(12-03-2017 10:14 AM)quo vadis Wrote: I don't follow UConn hoops much these days, but four years ago when Ollie "led" UConn to the national title, i said that it was really Calhoun's title, that Ollie just was the caretaker for Calhoun's players and that pretty soon it would become apparent that he isn't up to the job. I got raked over the coals by UConn fans for saying that, Ollie had loads of defenders who rushed to bash me.
Is that even controversial any more among UConn fans?
The argument just doesn't hold up when you really break it down. Of you're saying that title was a product of Calhoun and Ollie had little to do with it, you're saying one of two things - either that Ollie can't recruit effectively enough to compete at this level, or that that UConn team was so overwhelmingly talented that all they needed was someone to roll the ball out there and get out of the way.
We know that the ability to recruit isn't the issue, relatively speaking - UConn's pretty consistently been at the top of the recruiting rankings in the AAC the last several years, so they have the physical talent to finish near the top of the league on an annual basis.
As far as the 2014 UConn team just being a steamroller that would have won no matter who was on the roster - I just don't see it. Off the top of my head Florida was the senior-heavy team billed as perhaps one of the best college teams in recent history and Kentucky was the squad with overwhelming physical tools that needed to be harnessed. UConn had two sub-6'0" point guards with admittedly well-developed games and a frontcourt-by-committee that managed to get the job done - that team winning the title doesn't happen unless the guy pushing the buttons gets some things right.
Also worth noting that that was Ollie's second season as HC after losing some starters to transfer because of a postseason ban, so the idea that Calhoun just handed him a roster in October ready to compete doesn't track either.
The whole Ollie saga has been weird, as the 2014 team was an underdog that won the national title and the 2016 team won the conference and could have made at least a sweet sixteen run had they not gotten a 1-seed in the round of 32, but there have been flat out bad other seasons (last year most notably) and the program is trending down overall. "2014 was actually Calhoun's title" has too much going against it to hold up though. It's entirely possible for someone to do a good job and then several years later do a bad job.