by Author Name Withheld 96

Created on: July 07, 2009

Kevin O'Neill will not succeed as head coach of the USC Trojans. This is my prediction for the end result of his upcoming tenure there. There is no doubt that Kevin O'Neill has a good resume as far as the jobs he has landed in both college and the professional ranks. The man was the head coach of the Toronto Raptors for goodness sakes. The question with O'Neill is how does he treat players and staff on game days? Well, to be honest with you the man typically only plays around six to seven guys a game in the college ranks and he wears kids out by simply playing man to man defense constantly within that seven man rotation.<p>O'Neill typically wears out his welcome with players fairly quickly. He caused several kids to transfer or leave the team during his time as head coach in Knoxville. His time with the Northwestern Wildcats was mired by the fact that he was never able to land a big time recruit to the school due to his reputation that preceded him from his days at Marquette and Tennessee. O'Neill is known as a defensive mastermind, but most players such as Arizona's Chase Budinger, who was recently drafted into the NBA absolutely hates the guy. Taj Gibson and David DeRozan are probably happy to get out of USC with O'Neill coming in despite the fact that Tim Floyd likely to play a limited rotation of players as well.<p>In USC's heart of hearts I bet they are still wishing that Rick Majerus had not resigned from the school years ago after admitting his health problems were not up to the level that he needed them to be to effectively do his job. They probably grew at least a little more skeptical of Majerus however after they saw him end up taking the job at the University of St. Louis. USC is probably too high profile of a job to take on if you have had to deal with heart issues in the past among other medical ailments.<p>Obviously Kevin O'Neill's resume as an assistant coach in the NBA is fairly impressive as well. He has spent time working for Rick Carlisle in a couple of the stops during Rick's head coaching career. O'Neill would spend this last season with the Memphis Grizzlies after being let go by the University of Arizona essentially due to a falling out with legendary coach Lute Olson as noted by ESPN. Olson was probably not happy with the lack of rotation and player development that O'Neill implemented as interim head coach of the Arizona Wildcats. Olson also preferred a more up and down system on the offensive end of the controlled, methodical pace employed by O'Neill.

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