Author: David Borges

Publisher: University Press of New England

Published: 2015-02-27

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1611687705

In September 2012, legendary University of Connecticut menÕs basketball coach Jim CalhounÑwho had won three national championships, the last in 2011Ñabruptly retired. His handpicked replacement was Kevin Ollie, a former UConn player and longtime NBA journeyman who had returned two years earlier to be CalhounÕs assistant. Ollie was widely praised as a Òbasketball savantÓ and respected by virtually everyone who knew him. But he had no head coaching experienceÑat any levelÑbefore taking the UConn job. He was also inheriting a mess. Due to past academic problems, UConn was barred from postseason play in 2013, and largely because of this, several top players left the program, either for the NBA draft or for other schools. On top of that were the uncertainties of a greatly changed conference, as well as difficulties on the recruiting trail. Despite it all, a dedicated core of players stayed and won twenty hard-fought games, even with no tournament chances to hope for. The following season, expectations for the team were modest, and the odds of a championship were slim to none. But with the tournament ban lifted, a talented group of players, led by Shabazz Napier, emerged and went on to upset Michigan State to advance to the Final Four, causing millions of college hoops fans across the country to rip up their carefully constructed brackets. When they beat preseason no. 1 Kentucky, with its ÒFab 5Ó NBA-bound starters and celebrity coach John Calipari, to win the 2014 title, theirs became one of the great comeback stories in all of sports, a rags-to-riches triumph for a storied program and its new head coach.