Kevin Ollie Leads UConn To The Final Four 2014

Kevin Ollie Leads UConn To The Final Four 2014

The University of Connecticut Huskies visited the AT&T Stadium near the start of the year in a trip organized by Coach Kevin Ollie. Ollie told the team that hard work and discipline will allow them to return to the site of the Final Four 2014.

The players were not allowed to play in the postseason last year due to poor academic performance of their predecessors. However, they remembered the talk of their coach as they completed a third upset when they beat Michigan State University the East regional finals.

During the game at the Madison Square Garden, the team was encouraged by the fans of the team. Shabazz Napier won the most outstanding player in the regional and led all scorers with his 25 points.

UConn became the first seventh-seeded team to reach the national semifinals in three decades. The team beat second-seed Villanova, third-seed Iowa State and fourth-seed Michigan State. Kevin Ollie will have to deal with Florida in the Final Four 2014. Although the Gators have won thirty consecutive games, UConn was the last team to beat them.

UConn center Philip Nolan jokingly said he thought they were the top seed instead of the seventh-seeded team in the East. Former UConn coach Jim Calhoun said that the team had the best player in nearly all of their games for the year. Napier will lead the team in trying to duplicate the championship run on the 2011 UConn team that win five games within five days to cop the Big East title. The ream eventually won the national championship.

Michigan State was plagued with turnovers and could not establish a presence inside the lane. The Spartans of this year is the first senior class of Coach Tom Izzo in twenty seasons that did not reach the Final Four. The class has lost three games to the Huskies since 2010, including the first game of Kevin Ollie as coach.

The loyalty of Napier and DeAndre Daniels to UConn was rewarded last Sunday as three former stars of the team watched the game. Emeka Okafor, Richard Hamilton and Ben Gordon offered their support for the team.

Following the latest win of UConn, Ollie met Calhoun at midcourt and the two men had a private conversation. Kevin Ollie and assistant coach Ricky Moore will have to work harder with the team if it aims to win the Final Four 2014.

Posted by Andre Monohan on Monday March 31 2014, 4:36 AM EST. Ref: NY Times. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0