Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread (August 2018)

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#955      
Anyone else get the feeling that Liddells visit schedule may correspond with his choices as to where he'd most like to go to the least out of those final 5?
 
#958      
His buyout going into year 5 will be the first time it's potentially affordable to make an evaluation other than "He has our full support". Even then, you're looking at $4.7 mil., which makes it pretty tempting to run another year.

I just want to correct the record here because it's publicly available information, on page 16 of this PDF provided by the News-Gazette.

Underwood's buyout would be $12.4 million after the 2018-19 season, $9.4 million after the 2019-20 season, $6.4 million after the 2020-21 season, and $1.6 million after the 2021-22 season, plus a negligible pro-rata amount depending on the date of termination, but minus any income Underwood would make in his next job whether that be coaching or in the media (thanks for not being Ron Guenther, Josh).

It is wildly premature to be discussing firing Brad Underwood and I want to make crystal clear that's not on my immediate horizon in any way, but those are the facts.

Of course only 32 teams made the tournament in Henson's early years and the B10 was allowed no more than two teams. Lou finished above .500 in each of the years that you mentioned, but one, and would likely have made the tournament in those years if the current format had been in use.

If an old timer here would like to explain to me exactly what happened in 1978-79 I would love to hear it, because the game log of that season is one of the crazier things I've seen.

I'm not speaking to the overall message from the previous poster, but the last time Illinois basketball went 14-18, the roster included Sergio, Bradford, Lucas Johnson, Krupalija, and Robert Archibald. It's possible to have a bad overall team and good overall players/potential.

I know you weren't making the comparison exactly, but I just want to nip this 98-99 team thing in the bud once again.

Leave aside the backward looking context (the same coach had won a Big Ten championship the previous season and then graduated all five of his starters), the forward looking context (Frank Williams, Brian Cook, and Marcus Griffin, all three McDonalds All Americans, became eligible the following year), and the existing roster context (our team entered last season with a combined 165 career college basketball starts across 5 players, the 98-99 team had ZERO)

The facts on those two teams are these:

Wins against ranked opponents
2018 - 0
1999 - 5

Losses against unranked opponents
2018 - 14
1999 - 4

RPI (sadly Kenpom doesn't go back that far, nor do the Sagarin ratings, RPI is flawed but it gives you a rough sense)
2018 - 177th
1999 - 60th

There is absolutely no comparison between the quality of those teams, except for the weird coincidence of them having the same overall record.
I do agree with your point that there can be good players on bad teams.

Anyone else get the feeling that Liddells visit schedule may correspond with his choices as to where he'd most like to go to the least out of those final 5?

Yeah, I kind of agree. But if he does end up making all of his visits, the opportunity to go last is usually the one you want.
 
#960      
This is poor performance so far

These are poor results. Technically different than performance. Ever played poker (or, say, existed in life)? You can do everything perfectly and still have bad results.

I think that's what a lot of people are missing here. Or maybe having the wrong conversation. Based purely on results, it's pretty disappointing, but do you think they are doing the right things, taking the right steps? Reasonable people can disagree on that (and I'm sure we all will), but I think we need to change the framing of the discussion...
 
#961      
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#962      

Hoppy2105

Little Rock, Arkansas
I’ll be wildly surprised if Liddell makes it all the way to our Official visit.
 
#966      

sacraig

The desert
These are poor results. Technically different than performance. Ever played poker (or, say, existed in life)? You can do everything perfectly and still have bad results.

I think that's what a lot of people are missing here. Or maybe having the wrong conversation. Based purely on results, it's pretty disappointing, but do you think they are doing the right things, taking the right steps? Reasonable people can disagree on that (and I'm sure we all will), but I think we need to change the framing of the discussion...

I think the more important thing people are missing here is that basketball recruits are human beings, and the staff can play their hand perfectly and still lose because, ultimately, recruits are human beings and might simply want to go somewhere else. It isn't simply a situation where every recruit is equally willing to go to every single school and it's just a matter of who makes the best pitch to them.
 
#968      

ivwilsoniv

Aurora, IL
#969      

jrod1286

Pat Chambers
Illinois
Anyone else get the feeling that Liddells visit schedule may correspond with his choices as to where he'd most like to go to the least out of those final 5?
I think we all know what schools on that list we can scratch off now.....
 
#970      
If an old timer here would like to explain to me exactly what happened in 1978-79 I would love to hear it, because the game log of that season is one of the crazier things I've seen.
Not quite that old, was in high school at the time and not really paying attention in the days before the big ten network,but this one has been hashed out a time or 2 in the past. The main explanation was we had one good pg, he hurt his knee. He & we weren't the same team after that.
 
#971      
Should probably point out here that the Tourney only went to 64 teams in 1985 - 10 years into Henson's tenure at Illinois. When he started only 32 teams got in and it gradually expanded to 64 teams by 1985.
Of course only 32 teams made the tournament in Henson's early years and the B10 was allowed no more than two teams. Lou finished above .500 in each of the years that you mentioned, but one, and would likely have made the tournament in those years if the current format had been in use.

Finished in the bottom half of the Big Ten in each of his first five years.

I was simply making the point that it took a very good coach longer than 18 months before things turned around.
 
#973      

Joel Goodson

respect my decision™
If an old timer here would like to explain to me exactly what happened in 1978-79 I would love to hear it, because the game log of that season is one of the crazier things I've seen.

Our starting PG, Steve Lanter, went down with a season ending knee injury. While Lanter wasn't all-conference good, he was good. Perhaps more importantly, there was quite a gulf between Lanter and his backups (Bontemps primarily, IIRC). That team was VG, but wasn't able to overcome the loss of Lanter. The B10 was stacked back then.
 
#975      
Henricksen: EJ Liddell says he doesn’t have a favorite

So those reading into the order, move on. Maybe other schools wanted him to visit ASAP and Illinois said "Come on Homecoming", and it worked out that our date was after all the other schools' dates.

If he hasn't committed by the time he visits, I'll have hope.

Piper was on Werner show last week...his opinion IIRC was OSU, Illinois, Missouri were all about equal, but since he is a homer maybe he is overselling our chances...but he certainly didn't think OSU was a clear favorite & basically supported the race is wide open.
 
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