OLD AND NEW: Former Connecticut men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun (left), who officially announced his retirement yesterday, applauds as new coach Kevin Ollie — given just a seven-month contract for his first head-coaching job — speaks. (Getty Images)
Former Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun, recovering from a broken hip, was on crutches yesterday for his retirement announcement, but if you looked closely, was that his replacement, Kevin Ollie, who was limping?
After all, Ollie had been neutered by new Connecticut AD Warde Manuel.
Manuel gave Ollie a seven-month deal. He didn’t slap an interim coach tag on him, but you could say Manuel came up with a new position: impotent coach.
“To give him [one season] is a bit of a disservice,’’ Evan Daniels, Scout.com’s basketball recruiting director, said. “It’s going to be hard for him to go into homes and sell [his program].’’
It took guts for Manuel to go this route — guts to stand up to Calhoun who wanted Ollie to get a multi-year deal, guts to make it clear he will run the Huskies’ athletic program going forward.
Manuel’s response to the question, “Why seven months?” was spot on. He said he has never seen Ollie coach; no one has. Ollie has been an assistant under Calhoun the last two seasons but has never head-coached a game — not for a college team, not for a high school team.
Warde needs to see the product Ollie produces on the court, in the classroom and on the recruiting trail.
Ollie is, without question, a competitor, albeit a different type of competitor than Calhoun, who was as subtle as a jackhammer. Calhoun talked about how he brought in a hot-shot recruit to challenge Ollie for his starting job three straight years. Each time, Ollie rose up.
When asked about the short contract, Ollie, a 13-year NBA veteran, rose up again.
“I played the first six years in the NBA without a guaranteed contract, so this is easy,” Ollie said. “Whether it’s two months, three months, I’m not going to stop until they tell me to stop.’’
That could be on April 4, 2013, the day Ollie’s deal expires. No one should feel bad for Ollie or outraged at Warde. This is a potential win-win.
Ollie, 39, will get a paid audition to the tune of $625,000. The Huskies are banned from the NCAA Tournament, so if Ollie wins 20, with a good but not great UConn team, that should answer some questions.
This is the first big hire of Warde’s UConn tenure. He would have been a fool to handcuff himself to an unproven commodity. So he has rented Ollie for seven months. In a perfect world, the Huskies Express will keep rolling and Manuel will extend Ollie’s deal.
Besides, just who was Warde going to hire about one month before Midnight Madness? Calhoun’s timing was his final act of going down fighting — though the old coach will stick around as a special assistant to the AD through the spring.
Ollie began his remarks yesterday by thanking God for the opportunity. The joke on the recruiting circuit has prospects calling Ollie, “The Preacher,” which is not a bad thing. They called Calhoun much worse, and all he did was win three NCAA titles.
Additional reporting by Zach Braziller