UConn's Jim Calhoun to call it a career

[oddball]

Maybe they knew he was leaving before the story and planned accordingly, but this is one of the worst points in the year you can quit as a coach.

Calhoun told ESPN.com this past summer that whenever he retired, he would mimic Dean Smith's plan of waiting right until the start of the season.

What a self-serving dickhole.

With Smith leaving though they had another guy right behind him in Bill Guthridge with pretty much the exact same coaching philosophy as Smith had. He could leave and UNC basketball wouldn't miss a beat, nor did they. Guthridge took them to two Final Fours in three years.

Kevin Ollie is a complete unknown as a coach. The guy has only been retired as a player for two years. I have no idea what your going to get from him, but I really think he's being put in a tough spot. The only positive I can say is Calhoun ran a pretty simple offense. No a hard team to scout because they may run 8 plays a game if that. A monkey could learn and run Jim Calhoun's offense. But when your only running 8 plays a game you damn well better be good at those 8 plays and that's where it may be a bit more difficult for Ollie. As easy as it is to learn, very difficult to be successful because of have small the margin for error is because every team knows exactly what your going to do.

I think it going to be very difficult but not impossible for Ollie to install a different style of offense if he wants to. There's still enough time to do it, but the clock is ticking.

Well, John Wooden said that his 10 plays could beat anyone's huge playbook. You don't need 50 million plays, you just need players to execute what they should. It's always amusing to watch the reaction of people who have never coached and don't realize how many times players screw up what they should be doing. 90% of failure on the field/court is the player's fault, the other 10% is the wrong play called at the wrong time. And personally, I could care less what kind of person a coach is. His job is to win basketball games and get the best out of his players. Calhoun did a pretty good job of that.

[Lights Out]

As ESPN and UConn goes I can't really say ESPN plays too many favorites with college basketball. I know some people say too much Duke and UNC, but those teams are top 10 virtually every year though, so they do deserve a tremendous amount of coverage.

Do they deserve coverage? Yes. Do they deserve the nonstop fawning apologism they get from ESPN? Absolutely not.

[Ben5]

So he basically tricked students into going to Storrs..... That's college athletics for you.

I wouldn't say that. From what I understand, for the past year they have been saying to recruits that when Calhoun was gone, Ollie was going to be the coach. It's not like the incoming class had no idea that Calhoun would retire. And I assume that he will still act as sort of a godfather to the program for as long as he can. Nobody really retires at UConn, they just get moved into an advisory role and get another paycheck.

I assume Calhoun timed this so that it was guaranteed that his boy Ollie would get the job for the whole season. If he does this at the end of last season, they could look elsewhere. But Calhoun thinks that for all he has done for the school, he deserves to have someone from "the family" coach his team. And I would probably agree to that before the last couple of years. I'm sure Ollie will only be named an interim head coach, because UConn only works in half measures, but the job is his to lose.

Bottom line: Calhoun is a dick. And Geno is a creep. And Paul Pasqualoni is a bitter old man who is out of touch on a football field and in life. And George DeLeone shouldn't be calling plays anywhere... What were talking about again?

[crashcarson15]

I don't see this program doing much without Calhoun at the helm. Its a very competitive recruiting environment so you can only rest so much on prestige. The school isn't in a great location and your in a very tough basketball conference.

The timing of this strikes me as really odd. I know he's claiming he's leaving for health reasons, but what's so different with his health now as opposed to four months ago? The first question I would ask, because now your starting to get into serious practices. Your not doing much conditioning work anymore. Now your starting to work on installing what's going to be the core of your offensive and defensive strategy for the season.

Maybe they knew he was leaving before the story and planned accordingly, but this is one of the worst points in the year you can quit as a coach. I would almost prefer a coach to quit mid season.

Before Calhoun, UConn was an unknown in college basketball and it will be that way after Calhoun leaves. UConn will be hit rough because of the sanctions and the competition especially Louisville, a Top 2 team in the country this season.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yes, because one or two games a year will determine how rough the hit is.