat is actually in the NCAA tourney. According to some, that team should have hung it up right then with that loss.
 
maineuconnfan said:
The thing about a lot of the criticism of ollies recruiting is really so ridiculous. I was just watching a bit of the first couple games of the season to get a feel for Larrier and Gilbert, and what they bring to the table. Those guys are really talented. People can say "well, they lost their first two games with them." But many times, teams with new parts struggle early on. UConn would have been quite good this year with them. Gilbert and Adams, would have hands down, been the best backcourt in the league this year and one of the best in the country. Just think, around this time last year, he anticipated having all of those recruits, plus Hamilton. really we were a couple of injuries and a bad decision by hamilton away from being a top 10 team. Just think(believe me I know hypotheticals and could have been, should have been means nothing) but if we had a starting lineup of Gilbert, Adams, Hamilton, Larrier and Brimah with Purvis, Facey, Vital, Jackson, Enoch and Durham off the bench. Really, a lot of bad breaks this year for UConn.
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Totally agree. This team was made to do damage in the NCAA if healthy. But i still believe the pt vance and vital got will help a great deal long term.
 
TOTAL AGREEMENT
It's a shame some don't dig in to see the real story and get so messed up with losses that they blame the person/thing that is the easiest to do so - in this case the coach KO
Does he have a stake is this? hell yes but no where as much as some bashers claim
Can't wait to see what some of them say next if/when things turn around - if they start applauding and raving I'll just shake my head and either consider bandwagon or hypocrites or both
Because we all know someone as bad as KO couldn't possibly improve like that overnight - not without JCs players.
 
Last edited:
NDakotaHusky said:
I could care less about those early season losses. They mean absolutely nothing.
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They actually mean a lot and they will mean a lot next year as well. We will have a frontloaded schedule and the only way to get a decent seed out of this conference is by winning big out of conference games. Losing out of conference games to no name schools is totally unacceptable and even if you have a good team those kind of losses will kill our seeding.
 
superjohn said:
They actually mean a lot and they will mean a lot next year as well. We will have a frontloaded schedule and the only way to get a decent seed out of this conference is by winning big out of conference games. Losing out of conference games to no name schools is totally unacceptable and even if you have a good team those kind of losses will kill our seeding.
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Thanks for the return to reality. Those losses mean nothing? SMU lost 4 games all year and got a 6 seed. Would they be out of the tournament if they lost to Wagner and Northeastern? Close to it.
 
Be careful not to make reasonable excuses like this in front of JSM.
 
maineuconnfan said:
The thing about a lot of the criticism of ollies recruiting is really so ridiculous. I was just watching a bit of the first couple games of the season to get a feel for Larrier and Gilbert, and what they bring to the table. Those guys are really talented. People can say "well, they lost their first two games with them." But many times, teams with new parts struggle early on. UConn would have been quite good this year with them. Gilbert and Adams, would have hands down, been the best backcourt in the league this year and one of the best in the country. Just think, around this time last year, he anticipated having all of those recruits, plus Hamilton. really we were a couple of injuries and a bad decision by hamilton away from being a top 10 team. Just think(believe me I know hypotheticals and could have been, should have been means nothing) but if we had a starting lineup of Gilbert, Adams, Hamilton, Larrier and Brimah with Purvis, Facey, Vital, Jackson, Enoch and Durham off the bench. Really, a lot of bad breaks this year for UConn.
Expand ...
Can I turn that around and ask "what may be?"
The next year starting lineup, assuming none of the injured or freshmen are ready, is Adams, Vital, Jackson, Durham and Enoch. Take it from there
 
superjohn said:
They actually mean a lot and they will mean a lot next year as well. We will have a frontloaded schedule and the only way to get a decent seed out of this conference is by winning big out of conference games. Losing out of conference games to no name schools is totally unacceptable and even if you have a good team those kind of losses will kill our seeding.
Expand ...
KO was trying to figure out what he had and integrate new players into the lineup early on and while I don't blame him for that our situation is very different from P5 schools that have ranked teams in conference schedules. Michigan State played a big OOC, lost A bunch and is sitting nicely in the tourney. Our reality is very different, has been and will be in this conference. Going one step further, we can't lose to no name schools, and we can't lose much to any ranked schools we play. We just don't have that luxury. Cmon SMU, kick ass!
 
Edward Sargent said:
Can I turn that around and ask "what may be?"
The next year starting lineup, assuming none of the injured or freshmen are ready, is Adams, Vital, Jackson, Durham and Enoch. Take it from there
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Barring injury that will absolutely not be next year's starting lineup.
 
brasssbonanzaa said:
Barring injury that will absolutely not be next year's starting lineup.
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If Larrier is ready, it needs to be Adams/Viatal/Jackson/Larrier/Big Guy (whoever is best)....Play as much of our best five as we can.

edit: We won a championship with Giffey at the 4. Ollie can coach small ball, and with a fast break team..small ball is the way to go.
 
Ollie has a good problem for next year, provided Adams comes back. Beginning the season could see either Adams/Gilbert or Adams/Vital as starters. Why the latter? Defense.
 
Doctor Hoop said:
Ollie has a good problem for next year, provided Adams comes back. Beginning the season could see either Adams/Gilbert or Adams/Vital as starters. Why the latter? Defense.
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Adams is coming back, I don't see how going to Europe is a draw for him. He wants to have a good year next year and parlay it into being a guaranteed first round pick.
 
superjohn said:
Adams is coming back, I don't see how going to Europe is a draw for him. He wants to have a good year next year and parlay it into being a guaranteed first round pick.
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I think so too, but others on this board seem not so sure.
 
I do like Vital in the 6th man role next year. A summer with Sticky Ricky learning better defense and he is our stopper and sparkplug rolled into one. He will get starters minutes regardless of whether he is starting or not.
 
Adams saw what happened with Hamilton. If that isn't enough to keep him here for at least one more season, he'll need to spend the summer at CVH's point guard camp.
 
True, but it's not like we've never had a guy we were counting on leave early for the D league or, say, Australia against advice.
 
superjohn said:
They actually mean a lot and they will mean a lot next year as well. We will have a frontloaded schedule and the only way to get a decent seed out of this conference is by winning big out of conference games. Losing out of conference games to no name schools is totally unacceptable and even if you have a good team those kind of losses will kill our seeding.
Expand ...

Those early loses emphasize a few things:
1. the importance of winning OOC conference games, as mentioned above, due to seeding implications for the tourney
2. we as fans can't really use the "but the team was injured, so KO doesn't take the blame for what happened this season" excuse. I'm sure if Larrier and Gilbert had played the whole season we would have been a much, much better team. However, we lost to NE and Wagner with both of them. To me that says that KO either had this team woefully unprepared or that we wouldn't have been anywhere near as good as some like to pretend on here, even with TL and AG. I think it's much more of the former than the latter, but to think that we'll be a top 25 team wire to wire next year just because we're healthy is a bit delusional. This team had problems before the injuries.
 
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