I iterated that Groce never finished above .500 in conference play and you listed all of his abysmal conference records, which trended downward. Thank you.
If Groce left the cupboard far from bare, then Weber left Groce with an entire grocery store of food. The fact is, Groce was bad here, got progressively worse with his own recruits, and left mid-major talent that not many coaches could’ve won with. In fact, he set the program back at least 5 years. BU is having to tear down and then rebuild, and establish a brand and culture which JG destroyed. To be honest, I know I complain about the current state of the team because I’m a passionate fan, but I don’t even think we can give a fair assessment of BU until the end of next year considering the state of the program when he took over.
I’m actually shocked that there are Illini fans that would suggest that he didn’t run the program into the ground honestly. Everybody has their own opinions.
I think you need to revisit the facts. First of all the conference record was not trending downward. When Groce left the conference record was 8-10, as high as it was in his first year that we greatly overachieved (despite pre-season expectations, made the NCAA, won an NCAA game, and lost in second round on a bad call to Miami that forced the NCAA to implement a new rule). During the Groce era the program was pretty much an NIT team, far from the disaster we are now.
As far as what inherited and what was left behind, you can read my previous post on the Weber era that had the facts. But Groce took over a pathetic 6-12 conference team that was losing its best player to the NBA lottery (Leornard). And while every coach would have to replace his senior class (2009 recruiting class for Groce), Groce also had to replace the 2010 class (ALL gone before he got there), the 2012 class (empty Weber class), and half of his 2011 class that had players who did not belong in the B1G (Ibby, Shaw, Langford).
That is 3.5 classes from the get go that he had to recruit for in his first recruiting season. Far from the grocery store of food. Pre-season analysts, and even fans, were not predicting NCAA in his first season, yet we overachieved and made it and also won Maui. And even after the first season (2012-13) and after the 2009 senior class of Brandon Paul, DJ Richardson, and Tyler Griffey had all left after their one and only season under Groce, Groce still made it to the NIT for the next two seasons.
BU took over a program that had finished 8-10 in the B1G, was losing Malcolm and Morgan but was also adding what was probably Groce's best recruiting class (Trent Frazier, Damonte Williams, Tilmon, Pickett, and in very good shape with Smith, according to his own words). In addition to Frazier, who ended up having arguably the best freshman season since Kiwane Garris, the roster also included JCL (#37), Leron Black (#42), Kipper, AJ, TJL, and Finke. The fact that Tilmon, Pickett, and JCL decided to leave because they did not like the hiring of BU is certainly no fault of Groce. I am not going to quote you again what Illini fans expected but the vast majority expected NCAA. Yet, as said in previous paragraph, Groce still made the NIT in his second season AFTER he had to replace 3.5 classes with his first recruiting class. We are way, WAY below that point right now in BU's second season.