When will we hold Kevin Ollie responsible

[Paesano]

Because recruiting the 2015 class involves building relationships with those players during their sophomore and junior years of highschool, which is the 2012-2013 time period. During the 2012-2013 time period, we still had restrictions on the amount of off campus recruiting we could do, restrictions on the amount of coaches who could make phone calls, and restrictions on the number of official visits we could have.

I still think our 2015 class is good, and not the problem.

OK, I see where you are coming from. They were sophomores in 2012-2013 and while we do spend a little time on kids that early, I don't think the heavy duty time is spent until they are juniors. And, as you say, the 2015 class looked good, at least on paper so I don't think it was impacted that much. Plus, they were committing the year after the championship so I would hope that would have mitigated any impact from a decreased amount of face time in their sophomore year. I can see where our senior class was affected and, to a lesser extent, the junior class. That is why I am in the camp of giving KO one more year if this season continues to be a dumpster fire. That 2015 class will be juniors and any strong recruit should be a major impact player by their junior year. And our highly touted 2016 class will be sophomores. Even if these guys aren't one and done players, we should see something from them in their second year. And, hopefully, we add Diallo next year. That REALLY should be enough to beat the likes of Wagner and Northeastern!!!

 

[nelsonmuntz]

There is no excuse for these last two losses. The offense is grim, with soft passes around the perimeter until the clock runs down enough that Larrier, Gilbert or Adams feels justified in an out of control drive into a double or triple team. The rebounding is partially a function of the stupid offense, since everyone is so far from the hoop that they are easy to box out, and the shooting is not great. I disagree that the defense has been good. I think we have played two low-majors that missed a lot of shots, but better teams would have torched us if we played like this.

 

[RayRay19]

Shhh....we are a dark horse final 4 team!

 

[Goat]

I am still 10 toes in with KO. Recruiting is on an upward trend. To the "these are his kids" people and meaning no offense to heart of the players in the class of 2017, but you could tell that the ban and the audition contract impacted recruiting. We were lucky he found Phil and Amida. I do not doubt his basketball IQ. The learning continues and the teaching ability will improve.

Meanwhile, I thought it was promising that KO did not start Rodney. Hopefully, Purvis wakes up. I think that KO's kid gloves are more about Rodney's mercurial nature than a lack of enthusiasm. Maybe some of the young guys are fragile, too.

Rodney has 12 pts., 5 rbs., 2 assists, 5 to, and 2 steals in 64 minutes this year.
Vance has 10 pts., 6 rbs., 1 assist, 0 to, and 0 steals in 25 minutes.
Also, I did not see Purvis playing defense that was far superior. Maybe he can, but he hasn't.

 

[UConnSwag11]

Calhoun wasnt recruiting studs at the end of his career. Ollie is doing extremely well in that department. You guys want josh pastier lol? What do the assistants bring? Moore recruits. Who is helping develop players like Ollie did with kemba and bazz when he was on the staff? Who is helping with the X's and O's? Ollie deserve blame with rotations and and timeouts among other things, but what is the rest of the staff bringing? Who are you guys going to bring in for Ollie? We're not in the acc or big 10 where the coaches would flock.

 

[UConnSwag11]

The recruiting stuff is just nonsense. Gonzaga recruits just fine thanks. In a worse league than ours. People like Ollie for a variety of reasons. He played at UConn. Calhoun's guy. Won it all in 2014. He is a genuinely nice guy. Problem is he has proven himself to be missing something as a coach. Without Calhouns guys his inadequacies are magnified. Shabazz covered a multitude of deficiencies.

Ollie was with Shabazz for four years. Two as a head coach. He was able to develop bazz and even kemba for his one year. He might need to surround himself with better assistants.

 

[UConnSwag11]

I've said it for some time now but frankly he's a great recruiter and leader of men but in terms of coaching abilities I think he's limited. Offense will forever be stagnant, substitution patterns are perplexing, and in game adjustments need work.

Killings seems to be a great addition to the staff in terms of recruiting but I still think we need a major overhaul with our offensive system. Bring in a guy who knows how to put guys in a position to score.

But for the love of god... end the "fire Ollie" nonsense.

Seriously, he deserves a lot of the crap but the fire him garbage is ridiculous. Shake up the assistants first

 

[Lefty2one]

There is no excuse for losing to Wagner and Northeastern, no matter how young we are. I defended Ollie last year and still do to a large extent and I think it's ridiculous to talk of firing him at this point. We've lost enough prestige already and combined with our conference situation we will not get a big name/up-and-comer to replace Ollie. We lost Hamilton, Gibbs and Miller and have a bunch of new faces.

Again though, we can't lose to NEC teams, something is awry with the program and to me that's a lack of accountability. Every player on this team seems too comfortable. As others have said, KO seems to have too much of a "friend/big brother" relationship with players while JC was more of an " father" relationship. Purvis had some atrocious "ole" closeouts, Ollie can't allow that type of effort from a 5th year senior. A new offensive system is needed, we can't run an NBA style offense with a roster that is ill-equipped talent-wise to do so. We make offensive basketball look like brain surgery, it ain't that difficult. KO has to find a way to make our guys more efficient especially against zone because every team on the schedule is going to watch film of the Northeastern game and follow suit.

 

[UConnSwag11]

It also doesn't help when the guys are missing 8 FTs a game