The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Jeff Jacobs: Win keeps Kevin Ollie’s critics at bay
STORRS — Every game has turned into a referendum on Kevin Ollie’s ability to coach basketball.
Every errant pass, every rushed 3-point shot has opened the debate on whether Ollie’s UConn teams can run a sustainable offense and whether he deserves to return next season.
Every lapse on defense, every serious sag in energy like in the first half Saturday at the XL Center has started fiery discourse on whether Ollie deserves to return even next week.
This is not where Kevin Ollie wants to be, yet this is where Kevin Ollie finds himself.
The 2014 national championship is four years and many, many scores ago. With four losses in five games and one unimpressive weekend win over East Carolina, this could have been the Wednesday night when the UConn fan base’s head collectively exploded.
Let the record show, after UConn’s gritty 62-53 victory over Central Florida, Husky Nation’s cranium remains intact.
This victory probably will do little to quell the legion of critics, some of whom almost seem to be rooting for defeats to bring in Dan Hurley or Steve Pikiell or anybody not named Kevin Ollie next season.
Few teams in the nation have been better at handling adversity than UCF this season. Facing adversity of their own, the truth is the Huskies answered in an admirable way. This was a necessary win for Ollie. His team showed more fight than any time this season.
“This game can do a lot for us,” said Christian Vital, who led UConn with 18 points and a couple of shoving matches. “It shows us that it doesn’t matter who the other team is. If we take care of the things we need to take care of, look out for each other and have each other’s back, there’s not many games we should lose in this conference.”
Ollie said the other day that he does not participate in social media during the season and, for the sake of his sanity, this is a wise decision. For there have been few words of encouragement on Twitter and fan participation boards.
Maybe it was a bad start last season that ended with the first losing record in three decades. Maybe it was the no-shows against Arkansas and Auburn this season and the bumpy 9-7 record. Maybe it is the ever-gathering momentum of all these events.
This much is sure: More and
more of the UConn fan base, to use an Ollie-ism, are 10 toes in on Ollie being replaced. To use another Ollie-ism, more and more are willing to eschew the escalator and climb the stairs to the highest points of Gampel Pavilion to call for his ouster. In some ways the sparse crowd of 5,065 for this game is the most damning statement of all.
Fans and media ultimately do not determine a college coach’s future. The athletic director does. The school president does. Ollie’s contract runs through the 202021 season and the number due him if he were fired at the end of this season is somewhere north of $9 million.
Still, that huge chunk of change does not change so many fans’ mission to look under every rock for a weakness in Ollie’s approach or in Ollie’s game plan. And heaven knows there have been plenty of things to pick apart this season.
Those who defend Ollie point to another seasonending shoulder injury to point guard Alterique Gilbert. If Gilbert, the AAC 2016-17 preseason Rookie of the Year, hadn’t been lost early last season, things would have been different. Right? If Gilbert, the 20172018 AAC preseason repeat Rookie of the Year, hadn’t been lost early this season, things would have been different. Right?
It’s déjà shoulder all over again.
What the Huskies have endured in terms of injury has not matched Central Florida. Coach Johnny Dawkins’ son Aubrey was expected to be a major contributor after transferring from Michigan. In late October, before matters even started, he was lost for the season with a shoulder injury.
Junior guard B.J. Taylor, who led the Knights last season at 17.4 points a game, lasted only into the second half of the opener against Mercer on Nov 10. He was supposed to be out four to six weeks with a fractured foot. Two months later, he was determined not quite ready to return against UConn.
More recently, sophomore Chance McSpadden was knocked out of the lineup. Tacko Fall, the 7foot-6 giant, missed some practices and a couple of early games with nagging problems.
So what happened? Before Wednesday night, the Knights ran off eight wins in nine games and had built a 12-4 record They did it with lots of elbow grease and not a whole lot of pretty. They did it by holding opponents to 58.9 points a game, third best in the nation. But guess what? The Huskies showed even more elbow grease and less pretty in holding the Knights to 36.5 percent shooting.
“They were locked in, played really good defensively and set a good tone from the start,” Dawkins said.
“Our defense was our best this whole season,” Ollie said.
Vegas had UCF as a onepoint favorite on a night when every point figured to be precious. And it was. The Huskies hit 20 of 21 foul shots. They rebounded. They did a good job on the pick-and-roll against Fall. Freshman Isaiah Whaley blocked five shots and got a “phenomenal, blossoming in front of our eyes” from his coach. The Huskies defended like crazy.
Yes, there was plenty of fight in UConn on this night. Vital got into it with UCF players before the game. Vital got into it with UCF players in the handshake line afterward. There was conflict before, during and after the game. Too bad Bob Diaco wasn’t around to bring back his Civil ConFLiCT trophy.
“Fake energy from the other team,” Vital said. “Just trying to get us out of our game.”
With four minutes left, Jalen Adams hit a fall-away shot that made him the 50th player in UConn history to score 1,000 points. On a night when many UConn fans were looking for 1,000 different reasons to skewer the coach, Kevin Ollie gave them none.
On to the next referendum Saturday at Tulane.