AAC and UConn Denial

[Westbrook#36]

I've said the same thing about the AAC being crappy conference, but in reality it's a top ten conference, it's just not a top 5 conference. The history of that conference's members getting to the Final Four is better in the past quarter century than the Big East's. The OP really does protest too much. He comes across as someone who doesn't really believe what he's writing and wants to convince himself that the Big East is a really good conference. It is, but that's regardless of how good UConn or the AAC are. He doesn't have to trash them to make his point. And he certainly doesn't have to be inaccurate in the process. The fact is that Ollie is a terrific young coach, one of the best in the business. He could leave UConn and have an NBA job tomorrow if he wanted to. Calhoun did not leave him with a stacked roster. Frank.y the cupboard was practically bare. 2014 should not be viewed as Calhun's 4th title. It was 100% Ollie, doing one of the best coaching jobs in tournament history, beating far superior talent in Kentucky and Florida.

Good to have you back Bill. First off the OP is Hooper, so take what ever he says with a large dose of salt. Yes the aac is a top ten conference, but so is the A-10, Summit, and Colonial. I consider those leagues as the aac's peers much more than the BE. As for the F4 success in the last quarter century, that's all solely depended on one school, without UConn no one else in that league has any more F4 success in that time period than most BE schools. UConn will do fine in the aac, they'd be better positioned for success in the BE though, but that's probably never going to happen. They made their bed chasing football money, now their basketball program has to sleep in it.

[Noonzy]

Bill, maybe you can clarify something about state funding for UConn. It is my understanding that CT has lost many businesses due to the tax structure which hurts the tax base and may even cause the further rise in taxes. At what point do the taxpayers of CT get pissed off at the money the state is throwing at the school while taxes rise? Granted, they are still being fueled by the money from the breakup, but how long will that last while the school chases the dream? At what point do the large donors get pissed off by throwing their money at a losing proposition?

[ChelseaFriar]

Ollie won with Napier and Boatright (and sort of Daniels). All Calhoun commits.

Let's see how he does now that Calhoun's players have trickled out of the system. He is recruiting very well but it remains to be seen if he can build a Final 4 caliber team on his own. For the record, with the way he is recruiting I think he can (though UConn often looks like a team that isn't coached lately).

Yes, Ollie won the championship with Calhoun's guys. Absolutely not 100% Ollie. Calhoun's fingerprints are all over that championship and the majority of basketball fans outside of CT would agree (and even many in CT agree).

[HuskyU]

Ollie won with Napier and Boatright (and sort of Daniels). All Calhoun commits.

Let's see how he does now that Calhoun's players have trickled out of the system. He is recruiting very well but it remains to be seen if he can build a Final 4 caliber team on his own. For the record, with the way he is recruiting I think he can (though UConn often looks like a team that isn't coached lately).

Yes, Ollie won the championship with Calhoun's guys. Absolutely not 100% Ollie. Calhoun's fingerprints are all over that championship and the majority of basketball fans outside of CT would agree (and even many in CT agree).

Ollie was the lead recruiter for Shabazz and Daniel Hamilton. He also recruited 2 of last year's top 5th Year Transfers (Shonn Miller and Sterling Gibbs). Next year's class is currently in the Top 5 nationwide.

Whether this results in another F4/Championship is yet to be seen, but I don't think you can ask much more from someone replacing a legendary coach.

[Bill Marsh]

Ollie won with Napier and Boatright (and sort of Daniels). All Calhoun commits.

Let's see how he does now that Calhoun's players have trickled out of the system. He is recruiting very well but it remains to be seen if he can build a Final 4 caliber team on his own. For the record, with the way he is recruiting I think he can (though UConn often looks like a team that isn't coached lately).

Yes, Ollie won the championship with Calhoun's guys. Absolutely not 100% Ollie. Calhoun's fingerprints are all over that championship and the majority of basketball fans outside of CT would agree (and even many in CT agree).

There's a difference between winning WITH someone else's recruits and winning BECAUSE OF someone else's recruits. Ollie did NOT inherit a Final Four roster from Calhoun in 2012, much less a national championship roster. That roster was not full of future NBA players or former MacD's All Americans. The team was not loaded with overwhelming talent in any way. The proof of that is the way the team played during the season for the first 2 years of Ollie's tenure. If it was all about Calhoun's talent, all that Ollie would have had to do would have had to do was roll out the balls and let them play. Fact is they didn't overwhelm anyone with that talent. If truth be told, the UConn talent didn't belong on the same floor as the Kentucky talent. The ONLY reasons they won that championship was because of Ollie's coaching - and the size of the hearts in some of those players. That team was an underdog throughout that tournament. It had to go through not only Kentucky, but Florida, Michigan State,Villanova, and a very competitive St. Joe's.

I wonder how involved anyone here thinks that senior-citizen Calhoun in his late 60's was in recruiting. In his final years as head of the program he repeatedly missed time with various medical problems. If he couldn't even show up to coach, do you really think he was recruiting? He left the program on probation specifically because he had lost control of his assistants precisely due to his lack of involvement in the recruiting process. One of the key assistants actually doing successful and violations-free recruiting in the last couple of years to build that roster was Kevin Ollie. They were as much his recruits as Calhoun's, maybe more his.

When Calhoun retired, 4 players immediately bolted from the program. Drummond was a clear one-and-done who was leaving under any circumstances, but Lamb was not. He was a maybe who left because of the probation. Oriakhi and Smith, both starters on the 2011 champions, transferred to other schools obviously because of the probation. Ollie had to re-recruit Napier and Boatright. As a result of the unanticipated defections, Ollie lost 4 of the rop 6 players from the previous year and had to completely rebuild the front court. That's what he inherited from Calhoun.

Had the starters from the 2011 NC team returned along with Napier and Boatright AND had the team not been on probation, the case could be made that Ollie was left with a loaded roster. But that was not the case.

[NovaBall]

Kevin Ollie deserves a Ton of credit for 2014. Anyone saying otherwise is foolish.

That said, bob Huggins made 14 straight ncaa tourneys including a final four and another overall one seed out of the great Midwest conference and conference of the United states of Americans with cincy.

Anyway, UConn has tulsa, Tulane and Houston coming up before they play a major conference school again when georgetown is in the schedule.

[SJHooper]

Bill, you are just wrong here. You sound like one of your parents or siblings went to UConn or something. The truth is that Calhoun's fingerprints were all over that UConn squad that won most recently. Napier was literally the engine that got them through the tourney and to the championship. He was unreal. Calhoun had a knack for getting players that were insanely clutch and played better in the biggest high pressure games. They thrived on it. First it was Kemba, then it was Napier. It's like a new coach inheriting Curry on Davidson then you claim the new coach deserves all the credit. Without Napier, there is 0 chance UConn goes all the way in the tourney. First team All-American, won AAC POY (and would have won Big East POY if they were still in BE), best PG award, and MVP of tourney. I don't care if Ollie was his lead recruiter...lead recruiters mean much less when you have a HOF coach with rings. Doesn't take as much to recruit to a school with a HOF coach and recent rings. UConn became what it was due to Calhoun. I really can't believe you would think that Calhoun had nothing to do with their ring. We all saw the fools gold that Steve Lavin was, knocking off top 5 teams on the regular in 2011 with another coach's recruits. As soon as they left, he fell flat. College hoops has a way of weeding out who can actually coach kids up and who succeeds due to their inherited studs. So far, Ollie has not proven he can do anything major on his own. UConn fans themselves are actually killing him...they are not ranked and not even receiving votes. They just lost to a bad Temple team. The program has not been the same devoid of all things Calhoun or Big East.

And by the way, you need to get a grip if you are judging personalities and making personal attacks on a sports forum. I don't care how I'm received. I'm here to talk about college hoops. This is not high school, but if you want to try to make cliques or fight for social standing on a forum then go ahead. It is a fact that Calhoun's fingerprints were all over that squad...any differently and you are just in denial.