You're either upsetting a lot of your fans, cutting his legs off in recruiting, or both. Groce's lack of personal leverage is irrelevant, he's not truly the counterparty in the negotiations.
2017 Coaching Carousel
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You're either upsetting a lot of your fans, cutting his legs off in recruiting, or both. Groce's lack of personal leverage is irrelevant, he's not truly the counterparty in the negotiations.
I reached this conclusion about 2 1/2 seasons ago, about the time I started posting less on IL. I like JG tremendously as a person; my cousin introduced me to him a couple of times his first and second seasons at the helm, and we had the chance to chat for a few minutes after games on both occasions. Very personable, engaging, warm-hearted individual.
The problem is he's paid millions to win BB games, represent the school in a positive fashion and make a positive difference in the lives of his players. He doesn't do #1 well, and that's 90% of his job. I think his offensive system is pedestrian and hasn't improved or evolved much in 4 1/2 years to adapt to his personnel, and he hasn't recruited the kinds of talented, quick/athletic players he needs for his iso-heavy system and defensive principles to be successful. His personnel playing decisions also are consistently befuddling. I continue to go to 4-5 games a year, but UI BB hasn't been great fun or successful in a long time, and that's a shame.
If you've made the decision to retain him, then you're paying a $500K bonus. Adding on a year extension is a no-brainer whether the buyout is the same or not. Nothing tricky.
I always enjoy your commentary and insights and would like to hear your reasons as to why Groce isn't the guy.
Also, you weren't a fan of Weber either, so I'm curious who your top 3 (realistic) choices would be if we find ourselves replacing Groce in March?
I'm with you! I lost confidence in Grove about 2 years ago when I thought it was obvious he could not maximize the talent on his roster. Last year was full of excuses and none of them overshadowed the shortcomings in my mind. Who knows what Whitman will do but I don't believe he is the answer.
Eh, you're heading into Cubit territory if you're not signing him to something that makes firing him without cause next year a financially unwieldy proposition.
You're making a two-year investment in the Black/JCL/Tilmon/actual PG's roster under Groce's system. That's what's at stake.
I agree, and as I have probably overstated over the years, to be successful at UI a coach has to be an excellent recruiter. Not just a good one, an excellent one. Not a coach who can deal with or tolerate the Illinois and Chicago HS/AAU scene, but a coach who will embrace it. UI needs to hire the next Bill Self, not wish for the next Bo Ryan.
Groce's coaching has been sub-par, but more importantly, he has not been able to get the talent that UI needs. The talent that he has brought at UI has been just OK, independent of rankings. Illinois needs difference makers.
Groce started with promise IMO, but he failed to get the talent needed. I like his current class, but it just an OK class, a good foundational class who he should have been able to recruit his second or third year at the latest. Not five years into the job.
Contrary to others, I said that Groce not only needed to make the tournament to save his job, but ALSO get a top-5-10 recruiting class. The 2017 class is not it.
Yeah, it's all part of the choice Whitman has to make. If he's not the right guy, then the choice needs to be prior to the last game this year. Otherwise you're making an investment and it's probably not going to just be for a year or two.
I respect that perspective, but I somewhat disagree.
Bill Self is Bill Self because he's Bill Self and also a good 95% of Bo Ryan. He's a unicorn. You go looking for a "Bill Self", you'll end up with a Travis Ford.
Illinois is in a unique spot. There's a lot of good talent that is basically ours for the taking, but there is also a lot of challenges and nonsense associated with getting that elite talent.
If I were making the decision, I'd be looking for the serious, credible, X's and O's basketball coach who can take the Jerel McNeals and Glynn Watsons and Ed Morrows and Mark Smiths and maximize them into B1G contenders. Do that, and we'll have the same punchers chance for the NBA lottery guys that we have now, but from a position of stability and strength rather than water-in-the-desert desperation.
+1. Ironically his best player to date has been a BW recruit (MH).
Yeah, he wasn't able to build a great class with Tilmon as the centerpiece. The result: Next year's Illini look like another bubble team in year 6 of his tenure. Another bubble team. Stunning how far the program has fallen.
More than anything he hasn't been able to land the great scoring and driving PG his 1-on-1 system craves, and he's made mistakes on talent evaluation WRT certain PGs he decided not to pursue. Relying on a good but not great frosh PG next year doesn't conjure up a lot of confidence for 2018. His effort on the trail has been great, but he's paid millions to actually land the kinds of very good players he needs to win in the regular and postseason. I won't go into detail about the $ordid nature of recruiting and how willing UI is to get its hands dirty, but that has played a role in some of the recruiting losses.
From my personal involvement at UI, there are donors and donors. Donors approve or disapprove decisions made. Key major donors influence decisions before they are made. The second group at UI is a very small group, evident by the sharp decline of our athletics programs the last 10-12 years.
People seem to be focused is Groce good enough to stay. Is the problem Groce directly, or his choice of staff?
The good:
* Groce seems to be making very good progress with the in-state recruiting, and the LaLu pipeline. Investments starting four years ago are starting to pay off.
The bad:
The defense.
* After four years the players should know how to guard man-to-man, and how to box-out. They don't.
The offense.
* The spacing is frequently terrible.
* We play too much hero ball.
* We take forever (~15s) to bring the ball up the court, and as a result only run the offense for 10s before going to the non-existent 10s offense.
* We try to create using a 10s offense with a driving PG without a PG capable of driving against a defender that knows it is coming.
The in-game team management:
* Players who stop playing team ball stay on the court. If someone plays hero ball, sit them, even if it went in. We run the offense. We don't play hero ball.
* When things don't work, I expect the coach to adjust. I also expect them to go back to what was working when the opponents change their defense. Once we abandon an idea, we never seem to go back to it within the game.
This may look like a pretty damning list. I'm not sure it actually is.
* Recruiting is hard. Top talent is important. Groce seems to be on the right trajectory. (I'm happy with this years class. Add Epperson and it is a miracle class given our current state.)
* Everything else can be taken care of with a few adjustments including the hiring of an assistant coach who can teach solid defense.
* If Groce insists on sticking with his current assistant coaches then I think a coaching change is needed, whether or not they make the tournament this year. Loyalty is a good thing, up to a point.
The good:
* Groce seems to be making very good progress with the in-state recruiting, and the LaLu pipeline. Investments starting four years ago are starting to pay off.
The bad:
The defense.
* After four years the players should know how to guard man-to-man, and how to box-out. They don't.
The offense.
* The spacing is frequently terrible.
* We play too much hero ball.
* We take forever (~15s) to bring the ball up the court, and as a result only run the offense for 10s before going to the non-existent 10s offense.
* We try to create using a 10s offense with a driving PG without a PG capable of driving against a defender that knows it is coming.
The in-game team management:
* Players who stop playing team ball stay on the court. If someone plays hero ball, sit them, even if it went in. We run the offense. We don't play hero ball.
* When things don't work, I expect the coach to adjust. I also expect them to go back to what was working when the opponents change their defense. Once we abandon an idea, we never seem to go back to it within the game.
This may look like a pretty damning list. I'm not sure it actually is.
* Recruiting is hard. Top talent is important. Groce seems to be on the right trajectory. (I'm happy with this years class. Add Epperson and it is a miracle class given our current state.)
* Everything else can be taken care of with a few adjustments including the hiring of an assistant coach who can teach solid defense.
* If Groce insists on sticking with his current assistant coaches then I think a coaching change is needed, whether or not they make the tournament this year. Loyalty is a good thing, up to a point.
If Bill Self was 95% of Bo Ryan, he would have a lot more NCs at Kansas. Easy to say that now though, but the popular perspective on Illini boards when Self left, and a few years following that, was that Bill Self was a bad X's and O's coach who had a deteriorating team at UI. If I just had a dime for every time someone mentioned that ND game on Illini message boards, I'd be that influential donor making the coaching decision for JW.
There are more Bill Self's than Bo Ryan's. If you are looking for a "Bo Ryan" at Illinois, you'll end up with a Bruce Weber.
Good luck with that.
JMO but if you are looking to replace/change assistants to turn a mediocre coach into a good one, it means that you have a mediocre coach that is there to stay, until you actually fire him.
I don't understand this. If Groce is going to go, why must the choice be made prior to the last game this year? What difference does it make if the decision comes a few days later?
Bo's record in the tournament isn't exactly stellar.
Bo's superpower was finishing Top 4 in the Big Ten for 14 straight years. An incredible feat of consistency and team-building in the face of roster turnover.
Self has finished in the Top 1 of the Big XII for 12 straight years. And he hasn't brought in as many Calipari-type classes as you remember.
There's more similarity between the two than their reputations on this board.
So you don't have to pay the $500K bonus due at the end of this season.
I feel better now, thank you.
OK, thanks. I didn't bother to look up the actual terms. He can coach the BTT then.
I wasn't suggesting mid season, just prior to the final game.
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I would agree that I'd prefer an x's and o's oriented guy, because that feels more sustainable, but you still have to be able to recruit at a semi-high level to land those types of guys and a difference maker every few years.
I don't think any member of this staff is all that impressive. Changing assistants won't do much -- if we land a single assistant who fixes all of our problems, he should just be the HC. At one point, I thought Hertz could come in and help out a lot because I figured his time at Florida would help with the in-game and gameplanning components (and player development, an area in which I also feel we are SEVERELY lacking), but he's basically been a non-factor in those areas from my seat watching the program (i.e., nothing has changed since his arrival). We just need to go a different direction, Groce isn't the guy.
mattcoldagelli
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If it were up to me, Keatts is the guy. If I had to bet on someone being a star, it's him. But there are so many short-term things that make sense about Cuonzo Martin that I totally understand going that direction and would be excited about that, too.
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