Looks like O'Neil is out

[Chaplin]

Dick Tomey being fired wasn't a mistake. Hiring Stoops? Maybe.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Dick Tomey being fired wasn't a mistake. Hiring Stoops? Maybe.

Eh, I was on board with Tomey being fired provided Livengood have someone lined up that would be better. And no, John Mackovic who couldn't get it done at UT was not an upgrade. Therefore it was a mistake.

Stoops is a trainwreck, I really don't think he's that much better than Mackovic.

 

[Renz]

In first meeting with media, Olson says O'Neill won't remain on Arizona staff
Associated Press
Updated: April 1, 2008, 5:37 PM ET

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Arizona's Lute Olson said he had his players' interests in mind when he took a personal leave of absence last season.

"The reason that I took the leave was that I didn't feel that I could be fair to the kids," Olson said. "And despite what maybe some of you think, the main thing that I have, in my 50 or 51 years [in coaching], has been the concern of the kids."

Beyond that, a combative Olson declined to discuss the reasons behind his leave during a televised 48-minute news conference at McKale Center on Tuesday.

Olson also said assistant coach Kevin O'Neill will not remain on his staff, although O'Neill said last week he planned to honor the second year of a two-year commitment he made to the program. O'Neill led the Wildcats for the season and had been named as Olson's successor when he retires.

"When he said he's coming back, or that he's going to fulfill the terms of his contract, he won't be on the staff," Olson said.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3324436

 

[Russ Smith]

I'm sure the rest of the Pac-10 is hoping for that.

Although I do think if Lavin gets another gig he'll probably do better than he did at UCLA. I heard that Oregon State is considering him for their job which I think would be a nice fit for both parties as any job in Corvallis needs a recruiter.

The reality is UA is very interested in Henry Bibby and will do anything it takes to lock him up. If he's unavailable they'll move on to Rob Evans or Jim Harrick.

Katz says OSU is hiring Grier from San Diego, don't think it's official yet, he just signed an extension at SD recently.

FYI there's an article on the Pump brothers on Yahoo today that has the Pumps talking to ex LMU coach Rodney Tention(they apparently placed him at LMU) and recommending he call Lute about coming home to UA. Don't know but I assume they knew O'Neill was gone.

 

[Russ Smith]

Some pretty telling quotes in there. Chase clearly didn't like ONeil and obviously Jamelle Horne didn't either, hopefully horne doesn't transfer. Bayless is gone for sure, but that is fine because we can run a duel point next year similar to Villanova with Jennings and Wise, and with that seven footer mixed in with Hill and Budinger- he has to stay, I don't think scouts are as high on his softness and lack of FT shooting this year. Chase has the talent to be THE BEST player in the country but the personality and drive to be the worst. What a waste of wonderful gifts

I don't know how to take Chase's comments there when he said we wanted to play one way and suddenly flip flopped? Is he saying we wanted to run and not play defense and then KO made us play defense? or is he saying we wanted to run AND play defense but KO wouldn't let us run?

Very weird situation but I have enough faith in Lute to assume he's got the long term interests of teh program in mind here.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Katz says OSU is hiring Grier from San Diego, don't think it's official yet, he just signed an extension at SD recently..

Interesting they took Grier over Randy Bennett, maybe he's waiting for the Cal job.

FYI there's an article on the Pump brothers on Yahoo today that has the Pumps talking to ex LMU coach Rodney Tention(they apparently placed him at LMU) and recommending he call Lute about coming home to UA. Don't know but I assume they knew O'Neill was gone.

There's quite a few assistants out there interested in the open Arizona assistant job (O'Neill was toast once Livengood lost the power struggle with Lute) because they realize that the next spot on the bench may open up at any time over the next few years.

 

[ajcardfan]

Look, I know you guys love Lute and hate O'Neill. And, I would to, I'm sure. But, the clips I saw of the press conference yesterday, and the articles I read this morning, would concern me a little about Olson's state of mind. I mean, to say O'Neill is "out" without any of the administration knowing he was going to say that and O'Neill under contract? WOW! If I was a Cats fan, I'd be worried if the "stress and anxiety" Lute was treated for is really much better.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Look, I know you guys love Lute and hate O'Neill. And, I would to, I'm sure. But, the clips I saw of the press conference yesterday, and the articles I read this morning, would concern me a little about Olson's state of mind. I mean, to say O'Neill is "out" without any of the administration knowing he was going to say that and O'Neill under contract? WOW! If I was a Cats fan, I'd be worried if the "stress and anxiety" Lute was treated for is really much better.

Lute being abrasive and refusing to take the high road with the media is nothing new. He just prefers sarcastic and biting remarks as compared to Bobby Knight's over the top tirades. The articles you read I'm sure paint a poor portrait of Lute, but keep in mind the writers of said articles have had ongoing public fueds with Lute for many, many years. Also note that this is not the case with national media who for the most part have nothing but great things to say about Lute. Lute knows national media can advance UA Basketball, small-time nobodies in Tucson are largely irrelevant so they are passed over. Not the best personality trait to have I guess, but you gotta take the good with the bad when it comes to a Hall of Famer.

These guys are right to some extent when it comes to Lute refusing to take any responsibility. But considering the vast majority of Tucson media has taken a negative spin to UA Hoops for as long as I can remember while perennially lauding the laughingstock known as the UA Football program as contenders it makes you wonder what really is motivating these writers.

Personally I'm glad Lute came out and canned that POS O'Neill on live TV and ripped the Tucson media. Not only is it much-deserved for KO nearly sinking the program by driving off all it's players and splitting camps, but it also is a blatant undermining of Jim Livengood's authority which should have been done years ago. I don't see any way Livengood can survive this when you combine this mess with Stoops' upcoming meltdown called the 2008 season. And my problem with the media in this case is every person in that room knew exactly why Lute took the LOA and why as a father he refused to talk about it yet they pestered him anyways.

 

[Mr. Boldin]

Lute saved Livengood's ass too many times, I just hope that Shelton realizes that Lute isnt going to go to bat for Livengood anymore and neither should anyone else. Send the guy packing and fix the multiple messes he created.

Also, the administration knew KO wasnt coming back, or wanted should I say.

 

[ajcardfan]

Lute saved Livengood's ass too many times, I just hope that Shelton realizes that Lute isnt going to go to bat for Livengood anymore and neither should anyone else. Send the guy packing and fix the multiple messes he created.

Also, the administration knew KO wasnt coming back, or wanted should I say.

It just seems to me that Lute put the University in a horrendous negotiating position. IMO, O'Neill is not only going to get the balance of his contract now, but he's also likely to get compensated for the "promised" head coaching position post-Lute.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

It just seems to me that Lute put the University in a horrendous negotiating position. IMO, O'Neill is not only going to get the balance of his contract now, but he's also likely to get compensated for the "promised" head coaching position post-Lute.

That was the reality of the situation no matter what Lute said or did not say. KO's supposedly holding UA over the coals right now over the 'successor' label, why do you think KO came out and said he still plans on taking over the reigns after the season despite him and Lute barely being on speaking terms?

The problem with the KO-UA dispute is that the more any aspect of O'Neill is around the program the less chance Bayless and Budinger (that Chase and his handlers think he's NBA material is hilarious but that's another conversation) decide to come back to school. KO needs to go and Livengood needs to cut the check that makes it happen sooner better than later. Unfortunately, Livengood isn't especially adept at well pretty much everything and after he had to ask boosters to pay off Tomey, Mackovic, and probably soon enough Mike Stoops while doing facility upgrades he's probably hearing a lot of no's.

 

[Russ Smith]

the other side of the coin on this is that tough events like this have a way of pulling a team together. If they manage to keep Chase and Bayless I think you can expect next years team to be pretty together with so many of the kids having gone through all the nonsense.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

We'll see, Bayless is a lottery pick and with Chase I get the feeling it might be one of those situations where he's concerned another year would expose his major flaws even more. I really doubt everyone comes back, of course if they did Arizona would run away with the Pac-10, be a top 10 team and send Lute out right but I'm not holding my breath on it. Wise/Jennings/Bayless/Budinger running Lute's fastbreak offense would be unreal, they'd probably have the highest ceiling of any UA team since 2001.

 

[Lefty]

This is pretty stunning.
http://www.sportsline.com/mcc/blogs/entry/5881996/7484944

 

[ajcardfan]

Olson returns to Arizona as angry, arrogant as ever
Comments | Recommend
Greg Hansen, Arizona Daily Star
In his I'm-back-and-I'm-in-charge-and-don't-you-doubt-it performance Tuesday afternoon, Lute Olson was fully in character. He flexed and he fired.

Olson surprises UA officials by saying ONeill is out

Olson back on job for Wildcats


Olson speaks for 1st time about leave

His feelings of persecution, his unreasonable suspicion, his mania for perfection and his certainty that he is always in the right - Captain Queeg, remember? - were straight out of Olson's autocratic news conference performances of the 1980s and '90s.

It was sad.

Olson got too angry and spent too much energy on topics that should be beneath him. At 73, he hasn't yet learned to cut the rest of the world some slack.

Eleven months ago he sacrificed his most loyal career associate, Jim Rosborough. On Tuesday, he confirmed that his stated successor, Kevin O'Neill, hired to clean up a personnel mess created by Olson himself, has also been jettisoned for the good of order.

Who's next, Josh Pastner?

I've had some notable bumps with Olson, never been a fan of the way he treats people and especially subordinates, but on Tuesday I almost could not bear to watch as Olson pulled a Bob Knight, minus the cussing.

For the good of this community, for all of the feel-good days he has provided over a quarter-century, my wish is for Olson to go out on top, smiling, handing off his treasured program to an appointed successor.

But on Tuesday, Olson arrogantly said that choosing a successor is "not something that needs to be done.''

Perhaps he'll coach forever.

If one of Olson's few trusted insiders prepped him on how to handle Tuesday's news conference, it was a colossal failure. His boss, Jim Livengood, was not at his side to sanction or deflect the harsh words.

Steve Kerr, where were you?

After burning off Rosborough and O'Neill, Olson has apparently chosen to fly solo when he needs help more than at any time in his career.

Had he sought professional advice, Olson would have looked into the TV cameras and said, even if it meant doing so through gritted teeth and against his will:

"I am sorry for leaving without a thorough explanation to our fans and to our players and to the university that has supported me unconditionally for all these years. I'm asking for you to please give me the benefit of the doubt on this one," he said.

"I will forever be grateful to Kevin O'Neill for stepping into the breach and doing the best he could with a less-than-powerful club. He will always be welcome on my staff.

"I plan to donate to charity all the salary paid to me while on my leave of absence. I'm back and ready to roll. Look out UCLA.''

Ordinarily, the return to command of a Hall of Fame coach would be met with great celebration. On Tuesday, Olson embraced the negativity and wouldn't let it go.

Livengood's absence was puzzling. The message it sent was that the athletic department encouraged Olson to bare himself, good or bad.

The fiery outcome wasn't a surprise; they know how Olson operates when quizzed by reporters.

If it wasn't a setup, it looked that way.

What should've been damage control was instead considerable damage to the reputation of the athletic department. Who's in charge here? Lute or Lute? That's the way it looked.

Now comes the hard part. With his recruiting ability compromised by age and innuendo - with UA spending about $1 million in unbudgeted income to address its basketball crisis - Olson must somehow try to land an elite recruiting class by November.

Nothing else is as important to the long-term health of UA hoops as the young men Olson signs in seven months. It is the first time since the spring of 1983 that UA's ability to recruit effectively has been in doubt.

You wonder how he will be received in the living rooms of high school superstars, or if he'll have to fall back and pursue players headed to Iowa State and New Mexico instead of Kansas and UCLA.

Olson has talked about a new contract once his deal expires in 2011.

Who knows? Joe Paterno is 81, pumping out Top 25 football teams at Penn State and compared to ol' Joe, Lute comes off as Vin Diesel.

But this is no longer about Lute's considerable physical presence. His blood pressure count and his GQ looks betray the real issue here: For the last several years, he has been overseeing a sinking program in which players have failed to fully develop and his personal demands have bit into the spirit and the financial well-being of the athletic department.

As one reader, Bill Leinbach of Tucson, wrote in a recent e-mail: "Maybe, after much hand-wringing, the UA can bring its basketball program to the same level as its football program.''

Never thought you'd see the day, huh?

 

[Arizona's Finest]

Cue Mao in 5...4...3...2...1

Aw hell ill take it.

Hansen is a hack and has an axe to grind. In fact this article is one of the most agenda driven, sarcastic pieces of drivel I have read recently and has confirmed everything Mao has been saying from the beginning.

Lute deserves better then working with the scrubs in Tucson who call themselves media.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

I could pick apart Hansen's laughable opinions sentence by sentence but all I really have to say is that Greg has been voluntarily writing for an insignificant newspaper in an insignificant town for going on 25 years now. If his opinions were that well-respected and on the mark one would think he would have moved on to bigger and better things. Oh well, time for Greg to move on to his annual ******** of the football program at which point ASU fans will reverse their stance on his takes and deride his opinions from being nothing more than hot air from a blatant, misguided homer.

Seriously, the entire time Hansen's been ripping the best thing that has ever happened to sports in Southern Arizona he has been constantly lauding characters like Jim Rosborough (career 28-56 record as HC), Mike Stoops (17-29 career record as HC), Kevin O'Neill (sub-500 career record as HC), Dick Tomey (zero Pac-10 titles to Lute's 11) and Jim Livengood (architect of the current status of UA Athletics). Like pretty much everyone who never leaves a small town like Tucson, the guy's opinions are nothing but short-sighted, gossipy, small-town nonsense. The reason him and Lute never got along is the same reason Tucsonans hate Phoenix, Lute has the audacity to think UA can be big-time while Hansen wants it to be Tucson's own little thing to coddle. Sorry Greg, but those of us out here in the real world disagree.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Fact remains that were Kevin O'Neill and not Lute Olson UA's coach next year our starting five would be...

C - Alex Jacobsen
PF - Fendi Onobun
SF - Zane Johnson
SG - Brendon Lavender
PG - Whoever we could pull this spring in the 2008 class

Bench - JC scrubs, guys who fall thru the cracks

Jamelle Horne, Jordan Hill, Nic Wise, Chase Budinger, Jerryd Bayless, Brandon Jennings, Emmanuel Negedu, and Jeff Withey were ALL probably elsewhere if KO remained as HC. Josh Pastner and other people in administrative jobs were gone as well. Now, how does that future stack up against Hansen's 2008 version of the 'UA Basketball is done' doomsday scenario (one of many he has foreseen over the last 20 years starting in 1990)? The guy's freaking clueless.

 

[Renz]

Olson was in the Elite Eight just three years ago. Hansen wants us to believe that UA basketball has been spiraling downward for a decade.

It's funny how Hansen takes a shot at UA recruiting the year before they are bringing in a top 5 class. LOL! UA also has a verbal in 2009 from PG Abdul Gaddy who just won POY honors in the state of Washington as a junior.

Anyway, Hansen is a joke. I won't dignify any more of his foolishness.

 

[Mr. Boldin]

There is a reason why Lute shut the door on Hansen before Bobbi died and why he just shut it again when he came back.

Hansen has a bone to pick, because he cant even hold the title of beat writer for the UA basketball team, despite being in Tucson forever.

Mao is right, with KO there is no team and we would be lucky to finish above 8th next year. Jennings was gone, Negedu to Europe, Nic and Horne would be gone already to new schools, Chase and bayless would have signed agents, and Withey probably would have left as well.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

My personal favorite is when ASU fans and other Lute haters rip him for throwing buffoons like Greg Hansen and Kevin O'Neill under the bus. I mean, obviously a bald career coaching failure who has spent the last three months mercilessly calling 18 and 19 year old kids "bleeping retards" and "bleeping female body parts" while poking fun of the guy who hired him about everything from his family to his ability to do his job needs respect. Same goes for someone who proudly gloated for months Lute would never coach again and went on Phoenix radio laughing it up about how he was a cheapskate (despite the many millions has Lute donated to causes around Tucson since the mid-80's) and a poor coach. The only thing Kevin O'Neill and Greg Hansen deserve from Lute is a nice kick in the balls, those two got off light with merely a firing and a smartass remark at a press conference.

 

[abomb]

Didnt Hansen start an unofficial UA website too, or am I thinking of someone else?

 

[abomb]

My personal favorite is when ASU fans and other Lute haters rip him for throwing buffoons like Greg Hansen and Kevin O'Neill under the bus. I mean, obviously a bald career coaching failure who has spent the last three months mercilessly calling 18 and 19 year old kids "bleeping retards" and "bleeping female body parts" while poking fun of the guy who hired him about everything from his family to his ability to do his job needs respect. Same goes for someone who proudly gloated for months Lute would never coach again and went on Phoenix radio laughing it up about how he was a cheapskate ( despite the many millions has Lute donated to causes around Tucson since the mid-80's). The only thing Kevin O'Neill and Greg Hansen deserve from Lute is a nice kick in the balls, those two got off light with a firing and a smartass remark at a press conference.

Tell us how you really feel.

 

[Chaplin]

My personal favorite is when ASU fans and other Lute haters rip him for throwing buffoons like Greg Hansen and Kevin O'Neill under the bus. I mean, obviously a bald career coaching failure who has spent the last three months mercilessly calling 18 and 19 year old kids "bleeping retards" and "bleeping female body parts" while poking fun of the guy who hired him about everything from his family to his ability to do his job needs respect. Same goes for someone who proudly gloated for months Lute would never coach again and went on Phoenix radio laughing it up about how he was a cheapskate (despite the many millions has Lute donated to causes around Tucson since the mid-80's) and a poor coach. The only thing Kevin O'Neill and Greg Hansen deserve from Lute is a nice kick in the balls, those two got off light with merely a firing and a smartass remark at a press conference.

Booyah!

 

[Renz]

Didnt Hansen start an unofficial UA website too, or am I thinking of someone else?

I think Hansen's kid works for Rivals or Scout or one of those sites.