By Colin McDonough
The UConn men’s basketball team has been the best team in the nation the last two seasons, and it’s not even close. The Huskies have repeated as national champions in dominant fashion, winning back to back NCAA tournaments with 12 straight postseason victories by double digits. UConn, the first team to repeat in a decade and a half, has a coach, Dan Hurley, who is at the top of his game. The Huskies won two national championships, a Big East regular season championship, and a Big East Tournament championship, all in a 12-month span. There is nothing to complain about if you’re a UConn student, alum, or fan.
Hurley turned down two of the premier jobs in basketball, spurning Kentucky, then the Lakers during this offseason, to stay in Storrs.
This means it is the perfect time to bring up the only albatross surrounding UConn men’s basketball. It is the perfect time to invite Kevin Ollie back to campus.
When UConn fans think of Ollie, most would, and have given an answer on Twitter or a comment section like: “He won in 2014 but was a horrible coach.” It goes a lot deeper than that though.
Ollie is as much if not more of a UConn guy than most. A four-year player and alum of UConn in 1995, Ollie went on to play in the NBA, then returned to Storrs to be Jim Calhoun’s assistant. He was an assistant for three years, winning the national title in 2011, and then took over for Calhoun upon his retirement in September of 2012. The Huskies were banned from the NCAA tournament due to academic standing, and Ollie guided them to a 20-10 record in their final year in the Big East. The next season, its first in the American, UConn won its fourth national championship. Ollie orchestrated a run as a seventh-seed beating coaches like Jay Wright, Fred Hoiberg, Tom Izzo, BIlly Donovan and John Calipari. Wright as a TV analyst still credited Ollie for that championship at this year’s Final Four. Ollie said he believed the Huskies would win the national championship a month before it happened. In the spring and summer of 2014 there was fear that Ollie would leave his alma mater for the NBA. There was a chance that instead of leading the Huskies in 2015 he’d be coach of LeBron James and the Cavaliers or possibly the Lakers. Then it all fell apart.
Ollie stayed, but the good times didn’t. UConn made the NCAA tournament once in the next four years. The Huskies won the 2016 AAC tournament title, advancing to the second round, but Ollie had two consecutive losing seasons after that. The Huskies were stuck in the American, out of power conference basketball. Ollie’s relationship with his mentor Calhoun dissipated, and morale around the program for current and former players went into a downward spiral. Ollie was fired after the 2018 season. He went 127-79 in six seasons as head coach at UConn, with 30 wins being vacated. But Ollie left his alma mater in shambles by most estimations.
Luckily, two things were on the horizon: Hurley and a return to the Big East. Five years later UConn is not only back, but better than ever.
So now is the time to make full amends. Instead of telling you simply the reasons why Ollie should be back in the fold of the UConn community, we’ll dispute everyone’s reasons that he’s not.
Ollie won with Calhoun’s players…two years later. So he gets no credit? Ollie was an assistant for two years under Calhoun before taking the reins. Guess he didn’t help develop any players or assist in recruiting any. Steve Fisher took over Michigan during the 1989 season and won the national championship. Bill Freider should get the credit for the title. Larry Coker won the national title with Miami in his first year as head coach. Butch Davis should’ve held the trophy up at the Rose Bowl. The argument that Calhoun should get credited for the 2014 national championship two seasons after he stopped coaching is maddening. Again, think of how Calhoun left the team when he retired, banned from the NCAA Tournament. Calhoun is arguably the greatest coach and team builder in NCAA men’s history, but he didn’t hand Ollie an easy path to a championship.
Ollie ruined the program …No he didn’t. If he did ruin us, we’d be Indiana, or worse. UConn missed the 2019 tournament, had a winning record in 2020 before Covid, then Hurley had the Huskies back in the NCAA tournament in 2021. Couple that with a return to the Big East in 2020, and Hurley had the Huskies back to relevancy. Two years later they were national champions. If you go from firing a coach to a power basketball conference in two years, the NCAA tournament in three years, then national champions in five, and back to back champions in six, the program was not irrevocably broken. Hurley is beyond outstanding as a coach and leader, but if UConn was so awful, he wouldn’t have come to save us, nor would the Big East have taken us back.
Ollie and UConn’s relationship is irreconcilable…Just like LeBron and Cleveland? To put it into some historical context of bad sports breakups. LeBron returned to Cleveland four years after The Decision. He returned to Cleveland during a Cavs home playoff game against the Celtics this past season and got a standing ovation as a member of the Lakers. Bill Buckner returned to Fenway Park 22 years after his error and threw out the first pitch in a Red Sox jersey to cheers. Ray Allen returned to Boston for Kevin Garnett’s number retirement ceremony in 2022, and the crowd gave a standing ovation as Garnett, Allen and Paul Pierce hugged. The best example for this argument: Randy Edsall. UConn hired Edsall back as head coach of the football team seven years after he didn’t return to campus after the biggest football moment in school history. If Edsall can leave for Maryland after the Fiesta Bowl, become a pariah, and return to work for UConn, Ollie deserves to be honored by the school.
Ollie fought the university for millions…And you wouldn’t? Hopefully you’ve never protested a parking ticket. If you say you wouldn’t fight for millions you are owed then you’re lying. The other aspect is that Ollie won. Twice. The arbiter ruled that UConn had to pay Ollie 11 million dollars, the remaining money he was owed per his contract. The arbiter ruled that UConn “improperly fired” Ollie. Then UConn settled to pay Ollie an additional 3.9 million for reputational damages. In short, UConn had egg on their face for how they handled the Ollie situation. They paid Bob Diaco’s buyout but not Ollie’s. And if you read fans’ comments, Ollie was the one in the wrong for wanting money he was owed. But Ollie was the one vindicated, not UConn. Some fans would comment that Ollie sucked as a head coach, so he doesn’t deserve the money. But firing Ollie for not being a great head coach shows that he deserved the money, since the contract was not about performance but NCAA violations. So instead, UConn tattled on Ollie for tertiary violations to try to get out of paying a national champion alum. That was a snake move. UConn told on its own head coach and lost the legal battles.
Ollie doesn’t represent UConn anymore…Ray Allen said it best about fans’ public statements and the university fighting Ollie in arbitration: “we’re slandering ourselves.” If an alum of the school, who came to UConn to play basketball before it was fully UConn, doesn’t represent us, then I don’t know who would. Ollie came from Los Angeles to Connecticut, went on to play 13 years in the NBA, then returned to coach, took over for the school legend, stayed instead of chasing an NBA head coaching job, and it didn’t work out fully. But the bad ending shouldn’t ruin the rest of the fairytale story.
Along with Gary Williams, Jim Boeheim, Roy Williams, Ollie is one of four head coaches to lead their alma mater to a national title since the NCAA Tournament expanded in 1985. Furthermore, Ollie’s 2014 championship is historic. Ollie became the fourth African-American head coach to win the NCAA Division 1 basketball championship, joining John Thompson, Nolan Richardson, and Tubby Smith. This should be a sense of pride for UConn, as these qualities are ones that UConn actively promotes itself with nationally.
A recent UConn commercial that consistently aired on national television stated, “Excellence, pride, diversity, it’s what we fight for every day.” It seems to me that Ollie brought all those qualities to UConn.
Hopefully, the UConn and Kevin Ollie relationship will be rekindled. Sorrys can be said by both sides, and the UConn social media accounts can start showing photos of Ollie again. It should not, however, stop with thawing the connection.
Next winter when there’s a sixth championship banner hanging from the roof of Gampel Pavilion, something else should be making its way to the rafters too: Kevin Ollie in the Huskies of Honor.
A lot of people, after reading this, would still think Ollie is not deserving of Storrs immortality. But it wouldn’t just be his honor, it’d be ours.
