UConn escape plan - The Big East

[BEhomer]

too early to tell what uconn and syracuse will be like in AAC ACC respectively. Uconn's coming off a championship with roster full of calhoun recruits. for a team that just won a championship their recruiting has not been all that impressive either and that's a big warning sign.

Syracuse also has to show they're not a one coach program. boeheim has done wonders recruiting kids to syracuse. it will be a hard sell if you don't have a hall of fame coach with championship resume.

as much as syracuse and uconn made the big east, big east also made them who they are.

[Bill Marsh]

too early to tell what uconn and syracuse will be like in AAC ACC respectively. Uconn's coming off a championship with roster full of calhoun recruits. for a team that just won a championship their recruiting has not been all that impressive either and that's a big warning sign.

Syracuse also has to show they're not a one coach program. boeheim has done wonders recruiting kids to syracuse. it will be a hard sell if you don't have a hall of fame coach with championship resume.

as much as syracuse and uconn made the big east, big east also made them who they are.

To be fair to Kevin Ollie, Calhoun left the program in a mess. For all the recruits he left for Ollie, the penalties Calhoun incurred drove just as many away. Two players transferred out of the program and 2 others left early for the NBA, at least one of whom might have stayed another year if the program hadn't been on probation and sitting out the NCAA tournament. Except for Napier, Ollie won the national championship with a bunch of kids who hadn't done anything under Calhoun. And he did it despite not getting the job until September in his first season and then trying to recruit with an interim tag around his neck for the first half of the season.

As for recruiting, Ollie already has commitments from a 5 star and a 4 star for next year and is involved with 3 other players who are ranked in the top 25. Class rankings are still changing as uncommitted kids are still being recruited, but just with what he has so far, Ollie's recruiting class for next year is ranked #15 by Rivals.

[BEhomer]

not saying ollie can't get the job done. i'm saying it's too early to predict one way or another. and yes even with the championship run. the 3 best players on the roster from last year were all calhoun recruits. (napier, boatright, deandre daniels) their best player this year is still calhoun recruit. if he starts winning games next year after boatright graduates and makes the tourney then i start feeling good about KO and the program going forward.

[Bill Marsh]

not saying ollie can't get the job done. i'm saying it's too early to predict one way or another. and yes even with the championship run. the 3 best players on the roster from last year were all calhoun recruits. (napier, boatright, deandre daniels) their best player this year is still calhoun recruit. if he starts winning games next year after boatright graduates and makes the tourney then i start feeling good about KO and the program going forward.

What is it that's too early to tell?

If he can coach? He took his team to a national championship in his second season.

If he can recruit? He's brought in three 5-star recruits (Adams, Hamilton, and Purvis) in 3 years despite recruiting during his first season with one hand tied behind his back. He currently has a top 15 recruiting class for next year. He also has shown that he can find kids who are not highly ranked but who have a big up side as in the case of Amida Brimah.

Nothing in life is certain, but Kevin Ollie is as much of a sure thing as any school can have with a third year coach. UConn's biggest concern with Ollie is whether they can keep him away from the NBA, not whether he'll be successful.

I agree with you that Syracuse is a question mark because we aren't sure who the coach will be (likely Hopkins) and we don't have the slightest clue how the new coach will do on the job once he gets it. In the case of Kevin Ollie, we have a ton of evidence to tell us how he will do.

[BEhomer]

if he's not missed a beat recruiting and he can coach then why is that team struggling so much this year?

he gets credit for championship. he deserves some blame for team's poor performance.

and about last year. when they got blown out by louisville late season, they were having a mediocre year. something clicked during the tournament and they rode the hot streak to the finals. i would like to look at the entire body of work and not just 2-3 wk stretch of games.

[gosports1]

im fairly confident UConn will be fine. IMO they will due whatever it takes to keep their BB program top notch. Same with Cuse. The name alone will draw kids to the program at least for a couple of years A.B. (after Boeheim) Playing the likes of Duke and UNC year after year can only help

[butlerguy03]

something clicked during the tournament and they rode the hot streak to the finals. i would like to look at the entire body of work and not just 2-3 wk stretch of games.

It's the banner that counts. I would give all of Butler's continued success of the last 20 years for that Gordon Hayward half-court shot to fall.

[Bill Marsh]

if he's not missed a beat recruiting and he can coach then why is that team struggling so much this year?

he gets credit for championship. he deserves some blame for team's poor performance.

and about last year. when they got blown out by louisville late season, they were having a mediocre year. something clicked during the tournament and they rode the hot streak to the finals. i would like to look at the entire body of work and not just 2-3 wk stretch of games.

You are really ignoring how bad things were at UConn when Ollie took over. He lost3 players who had started for the national championship team - two who transferred and one who went to the NBA. And he lost a fourth who was a top 5 pick in the NBA draft. Despite that, he picked up the pieces and took them to a 20 win season in a year when the players didn't even have the BE tournament to look forward to, much less having an NCAA tournament bid to play for.

Claiming that they were having a mediocre year last season ignores just how good the top of the AAC was last season. That league is bad because of its bottom half, not because it doesn't have any good teams. Many experts thought Louisville was the best ball in the country going into the tournament. Getting blown out by them was no disgrace. You don't want to have their season boil down to 2-3 weeks, but isn't that exactly what you're doing when you focus on a few regular season games that went the wrong way for them?

You're saying that he deserves blame for his team's "poor performance". Hello. They lost 3 starters from last year's NC team, including the team's MVP. It's a rebuilding year in which he's integrating a lot of new players. A coach doesn't just wave a magic wand and get the same results with a new batch of players. And the season's still in progress. Maybe they'll go on a run in the next month and win the AAC tournament. Why don't we wait until the season's over before we call it a lost year. It's player development that has made Ollie special these last 3 years, as exemplified by the fact that he got last year's team to peak at the right time. They had to struggle to get where he wanted them to go, but in the end he got them there.m

As for not missing a beat in recruiting but still struggling, some of the fruits of that recruiting doesn't show up until next year (Adams, Enoch). That doesn't help him this year. Hamilton is only a freshman. He's had a very good freshman season, but he's still only a freshman and won't be at his best until he has at least a year under his belt. Calhoun didn't simply reload and have one great season after another. The 2011-12 team in his last season was loaded with talent, but they had a really disappointing season. It happens to all coaches

[TheBall]

Pretty much every uconn fan I know (in real life, not the fanatical message board posters trumpeting a cause) want to come back to the big east. Got a few emails today with them jokingly asking what they have to do to return.

Park football in the mac and come re-join. I think we make it an 8-10 year period with a huge exit fee, but after that they can go to the big ten or acc if they are invited. Knowing their long term goal, that would be reasonable and could create a nice relationship at this point and if they do get invited to a football conference down the line the split could be amicable as everyone was up front about it.

The conference of americans is a complete disaster right now. Atlantic 10 is much better.

[Bill Marsh]

The conference of americans is a complete disaster right now. Atlantic 10 is much better.

No, it"a not.