Kevin Ollie Nearly Blinded

The former NBA player and first-year assistant coach suffered the injury on Wednesday. ESPN reports: “Recently retired 13-year NBA veteran Kevin Ollie’s debut as a Connecticut Huskies assistant coach is on hold after a freak accident nearly cost him his vision in his right eye. Ollie was stretching with the team before Wednesday’s practice when a band snapped back and struck him in his eye. Ollie said he walked off the court, went into a locker room and saw that his eye was filling up with blood. He said he couldn’t see initially out of the eye. He then went to see his doctor off campus. ‘Slowly the vision is getting better than what it was and now it’s just blurry. It could have been a lot worse,’ Ollie told ESPN.com Friday afternoon by phone from his home in Glastonbury. ‘I’ve never been hit like that.’ Ollie was ordered by his eye doctor Friday afternoon to be on bed rest to ensure that the pressure in his eye doesn’t rise. Ollie was supposed to make his coaching debut on Jim Calhoun’s bench Friday night as Connecticut hosted Stony Brook. He will visit with his doctor Monday or Tuesday to see if he can get cleared to coach against Vermont on Wednesday or go on next week’s trip to the Maui Invitational.”