Basketball Coaching Staff / Coaching Carousel Thread

Calvin

Calvin
#151
Michigan
Calvin
IdahoIllini said:
Subtle:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1079108165696917509

Less Subtle:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1079363874208518144
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Can't say I blame them. This sort of second-guessing is what you get when you have absolutely zero success to point to, and plenty of glaring failures.

If we weren't stuck with Underwood's contract, I would be considering a mid-season firing, which is rarely a good thing to do. Handing it over to an assistant is usually a last ditch effort to save the team's morale and bolster your chances of retaining people who aren't happy with the current coach, and might stay on board if you give them hope for a top-tier coaching change.

I'd love to know what each of the players is thinking now that so many folks around the program are becoming critical of direction things have gone, and the season is essentially a throw-away. I know coaches who can keep a team on track during a stretch like this and get them playing for pride and the personal challenge of getting better, making opposing teams respect us, etc., but I'm not sure we have that guy.
 

MadSeason

MadSeason
#153
MadSeason
NunnBetter said:
So help me out here. If we had played a typical Illinois non-con schedule and were 9-4 or 10-3 would this thread exist? Asking for a friend!;)
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Imo yes it would. I feel like fans, particularly ones on this board are far more educated with advanced metrics like Ken Pom and Sagarin. There is no longer the ability to hide behind an inflated easy record.

Oh and then there is still Florida Atlantic, so you would have to squint pretty hard to get us to 9-4, 10-3 no matter how many cupcakes
 
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ChiefGritty

ChiefGritty
#155
ChiefGritty
MadSeason said:
Imo yes it would. I feel like fans, particularly ones on this board are far more educated with advanced metrics like Ken Pom and Sagarin. There is no longer the ability to hide behind an inflated easy record.
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This is very true of SOME of us.

I think the board would probably be pretty bitter and ugly in that scenario, whereas there really isn't any disagreement currently.
 

Calvin

Calvin
#158
Michigan
Calvin
NunnBetter said:
So help me out here. If we had played a typical Illinois non-con schedule and were 9-4 or 10-3 would this thread exist? Asking for a friend!;)
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I think we'd be ok, but you have every indication that we wouldn't get that record you propose. We just lost to a team in the 200+ category at home. Kenpom has us at 113, which would say we're consistently below NIT teams. You really think a $3 mil/yr coach with a guaranteed multi-year contract should be at that level? He's in the upper escholon of compensation, yet and has no hope of getting us to the tournament.

And what about the likelihood of the program rising because we've locked down promising recruits? You can hardly count how many misses we had, and we wound up with a single, late guy, who's a project big. Most bigs are projects, so it's not unexpected, but overall the consensus is recruiting is going poorly, and certainly not anything close to above average. Can it wind up being a great class? Sure. But it's not looking very good yet, and the options have dwindled markedly.

We've played some soft schedules, but if you're losing the 200+ games, you're not only losing the 1 or 2 tough games we have, but also the 3 or 4 games we have in the 50-100 range. Our 4 wins this year are (using Kenpom)

175 Evansville
352 MS Valley
150 UNLV
98 East TN State

Those are our 4 wins after completing the non-conf, and losing 2 conference games. Atrocious for a P5 team!

Then you look at the concern about turnover and it goes from ugly to 5 alarm fire. We're already looking at performance that's historically bad, going back many decades to find a comparison, with little hope of a turn-around, other than projecting results we have no reason to expect.

So your question isn't really valid in the sense that anyone is going to believe that the performance we're seeing, translates to 10 wins with a really friendly schedule. The teams that got Weber fired were much better than what we're currently seeing, and likewise for Groce, although in fairness to Groce, he was a helluva a lot cheaper (his extension after year 2 got him to $1.7 mil annually).
 
Likes: Obelix

LongLiveTheChief7

LongLiveTheChief7
King Kofi
#159
Urbana, IL
LongLiveTheChief7
Also, e-mails and rumors swirling at the UofI on this Monday that are calling for BU's termination now or immediately following after the season but are being pushed back by the Admin & AD Dept. stating that something like that is too preliminary.

But the bait that the donors are falling for again is apparently the plan is for Walker to be let go at the end of the year and they're going to bring some new Illino blood on the staff. And BU has no say in it and he's not too happy.

Told if he doesn't produce major progess here on out for the rest of season he won't get to have a say in who his next assistant will be, who will most likely to he chosen to be his replacement down the line potentially.

But like i said, just rumors and emails at this point.
 
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roger murdock

roger murdock
#160
roger murdock
Purely hypothetical (hopefully), but since M Smith transferred to another D1 school, and was immediately eligible, does it follow that Player A or B
could also transfer after this season, and expect to become immediately eligible?
 

RichBradIllini

RichBradIllini
#161
Peoria
RichBradIllini
Illinijack77 said:
Step 1- Bring in pitino. Keep Chin. Hire a combo from: roger powell, dee brown, kenny battle, sean harrington and groom them to take over when pitino retires. Instant indentity.
Step 2- make sure our new unifroms arent garbage. Clean old school like syracuse if possible. Wear orange 80% of the time to create identity
3-Put the band where the empty seats are at state farm. Get rid of the huge gap from court to tunnell that is filled with empty space and empty seats. Looks horrible, kills enviroment. Or change camera view. Need to focus on little things like this. Cant say it enough. Chief was our identity. Sucks he is gone so we need a face for coach, with good looking orange uniforms and a great game day experience (see indiana). Whitman is the right man. We just need more attention to details. We have the tradition. Rant over
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So, to summarize your planned return to greatness:

1. Hire Patino (or Matta) as HC, but keep Chin and groom one of roger powell, dee brown, kenny battle, sean harrington as an assistant.
2. Get better uniforms.
3. Re-arrange the SFC seating chart.
4. Pull a mascot out of our yang.
 

mattcoldagelli

mattcoldagelli
#162
mattcoldagelli
Illinijack77 said:
Step 1- Bring in pitino. Keep Chin. Hire a combo from: roger powell, dee brown, kenny battle, sean harrington and groom them to take over when pitino retires. Instant indentity.
Step 2- make sure our new unifroms arent garbage. Clean old school like syracuse if possible. Wear orange 80% of the time to create identity
3-Put the band where the empty seats are at state farm. Get rid of the huge gap from court to tunnell that is filled with empty space and empty seats. Looks horrible, kills enviroment. Or change camera view. Need to focus on little things like this. Cant say it enough. Chief was our identity. Sucks he is gone so we need a face for coach, with good looking orange uniforms and a great game day experience (see indiana). Whitman is the right man. We just need more attention to details. We have the tradition. Rant over
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Trying to determine if this is parody.
 
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sacraig

sacraig
Mad Scientist
#163
Arizona, USA
sacraig
illinihawk16 said:
I've been an Illini fan since 2009 when I enrolled and we've gone through 7 coaches combined in football and men's basketball (Zook, Beckman, Cubit, Lovie; Weber, Groce, Underwood)...the total goes to 10 if you count women's basketball (Law, Bollant, Fahey). I can't remember a time when a coach wasn't on the hot seat, aside from the honeymoon period. I don't know if keeping Underwood is the right option, and I don't have a suggestion on what Whitman should do, but man I am so fatigued with coaching turnover.
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Boy, you sure picked an inconvenient time to start following the Illini.
 
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SergioKittner

S
#164
SergioKittner
roger murdock said:
Purely hypothetical (hopefully), but since M Smith transferred to another D1 school, and was immediately eligible, does it follow that Player A or B
could also transfer after this season, and expect to become immediately eligible?
Click to expand...
How many kids look to leave may depend on what level of trust there is in the ability to get a waiver.
 

urbanite

U
#166
urbanite
Calvin said:
We're already looking at performance that's historically bad, going back many decades to find a comparison, with little hope of a turn-around, other than projecting results we have no reason to expect.
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Going by KenPom numbers, 2015-2016 was worse. At this point three years ago, we were ranked 120th. We finished the season ranked 125th, with an adjusted efficiency margin of +3.91. We're currently ranked 113th with an EM of +5.55.

The B10 is much tougher this year than it was in 2015-2016, and there's a chance our efficiency will drop. But unless you're simply looking at wins and losses, you don't have to go back decades to find a worse performance.
 

Cook

Cook
#168
Richmond, VA
Cook
LongLiveTheChief7 said:
Also, e-mails and rumors swirling at the UofI on this Monday that are calling for BU's termination now or immediately following after the season but are being pushed back by the Admin & AD Dept. stating that something like that is too preliminary. Good, this is right response for now.

But the bait that the donors are falling for again is apparently the plan is for Walker to be let go at the end of the year and they're going to bring some new Illino blood on the staff. And BU has no say in it and he's not too happy. If true, he shouldn't be. That would be a ridiculous stipulation/micro-management.

Told if he doesn't produce major progess here on out for the rest of season he won't get to have a say in who his next assistant will be, who will most likely to he chosen to be his replacement down the line potentially. Again, this would be an absurd path forward and virtually guaranteed for short and long term failure.

But like i said, just rumors and emails at this point.
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Likes: illinifan4249, LongLiveTheChief7 and Worldly Illini

Obelix

Obelix
#169
Obelix
LongLiveTheChief7 said:
Also, e-mails and rumors swirling at the UofI on this Monday that are calling for BU's termination now or immediately following after the season but are being pushed back by the Admin & AD Dept. stating that something like that is too preliminary.

But the bait that the donors are falling for again is apparently the plan is for Walker to be let go at the end of the year and they're going to bring some new Illino blood on the staff. And BU has no say in it and he's not too happy.

Told if he doesn't produce major progess here on out for the rest of season he won't get to have a say in who his next assistant will be, who will most likely to he chosen to be his replacement down the line potentially.

But like i said, just rumors and emails at this point.
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Yep, like when Jerry Wainwright was forced to replace assistants at DePaul with the AD's own choices, that worked great for them. :rolleyes:
 
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