UConn Has Fired Kevin Ollie For Just Cause

And. Here. We. Go. This was one of the two biggest storylines in the sense of the coaching carousel with the other one being Louisville. UConn has announced today they will be firing Kevin Ollie with just  cause due to the ongoing NCAA investigation into the program. What’s important about this is that means they likely have an out in terms of the buyout they owe Ollie. Clearly we don’t have all the details yet, but it could be a less buyout or perhaps nothing at all.

This is now going to be all sorts of interesting. The list of names to keep an eye on will be Dan Hurley, Tom Crean, John Becker and Eric Musselman. Those are the four names I’d target if I’m UConn. Hurley has obviously been the name throughout the entire time of who would replace Ollie, but don’t rule out the other three. I’d throw Steve Pikiell there too, but with the extension he just signed at Rutgers it’s going to be quite expensive in order to get him to UConn. Despite having all the ties to UConn, I don’t know if they can make that happen.

UConn should be a destination job, even in the AAC. We’ve seen guys like Mick Cronin turn a job into that, even with the move from the Big East to the AAC. UConn is an established enough program that you should consider it as such. Now, the thing here is we’ve never seen a coaching search at UConn. So perhaps they take a younger guy and hope to keep him for a decade and let him decide from there. Perhaps they take Crean or Hurley and let him build the program back up. There are plenty of different ways and I’m just fascinated by this coaching search. The AAC will always be in a weird spot because 3/4 of the league are destination jobs while a couple can be considered destination jobs.

We’ll see how quick UConn moves on this and obviously if there are any more updates I’ll get something up on it. But, for now UConn should target, in order: Danny Hurley/Tom Crean/Steve Pikiell/Eric Musselman/John Becker. Crazy how fast Ollie has fallen since he won a title in 2014. Some thought he would be the most logical college coach to make the jump to the NBA and now Ollie will have to try and find another job. Personally, I think he’s a great assistant coach, especially where he can focus on defense.