Rodney Purvis Sounds Off on His Time at UConn

By
Tyler
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Purv (David Butler II | USA Today Sports)

Former UConn guard Rodney Purvis has some things to say. And you know they must be juicy if it jolted this decrepit blogger out of retirement.

A Dime Back was covering the day-to-day happenings of the Huskies during Purvis’s tenure that included both the 2014 title run (Purvis was sitting out after transferring from NC State) and, later, the first under-.500 season in 30 years. It was a time of contrasts, is what I’m saying.

Purvis was one of many guys in those locker rooms that I loved talking to because he always gave you exactly what was on his mind. I remember early in the 2016 season asking him who was going to step up and be the vocal leader of the team following the graduation of Ryan Boatright. Purvis gave me a look (roughly translated as The Nerve; The Audacity) and said “me.”

So it was like jogging down memory lane when I awoke to see Purvis sounding off on Twitter about his time at UConn Saturday morning. Let’s discuss.

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Ut oh. (The real answer to this is anyone who follows us on Twitter.)

There’s no denying Adams was supremely talented so stick close to the semantics here. TJ Warren (a teammate at NC State) and Shabazz Napier probably deserve mentioning. Purvis also played with Aaron Gordon during his NBA stint, and presumably some talented dudes overseas and the G League, but let’s just nod at this take and move on because things are about to heat up.

Right.

Let’s talk about it! “As far as talent goes.” Hmm. Guards in general? No. But the point Purv is working up to is that Adams’ talent was wasted and that other guys (Shabazz, specifically) got more out of their abilities at UConn. So for the sake of argument, let’s concede that and think about point guards who arrived on campus with more natural ability than Adams. Kemba Walker and Marcus Williams immediately come to mind. We could probably argue about this but I’m not sure we’d get a consensus of nine more talented dudes so let’s just keep it moving.

~~ EIGHT HOURS LATER ~~

Oh hell yea, here we go. Purv is 100000% right here. Of all the notable flaws that caused Kevin Ollie to eventually lose his job, player development was near the top of the list. Guys rarely improved in the areas they needed to, and their teams — and their pro careers — suffered as a result. For a guy like Purvis, or Adams, that had a clear path to the NBA from their time in high school, this has to feel brutal. Who knows how playing under Hurley or Calhoun changes the trajectory for these guys (plenty of other talented recruits never reached their full potential), but I do think it’s undeniable that it would’ve improved their odds.

I would bet many dollars this assistant was talking to Andre Jackson. Andre, shoot the ball (within 15′)! Anyway, this beef also tracks with the lived experience of the post-2014 Ollie years where there was no offensive game plan and the shot selection was atrocious. It was obvious in the moment, and glaringly obvious in hindsight, that Ollie should’ve just let the talented guys cook, but no one could ever really take over a game or maintain a hot streak for very long.

This stings but it’s probably true and it’s what we see across college basketball at programs that have no real hopes of winning anything. Purvis was clearly talented enough to be an NBA player — as evidenced by him eventually playing in the NBA. In 2017, Purvis shot 37% from the floor, which is just plain not good enough no matter how many attempts you’re putting up, but I agree with the general sentiment that he and Adams (and Vital, in my opinion) should’ve just improvised their way through that season. It couldn’t have gone worse!

Might be true! Brimah was nowhere near good enough after 2014 to be an NBA player but his development path in college was a straight line and it’s reasonable to think he would’ve reached more of his potential under pro coaching instead. I don’t think he would’ve been drafted, but whatever. The way Purv talks about Adams is how I feel about Hamilton. To me, he was the best talent of the Ollie era and it’s nuts that his career stalled out at UConn. I would do horrible, unspeakable things to add a player like Hamilton to a Dan Hurley team.

Next tweet.

I’ve met Dwayne Killings so I can confirm he’s a real person. Ricky Moore is the omission here that made me grimace, but clearly those teams were super broken and I’m sure there’s plenty of blame to go around. Building coaching staffs also not an Ollie strong suit.

Remember Glen Miller?

Shots! The line about favoritism feels true. You may remember this blog losing its mind over *~* B E N C H  M A G I C *~* when Ollie turned Purvis into a reserve for… reasons? But Gibbs is probably underrated in the grand scheme of that 2016 season. For long stretches, he was the only guy who could shoot. The real problem was that he should have been playing off the ball with Adams or Hamilton running point. It was an absolute waste — to say nothing of Shonn Miller who is probably UConn’s second-best big of the last decade (think about it). Gibbs should’ve been on the court because he was one of the five best players, but that team, which was more talented than the 2014 team, got hung out to dry by poor coaching.

I get why Purv did these tweets. The retroactive Ollie bashing is somewhat cathartic — and morally easier now that UConn’s $11M frame job failed.

Spill the tea, behind-closed-doors people!

There’s a lot of truth to this but I think it discounts the contributions of Jim Calhoun, who also coached that team. Half-kidding! I will love Ollie forever for 2014 and I don’t think Shabazz being God takes anything away from Ollie’s coaching that year. Putting your best player in a position to be God is what you’re supposed to do! Even if Shabazz was 70% of himself, that would’ve been a pretty good team because it was so well-constructed. The inability to replicate that mix of defense, shooting and leadership was what sabotaged the rest of Ollie’s tenure. Go watch those tourney games again (I do it semi-annually). They were well-coached, well-executed games in which Ollie humiliated several Hall of Famers.

This is an amazing read of UConn twitter and I respect it so much. For the record, I like Purv because he’s a good person.

Coach Purv would be fun. Go off, Coach Purv.

Yea man, this sucks. Really bums me out that a guy with such a fun, energetic personality and a ton of talent harbors such shitty feelings about his time on campus, but in some conversations I’ve had with people in Hurley’s program, they do seem intent on putting in the effort to bring some of these guys back into the fold and make them feel like a part of what the new staff is building. In that respect, it’s nice to see Purvis back in Storrs (Boatright visited recently as well), even if it also comes with some messy tweets.

Those of us who lived through it will probably be re-litigating the Ollie era for years. For me, the 2014 title makes it all worthwhile — especially if Hurley can pull off the rebuild — but I also think it’s undeniable that guys like Purvis, Adams and Hamilton all got hung out to dry to varying degrees. (It’s also a reminder of why the new transfer rules are good, but that’s a different conversation.)

Regardless of how you feel about the end of the Ollie years, or who owns responsibility for the shortcomings of those teams, I think we can all agree that everyone should tweet through it.

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