The Sports Thread #1/The Final Two Title Game Preview Thread #1 For 4/7/14: Teams of Perseverance - Olliedays Are Here To Say
There have been few in the college basketball coaching ranks who have handled adversity better than Kevin Ollie. Coaches with longer resumes and years at the helm could take lessons from the 41-year-old, and that also includes those in the college football ranks who love to use their powers of leaving the kids they recruited behind as soon as the next big money, big job opportunity opens. When Ollie took over the reigns of the UConn program after Jim Calhoun retired and left him with sanctions two years ago, it could have lead to a slow but steady demise of one of NCAA basketball's prime institutions. The legacy of Geno Auriesma on the women's side of the program wasn't going to be of any significant aid to Ollie, who needed to find a way of stabling a program who had lost a legendary coach and seemed destined for the downward slope (the "demise" of the original Big East also was of no facilitation to Ollie's difficult challenge). Shabazz Napier, R