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By Jeff Eisenberg, Apr. 7, 2014, Yahoo Sports
ARLINGTON, Texas — As Kevin Ollie
waded through ankle-high confetti after Monday night's national title game in
search of someone to embrace, one of the Connecticut
coach's friends wrapped him in a bear hug and sung the ubiquitous chorus from
Drake's hit song "Started
From The Bottom."
They were the ideal lyrics for the moment even if the rapper
who sings them was rooting for the other team.
UConn's 60-54
upset of Kentucky served as the final step in Ollie's quest to guide
the Huskies through the most challenging period in their program's recent
history. In two seasons at his alma mater, Ollie navigated UConn through a
one-year postseason ban, proved to skeptical fans and administrators he
deserved the full-time job and emerged from the shadow of his mentor Jim
Calhoun by leading the seventh-seeded Huskies on an improbable title run.
"I'm just trying to keep proving everyone wrong,"
Ollie said amid the postgame celebration Monday night. "Everyone said our
program was going to go down after the sanctions and people left, but we're
still here. Somebody the other day called us a Cinderella. We're UConn. UConn
is always going to stay here."
It's remarkable Ollie was in a position to gloat just 18
months after being hired because he stepped into a situation in which he was
set up to fail.
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