Coaching Carousel

[foby]

What a story if Thad Matta goes back to Xavier huh?

At least it would end the domino effect.

 

[NeaforThree]

I don't like the optics of Xavier hiring Matta, a retread. They should be playing with the big boys now.

Eh, optics be damned, Thad's a great coach who had proven success at X. I often dream about where Illinois basketball would be right now if we had hired Thad instead of Bruce. And hes from freakin' Hoopeston!

 

[foby]

I don't like the optics of Xavier hiring Matta, a retread. They should be playing with the big boys now.

I like anything that increases our chances recruiting against them. So whatever that is, let it happen.

 

[helppitch]

Yeah, I think Kruger and Self leaving left him gun shy. But Weber had experience taking SIU to the Sweet 16 and recruited decently for that level. I'm sure he saw him as a Lou Henson steady and solid type.

He had some decent hires during his tenure. Some not so great.

Ron Turner - eh... good play caller, lousy team leader. When he had team leaders like Kittner etc. they did okay.

Ron Zook - eh - good recruiter, not so good play caller. Held onto him too long.

Kruger - good hire

Self - great hire

Weber - gunshy hire.

Theresa Grentz - WBB - most successfule WBB coach we've had.

Jolette Law - Not so much

Don Hardin and Kevin Hambly - Volleyball - both great coaches

Brad Dancer - Men's tennis - great hire.

Mike Small - Men's Golf - great hire.

Dan Hartleib - Baseball - Solid hire.

Renee Sloane - Women's Golf - program is getting better.

Justin Spring - Men's Gymnastics - Solid program.

Janet Rayfield - Soccer - started out strong. Program hasn't done well the last few years. Is that due to lack of facilities or bad recruiting? Probably some of both.

Sue Novitsky - Women's Swimming - Don't hear too much about that program.

Jim Heffernen - Wrestling - Solid program, but has seemed to slip since Mark Johnson left. Who I also think was a Ron Guenther hire.

Overall, I think Guenther had a good run of hiring coaches at Illinois. Football was his weakest link, I would guess.

Looks like a pretty solid list!!!

 

[PlayAZ]

Porter Moser to Xavier cashing in on flavor of the month with his run with Loyola? Would be a pretty good move for both imo.

 

[Deleted member 631370]

I don't like the optics of Xavier hiring Matta, a retread. They should be playing with the big boys now.

But Matta isn't a retread in the sense that he got canned from his previous school. Were there fans that wanted him gone? Yes. But he definitely had another year to try to right the ship if he wanted to. Clearly, he felt that he couldn't endure it any longer.

If he believes he's refreshed and capable of starting anew, I think he'd be a great hire.

 

[Deleted member 631370]

Porter Moser to Xavier cashing in on flavor of the month with his run with Loyola? Would be a pretty good move for both imo.

I don't know. I'm always a bit shy about flavor-of-the-month hires. Even with this year's incredible run, he has a 52% winning percentage at Loyola. That came after a 43% winning percentage at Illinois State. I value consistency more so than the ability to make one deep run.

Xavier alum Pat Kelsey at Winthrop will probably get a look. But if Matta is up for it, he's by far their best candidate.

 

[NeaforThree]

Porter Moser to Xavier cashing in on flavor of the month with his run with Loyola? Would be a pretty good move for both imo.

I think it'd be an absolutly terrible move. This is a coach that prior to this tourney run, finished below .500 in 4 out of his last 6 seasons with Loyola. Not to mention completely failing at Illinois State going 51-67 over 4 seasons. Hell, before this season, this is a coach who won more than 18 games ONCE over his 13 year career as a head coach!

Xavier can and will do better. We've all seen the effects of hiring a mid major coach after one special tourney run without a proven track record of success.

 

[Deleted member 631370]

Yeah sorry I should clarify. Didn't mean a retread in that sense but rather that he coached there and left them for greener pastures.

Yeah, it would be a bit awkward.

Dave Leito tried it -- still hasn't rekindled the success he had there initially. It has happened a few times in football. Mike Riley made it work at Oregon State. Bobby Petrino at Louisville. Even Bill Snyder at K-State. We'll see if Randy Edsall can do it at UConn.

Can't think of as many instances of this happening in basketball.

 

[illinitiger]

Mack to Louisville per Twitter.

It's not that the NCAA doesn't or won't punish big-time programs, it's that they can't. Louisville has a huge loyal fanbase, a decorated history, gobs of money, and elite facilities. Give them the death penalty, do whatever you like to them, they will come back.

SMU died because they were a house of cards to begin with. Bruce Pearl's Auburn will be a house of cards too. Things built on a solid foundation cannot be stopped by temporary sanctions.

(And they shouldn't be, by the way. To the extent the NCAA ought to enforce its ridiculous mandate at all, the enforcement should fall on the coaches who commit the acts, not the future leadership who had nothing to do with it, or the real moral calculation in the college sports internet world, the fans who experienced "undeserved" happiness and now ought to pay penance)

I think Mack jumped based on money...just a guess. Mack got his payday and will be able to crosswalk his recruits just down the road.

Regardless of NCAA sanctions... Louisville likely rewarded for taking swift "remove Pitino" action. No other team took that step.

MY guess is NCAA will let it all slide...Louisville and others. I doubt they will want to reward FBI for making them look corrupt. and it many respects it would look/seem like double jeopardy if FBI and NCAA both penalize.



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[Obelix]

I think Mack is a tremendous hire at Louisville and Capel a very good hire at Pitt (although a really tough place to win).

Before last year's carousel started, my top 3 were Archie, Keatts, and Mack, followed by dark horses Capel and Anthony Grant in the top 5. All five ended up with new jobs within 12 months.

 

[illinitiger]

hardaway making a splash

https://www.sbnation.com/college-ba.../memphis-recruiting-penny-hardaway-alex-lomax

 

[Redbull]

I think it'd be an absolutly terrible move. This is a coach that prior to this tourney run, finished below .500 in 4 out of his last 6 seasons with Loyola. Not to mention completely failing at Illinois State going 51-67 over 4 seasons. Hell, before this season, this is a coach who won more than 18 games ONCE over his 13 year career as a head coach!

Xavier can and will do better. We've all seen the effects of hiring a mid major coach after one special tourney run without a proven track record of success.

Heard that St Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt is possible target for Xavier. Former assistant there finished 2nd in A10.

 

[Second and Chalmers]

Overall, I think Guenther had a good run of hiring coaches at Illinois. Football was his weakest link, I would guess.

I would actually agree, and that just reveals how little of an AD's job is properly measured by looking at a broad-based measure of the coaches he hired.

The fundamental duty of an Athletic Director is to manage the brand of the University's sports program. The first thing that flows from that is that football and men's basketball are the only things that matter, weighted slightly toward football. Burning a successful football program to ashes makes an AD a failure on that alone. But it goes deeper than just wins and losses. Illinois basketball was largely excellent under Guenther, and the football team did not lack for good years and exciting moments. But between 1992 and 2011, RG's tenure, Illinois absolutely sprinted backwards relative to its peer schools as a recruiting destination, an entity of local and national media interest, a merchandising operation, a box-office draw, a game experience and atmosphere, in every measure that looks beyond W/L record to the health of the business, Illini sports atrophied away to nothing under RG's leadership.

Empty tailgate lots on fall Saturdays. That's Ron Guenther's legacy.

 

[BananaShampoo]

I think Mack is a tremendous hire at Louisville and Capel a very good hire at Pitt (although a really tough place to win).

Before last year's carousel started, my top 3 were Archie, Keatts, and Mack, followed by dark horses Capel and Anthony Grant in the top 5. All five ended up with new jobs within 12 months.

Interesting. I wanted Keatts, Musselman, or Prohm. Thought we had a shot with either or the latter but thought Keatts was a longshot.

 

[BananaShampoo]

I would actually agree, and that just reveals how little of an AD's job is properly measured by looking at a broad-based measure of the coaches he hired.

The fundamental duty of an Athletic Director is to manage the brand of the University's sports program. The first thing that flows from that is that football and men's basketball are the only things that matter, weighted slightly toward football. Burning a successful football program to ashes makes an AD a failure on that alone. But it goes deeper than just wins and losses. Illinois basketball was largely excellent under Guenther, and the football team did not lack for good years and exciting moments. But between 1992 and 2011, RG's tenure, Illinois absolutely sprinted backwards relative to its peer schools as a recruiting destination, an entity of local and national media interest, a merchandising operation, a box-office draw, a game experience and atmosphere, in every measure that looks beyond W/L record to the health of the business, Illini sports atrophied away to nothing under RG's leadership.

Empty tailgate lots on fall Saturdays. That's Ron Guenther's legacy.

Yep. Pretty much. A long, slow, steady sad decline. Whitman has a hell of a job ahead of him.

 

[TCTORNADO]

Interesting. I wanted Keatts, Musselman, or Prohm. Thought we had a shot with either or the latter but thought Keatts was a longshot.

Whitman's first choice was Monte Williams.

 

[MadSeason]

Overall, I think Guenther had a good run of hiring coaches at Illinois. Football was his weakest link, I would guess.

Guenther inherited very successful Football and Basketball programs at Illinois and left them both a shell of their former selves. It took a little longer in basketball because we had a longer track record of success but he was the driving force for the fall of both our revenue sports.

 

[LisaMarie]

Heard that St Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt is possible target for Xavier. Former assistant there finished 2nd in A10.

Xavier fans would burn the place to the ground if that happened.

 

[Second and Chalmers]

Interesting. I wanted Keatts, Musselman, or Prohm. Thought we had a shot with either or the latter but thought Keatts was a longshot.

RIP the Keatts Train

He's gonna be a stud at NC State.

 

[haasi]

If I was Moser I'd stay in Chicago. Very little pressure, good name and school for those guys from Chicago not going to Illinois or some other P5 school. Valley is wide open for a leader, so why not Loyola?

Money?


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[Second and Chalmers]

Illinois Football hasn't been good in about 100 years outside of the random sporadic year.

This is so, so deeply untrue, especially when you date it to the start of Guenther's tenure.

Illinois was comfortably the 4th best football program of the then-existing Big Ten when Ron Guenther got the job.

Takes like this all spring from a misunderstanding of how good Bob Blackman's teams were, IMO. Blackman went 24-11-1 against Big Ten teams other than the Woody and Bo dynasties who no other B1G teams were beating either.

 

[illinitiger]

This is so, so deeply untrue, especially when you date it to the start of Guenther's tenure.

Illinois was comfortably the 4th best football program of the then-existing Big Ten when Ron Guenther got the job.

Takes like this all spring from a misunderstanding of how good Bob Blackman's teams were, IMO. Blackman went 24-11-1 against Big Ten teams other than the Woody and Bo dynasties who no other B1G teams were beating either.

Mike White had a pretty good run in early 80s.

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[Second and Chalmers]

Mike White had a pretty good run in early 80s.

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People look at it as "the Slush Fund destroyed the program and it was a wasteland until Mike White came, but he cheated, Mackovic bolted, and it was an inevitable fall back to the post-Slush Fund status quo".

When you realize how consistently in the 70's under Blackman we were beating the teams that have since passed us up, you realize that Valek and Moeller were brief exceptions to 100 years of consistent competitiveness and occasional excellence, and that whole narrative falls to pieces.

Guenther's bleeding dry of the program as a consumer-facing brand is what removed the floor from Illinois football, not the Slush Fund.

 

[champaignchris]

I would actually agree, and that just reveals how little of an AD's job is properly measured by looking at a broad-based measure of the coaches he hired.

The fundamental duty of an Athletic Director is to manage the brand of the University's sports program. The first thing that flows from that is that football and men's basketball are the only things that matter, weighted slightly toward football. Burning a successful football program to ashes makes an AD a failure on that alone. But it goes deeper than just wins and losses. Illinois basketball was largely excellent under Guenther, and the football team did not lack for good years and exciting moments. But between 1992 and 2011, RG's tenure, Illinois absolutely sprinted backwards relative to its peer schools as a recruiting destination, an entity of local and national media interest, a merchandising operation, a box-office draw, a game experience and atmosphere, in every measure that looks beyond W/L record to the health of the business, Illini sports atrophied away to nothing under RG's leadership.

Empty tailgate lots on fall Saturdays. That's Ron Guenther's legacy.

Not that I don't agree with everything you said, but I think Illini fans are generally in denial at how horrible the football program really was under Guenther. Probably due to the Sugar and Rose Bowl years and Zook's recruiting success that never really translated to success on the field. 95-138-2 (.408). The only P5 schools that had worse records over that same 20-year period were Baylor, Iowa St, Indiana, Vandy and Duke. 61st out of 66 is pathetic.

(Of course it's been 64th out of 66 in the six years since, due to Thomas and Beckman torching what little was left of the program.)