Tevian has broke a big rule and Alan a minor. Should those slide in front of the team?
Missouri 79, Illinois 63 POSTGAME
Tevian has broke a big rule and Alan a minor. Should those slide in front of the team?
Isn't recruiting the reason for hiring Antigua and retaining Walker?Seems to me that replacing them by overpaying some high profile assistants might be an option.Like you've stated many times there's no way we're going to pay Underwood's buyout and I remember hearing that some of the '89 team stating that they came to Illinois because of Collins not Henson.
Talent does tend to cover deficiencies in systems. I think the real problem is the forcing of a square peg into a round hole by sticking to something guys aren’t physically able to do. This system defensively requires quick twitch, rangy, athletic guys who cover large areas/distances in short times both on and away from the ball. We don’t have those guys. It also requires a real rim protector which Kane may develop into but his minutes are so low we rarely have that in place.
TU didn't lose the game, but it is a very bad narrative or optics. AG is better than most expected, has good length and a great shot. He is a freshmen and has weaknesses, but give him ad many minutes as you can as your 8-9th man.
Chin and Antigua doing fine with recruiting. Walker is the one who has struggled, and BU needs to close.
Next year need to go with a line-up that has Giorgi and Samba starting.
Chin and Antigua doing fine with recruiting. Walker is the one who has struggled, and BU needs to close.
Next year need to go with a line-up that has Giorgi and Samba starting.
I think we should try:
Trent Frazier
Andres. Feliz
Aaron Jordan
Kipper Nichols
Giorgi Bezhanishvili / Samba Kane
Trent Frazier
Andres. Feliz
Aaron Jordan
Kipper Nichols
Giorgi Bezhanishvili / Samba Kane
Lou
Lou was an older gentleman. Collins was younger and I believe, grew up in the city. It stands to reason that players would find Collins more relatable. Observing Underwood, I’d think he might have trouble there, too.
This, this, this!! Also, there is no way that AG has regressed so much that he can't get into a game at a time that we clearly needed shooters. People here keep bringing up him being late for an early shoot around (along with Ayo) as an excuse for him sitting most of the game. Does anybody here remember finals week? Plus he still had to practice. I have no problems with the fact that we played a pretty good team and lost. My only concern is that BU wanted to get his son in a game more than being concerned with the welfare of his team. He had his 2nd best shooter sitting on the bench in a game that he needed shooters on the floor. A player that had played well enough to start a few games.
Good recruiting assistant coaches can get you in with some coaches and recruits but eventually they all know that they will play for the head coach. We have been able to get visits and recruits to show interest, but have not been able to close. If we had not been able to get initial interest and visits from multiple recruits, I would have agreed.
Antigua has a great reputation and gets much respect from coaches. I have talked to multiple coaches who speak very highly of Orlando. Chin has a smaller circle primarily within Illinois and some other EYBL programs. I have not heard much about Walker, he may have some pockets or contacts in St. Louis area, but definitely does not have the reputation of Antigua or even Chin..
I believe Walker was retained to keep Tilmon in the fold and try and lock up Liddell. Clearly we batted .000 there. My guess is you will see a change after this year.
Why would you start Nichols, he has been a diappointment.
Tev is in the dog house. Else replacing Kip was a no brainer.
I would be open to playing Alan Griffin in Kips spot. Three guards. Problem here is that these kids have been running out of gas. DW is a no show in a general sense.
And start Kane.
And to think,... every one of JGs teams were better than every one of Underwood's Illini teams so far. In the past everybody would jump up and down and say that Groce left the cupboard bare for Underwood - but we just got clobbered by the guys John Groce actually recruited.And to think, moms loved JG.Sorry, but it seems there are some pretty wild and fact-less assumptions being made. I hope you all have a Merry holiday!
And FWIW - I was ready to see Groce go - I am not a John Groce apologist,...
Two thoughts: 1) Several key players in the BR game were recruited by Groce (Frazier, Tilmon, Smith, Pickett, Nichols). At some point, all were either committed to or attended Illinois. I think that is very interesting. 2) Does anyone remember the video aired by either the University or local media in which BU sat down with someone and went over his offense and defense? This was before he'd even coached his first game at Illinois. I thought it was odd that any new coach would consent to someone recording and airing him using game film from his former teams to show his offensive/defensive schemes. Who does that? But now, I'm wondering if that might have been a recruiting strategy he was employing. Either way, I never saw the wisdom behind that decision, especially a coach who was new to the school with not much head coaching experience. I would expect that information to only be shared during the interview process.
NO KIPPER
I mean Alan in pretty clearly gone, right? Did you guys see what his mother put on twitter? Basically saying that she left Underwood to take care of her son but he isn't... That is a pretty harsh, public statement to come back on.
Nothing has been said that can’t be repaired with a little time and finesse.
Sorry but Antigua was not a mistake, nor is he the problem. Orlando & Chin are one of the few positives about this program right now.
So let it be written, so let it be done
I don’t find this particularly reassuring. Finesse is not the first word that comes to mind when I think of Underwood.
Please link the source for your advanced stats. I'd like to better understand how they are calculated. When you play as few minutes as TU, and if such ratings are calculated as a function of minutes played, there is going to be a significant variability in your measured efficiency where a single steal or defensive rebound could dramatically boost your calculated rating. Also bear in mind TU has had his most minutes and most productive games against scrub teams (ETSU, Evansville).
I saw what Griffin did in protecting the rim against UNLV. I observe the kid's length, size, + athleticism and see how that can impact the defensive quality of the team. I also see how TU represents a perpetual size disadvantage, can't jump with any of the other 9 players on the court, and struggles to stay in front of opposing players when they have the ball. There are things we *see*, visibly, for why coach's son is a defensive vulnerability, regardless of how a defensive rebound or steal here or there gives him some nice Xmas math score.
So please show me the computational factors involved in deriving these ratings, and I will gladly explain how they are a misrepresentation. I can't imagine many people with a meaningful understanding of basketball would choose TU for their 5 over AG, for defensive purposes (or any of the other scholarship players we have, regardless of who's father's system is being run). TU simply doesn't belong on the court for a Big Ten team. But he is in there because his father is coach. If this doesn't bother you, from an integrity and coach's responsibility standpoint, that's on you. But some of us quite dislike the coach taking our team, program, tradition for granted like this, where he feels he can put a trash product on the court and also sneak in minutes for his boy.
sbillini
- st petersburg, fl
https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/alan-griffin-1.html
https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/tyler-underwood-1.html
I’ll say again I disagree with BU’s approach. But 1) this is not nearly as big of an issue as 11 pages of this thread indicates and 2) its not as outfight illogical/nepotism as some make it out to be. We all know that brad underwood is a statistics guy. He follows the numbers. You may agree or disagree with that approach - but looking at the numbers - it’s not obvious that TU is clearly inferior to AG. Especially when it comes to defense (which I think is the primary issue with the team).
I think that we’re talking about two different things here. My point is that Underwood’s deal is not that far out of market, which is a different thing than saying he’s a good fit here. At the time he was hired most of the media reaction showed him as maybe the best hire not named Archie Miller. You want to poach a major conference guy, you have to come to the table with a big offer. So, yeah, Keatts would have been cheaper, but he was lower on the list for most teams.
Hindsight will tell us whether or not the decision was good, but that doesn’t change Underwood’s price tag or the market at the time he was hired. If you think we should have gone in another direction, that’s fine, but it doesn’t mean we paid more than we had to.
As for Self, you’re right that he did all of those things. It’s not a coincidence that I’d put him in the top five coaches active today without naming the other four. Holding him up as the standard by which other coaches are judged is unreasonable, even if it’s the aspiration. (And if you want to bet that Kevin Keatts will become the next Bill Self, I’ll take the fat end of that proposition all day long. No offense to Keatts, that’s just a towering bar to clear.) So I’m not too compelled by the argument that the program’s issues should be easy to clean up because Self did it. It’s doable, but the path is going to look different the next time it happens.
I’ve long believed that Bruce Weber’s biggest sin was that he wasn’t Bill Self. I’m beginning to feel that way about John Groce and Brad Underwood as well. Duly noted that I don’t think much of Groce, but I do feel like Underwood deserves a bit more slack than he’s been given.
As for the rest of it, we’ve been over it before. If you think the 2017 team minus Malcolm Hill should have been competitive, I don’t know what to tell you.
Underwood might not be up to the task, but let’s not underestimate how difficult it will be to right this ship.
Of course we overpaid. No doubt about that. Not only was he a bad fit, but BU's buyout is ridiculous high. His market value was $1M salary with a $3M buyout at OSU just a year ago. The salary tripled (which is less of an issue) but his buyout is $15.25M first year(!), $12.4M second year, etc. It is an astronomical buyout, despite not being a good fit. In comparison, Chris Mack at Louisville starts at $6M and drops $500K every year! We gave BU an absolutely ridiculous buyout, one of the best in the industry. This contract and buyout lock you in on a bad decision no matter how bad things turn out, and right now we are on track to have the worst 2-yr period since 1973-75 when Harv Schmidt and Gene Bartow were the coaches. We are stuck!