The Illinois Coaching Search

[zpfled]

Not disagreeing, but just wondering why you feel that way? Is it just that you think we can get better? Or you hear more about him? The fact that he got so many good recruits to go out there, makes you think he could do much better here with the talent pool being deeper.


One question I have for everyone on this board...


Would you want someone who operates heavily in the grey if it meant we got good recruits and won games...or does integrity really matter to you?


I think this is a generational thing honestly.

Absolutely I want someone who operates in the gray. I'm 31, for generational categorization purposes.

I also don't equate 'following NCAA rules' with integrity...at all. Integrity is important to me, but that has nothing to do with the question of whether a coach condones paying players in my mind.

To me, NCAA rules are exploitative and following them (by refusing to pay players) is arguably less ethical than breaking them and paying players, since the players are making so much money for the athletic department.

 

[zpfled]

For me personally, I am steadfastly in favor of thumbing our nose at the NCAA's nonsense and doing whatever it takes to acquire as much talent as possible. What I am not in favor of is covering up or enabling criminal behavior by players which harms and endangers the campus community.

But the real world answer to your question is that once a coach is ours, our fanbase will defend him to the absolute death regardless of the strength of evidence against him so long as we're winning or there is a reasonable expectation of future winning. That's not unique to us, that's every school in the country. That's how tribalism and collective psychology works.

+1

 

[Kazanski]

Would you want someone who operates heavily in the grey if it meant we got good recruits and won games...or does integrity really matter to you?

How gray?

 

[UofI08]

I get the anti-Cuonzo crowd and he's by no means at the top of my list, but he would still be a decent hire and a clear upgrade to Groce. Yes he seems to be underachieving based on the perceived level of talent he recruits. But dig a little deeper. Cuonzo Martin has 6 years of Power 5 coaching experience, at middle of the pack schools, and has only 1 season with a losing conference record. His conference finishes are 2nd, 5th, 4th, 8th, 3rd, 5th. John Groce had 0 winning conference records in his 5 years here. If we're to believe that conference performance is a huge indicator of future results, he's actually pretty solid.

 

[KrushCow31]

One question I have for everyone on this board...


Would you want someone who operates heavily in the grey if it meant we got good recruits and won games...or does integrity really matter to you?


I think this is a generational thing honestly.

If the NCAA isn't going to equally enforce their laws/enforce them at all, why should we still follow them? What benefit do we get for following the rules to a T? It's not even an integrity issue, because the rules are dumb to begin with. I'm 26.

 

[MadSeason]

I think that was pretty obvious given your username and picture.

It was for the youngins.

 

[IntenselyOrange]

For me personally, I am steadfastly in favor of thumbing our nose at the NCAA's nonsense and doing whatever it takes to acquire as much talent as possible. What I am not in favor of is covering up or enabling criminal behavior by players which harms and endangers the campus community.

But the real world answer to your question is that once a coach is ours, our fanbase will defend him to the absolute death regardless of the strength of evidence against him so long as we're winning or there is a reasonable expectation of future winning. That's not unique to us, that's every school in the country. That's how tribalism and collective psychology works.

Absolutely I want someone who operates in the gray. I'm 31, for generational categorization purposes.

I also don't equate 'following NCAA rules' with integrity...at all. Integrity is important to me, but that has nothing to do with the question of whether a coach condones paying players in my mind.

To me, NCAA rules are exploitative and following them (by refusing to pay players) is arguably less ethical than breaking them and paying players, since the players are making so much money for the athletic department.

Out of curiosity, and this is the perspective of someone who hedged his answer and asked for specifics. How far are you willing to go. I'm perfectly OK with money and jobs for parents being offered. I am opposed to paying tutors to write papers, sham courses for athletes, fixing of HS transcripts, and having others take the SAT/ACT for the athlete. Essentially, I am against anything that compromises academic integrity.

I don't care if you don't have a line there, I won't judge you. I'm just curious about your perspectives.

 

[Golfer63]

To answer your question I am perfectly fine operating in the grey for wins. I think everyone does to one extent or another. Everyone cheats but us, is a tired notion and I cringe when posters whine about other schools "cheating."

I'm Gen X for purposes of your Generational hypothesis.

I don't want to cheat to get talent because I don't want to hang a national championship banner in the State Farm Center only to have to take it down 5 years later when we get caught. I know Michigan fans make the argument that you can't erase something that happened because all of their Fab Five era history had to be taken down from their arena, but being able to have that banner hanging in our arena means something to me.

 

[IntenselyOrange]

Off topic, I'm really upset with mother nature. We have a blizzard here in MA. It would have been nice for her to have the blizzard on Thursday so that I could watch the tournament. It's only two days difference - would it have been that big of a deal to go off script?

 

[Second and Chalmers]

Out of curiosity, and this is the perspective of someone who hedged his answer and asked for specifics. How far are you willing to go. I'm perfectly OK with money and jobs for parents being offered. I am opposed to paying tutors to write papers, sham courses for athletes, fixing of HS transcripts, and having others take the SAT/ACT for the athlete. Essentially, I am against anything that compromises academic integrity.

I don't care if you don't have a line there, I won't judge you. I'm just curious about your perspectives.

Well for starters, I have no idea how they pulled the Derrick Rose ACT thing off. That's like the Thomas Crown Affair of NCAA violations, befitting a debonair super-villain like Calipari.

Low-level stuff like tutors completing work for athletes and stuff like that is already going on here and everywhere else, that's just the nature of the business.

It would be very embarrassing to get caught up in a UNC-type situation, but by all the evidence I've seen, that's an academic-side scandal more than an athletics-side one. The DIA will continue to route their revenue sport athletes through the easiest possible class load with friendly professors, just as every other school in the country does.

College sports is an inherently gross business. The goody-two-shoes attitudes of some programs and coaches and fans only makes them look like idiots.

 

[IntenselyOrange]

Well for starters, I have no idea how they pulled the Derrick Rose ACT thing off. That's like the Thomas Crown Affair of NCAA violations, befitting a debonair super-villain like Calipari.

Low-level stuff like tutors completing work for athletes and stuff like that is already going on here and everywhere else, that's just the nature of the business.

It would be very embarrassing to get caught up in a UNC-type situation, but by all the evidence I've seen, that's an academic-side scandal more than an athletics-side one. The DIA will continue to route their revenue sport athletes through the easiest possible class load with friendly professors, just as every other school in the country does.

College sports is an inherently gross business. The goody-two-shoes attitudes of some programs and coaches and fans only makes them look like idiots.

We'll disagree on this. It is likely going on everywhere, I'll concede. But it is not low-level in my opinion. That is a serious violation of academic integrity and grounds for dismissal from probably every University. I don't think it can be stopped, but the coach cannot condone it. But again, that's my opinion.

Of course, the real solution is to not force kids with marketable skills to attend a University and complete academic work that they have no interest in when they could otherwise be pulling in a real salary.

 

[RichardKeenesHair]

If you aren't willing to go into the gray then you are essentially playing a different sport than the blue bloods. I've always thought Self had the perfect balance of "cheating". Offering jobs to parents, questionable lines of eligibility, pushing the boundaries as far as they will go - all ok in my book. Creating a culture where other students are harmed - not so much

 

[FatGreg]

One question I have for everyone on this board...


Would you want someone who operates heavily in the grey if it meant we got good recruits and won games...or does integrity really matter to you?


I think this is a generational thing honestly.

I'm all for operating in the gray. Like others have said, I don't equate following NCAA rules with personal integrity. Do whatever it takes to get top talent and win ball games, as long as you're actively concerned with the wellbeing of recruits, players, fans, the university community, and so on. Take strategic risks as long as you can reasonably project that you won't get caught and will have plausible deniability no matter what accusations emerge.

Personal moral integrity seems like a different thing to me. I'd be disgusted to learn that we were covering up a sexual assault accusation instead of letting the justice system handle it through conventional protocols. I'd be horrified if we were setting up recruits with prostitutes on their visits. But my reaction to a booster giving a no-interest home loan to a player's parents or even a bag man handing off cash: "meh." I'd rather not, but you do what you've got to do to compete in a hypercompetitive, multi-billion dollar entertainment industry governed by a corrupt and profoundly exploitative regulatory body. My bigger concern is competent navigation of those gray spaces: are we making sure payments are essentially untraceable? There are ways to do that. Do we have trustworthy connections capably working recruiting back channels? If an AAU coach can funnel a player to us, but needs $75k for redesigned unis/flights/entry fees, I hope we get it to him - it'd just better not be a sloppy transaction.

Oh, I'm 35.

 

[hermie1985]

For the most part I would agree that most normal kids your age would not know who they are, however I would bet my beach house that any kid 16-18 from the state of Illinois and especially from Chicago who is a big time D1 recruit will know who they are and listen. That being said I don't want Deon or Ken coaching. Dee or the Rev I would be happy with.

How about we convince Lon to come back for 4 years and mentor Snacks, Dee, Rev and Lucas?

My understanding is that Deon can get you in some doors that others may or may not be able to open.

 

[BananaShampoo]

I understood it to mean that the Wolfpack and Wildcat hand signs are similar, but a Google search shows the Wildcats as either a "C" or oddly enough "the shocker". So, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The "shocker" sign is ASU, mortal enemy of U of A. Trust me I know.

 

[Trakis]

Illinois is a better job right now than Maryland.

Yes or no?

 

[NickWeatherspoon]

I mean, :noidea:

Most of the Illini athletes you love received impermissible help with their coursework. The show must go on. You do the best you can with kids who don't belong at this level of academia and who have an enormously physically and mentally draining full time job on top of everything.

Fudging the academic side a bit enriches these kids lives far more than just flunking them out of school would.

I know for a fact this statement is false!

 

[IntenselyOrange]

I mean, :noidea:

Most of the Illini athletes you love received impermissible help with their coursework. The show must go on. You do the best you can with kids who don't belong at this level of academia and who have an enormously physically and mentally draining full time job on top of everything.

Fudging the academic side a bit enriches these kids lives far more than just flunking them out of school would.

Help with is different than completion for. The former is admirable, the latter is disgraceful IMO. Perhaps my standing as an academic leads to my strong opinion on this. I don't get many athletes, but I would not think twice about giving them the grade they have earned.

 

[Buck Turgidson]

Off topic, I'm really upset with mother nature. We have a blizzard here in MA. It would have been nice for her to have the blizzard on Thursday so that I could watch the tournament. It's only two days difference - would it have been that big of a deal to go off script?

Aint it the truth. We're getting 2 ft here in central CT, but as long as the power stays on I'm OK with it.

On the earlier question re: grey area - I side with S&C and Matt that as long as we're not enabling bad hombres and criminal activity, doing what it takes (and what every top high-major program does) is fine. And I am 55...but I was born and raised in West Englewood, where we learned to be adaptive to your situation.

 

[Second and Chalmers]

Help with is different than completion for. The former is admirable, the latter is disgraceful IMO.

There is, to use the parlance of this thread, a pretty broad gray area in there.

 

[Fighter of the Nightman]

Illinois is a better job right now than Maryland.

Yes or no?

"No." It's not a worse one, either. Maryland fits right in the class with Illinois of not being a Blue Blood, having fleeting stints of being near-elite mixed in with mostly good. The difference is they are in much better shape than we are right now, but I think that only marginally affects how good a job is. Look at what Penn State football went through, and people still want a chance to be the coach who brought them back. Also, see Tennessee football.

 

[Branson53]

Illinois is a better job right now than Maryland.

Yes or no?

We are getting Mark Turgeon? The mysterious "highly successful P5 coach who we wouldn't have considered available"?

 

[IntenselyOrange]

There is, to use the parlance of this thread, a pretty broad gray area in there.

In my opinion there is not. Helping students learn and helping students complete projects has long-term value. Doing it for them results in no benefit to them. I don't think it is that difficult to distinguish between the two.

It sucks that these kids are stuck in college rather than doing what they want, but that is where they are. The primary role of the University is education. Thus the students must adhere to academic integrity issues IMO. At most schools, and certainly at Illinois, there are plenty of easy courses that these students can take to legitimately maintain their eligibility.

 

[Charleston]

So now we're condoning academic fraud and actual cash payments to recruits (well, at least as long as it can't be traced). What could possibly go wrong? I mean, we know that the NCAA would never punish an Illinois athletic program. Everybody else does it, so we will surely be able to get away with it this time.

 

[FatGreg]

Fudging the academic side a bit enriches these kids lives far more than just flunking them out of school would.

+1. We've been fortunate to have some academically gifted players over the years - Nick Smith, Jack Ingram, Dee, Calvin Brock, Tracy, JCL, and several more. I'm proud of how strong the basketball program has been on the academic side overall - tons of All-B10 academic selections, excellent grad rate. However, lots of players at UIUC and every other top university that offers athletic scholarships are out of their depth. They wouldn't get in to start with and if they somehow did they'd fail out in a year.

It's a conundrum, but I think the best approach is to give them lots of structure and guidance and hope they flourish to the best of their ability. If that involves easy classes, tutors heavily editing papers, and professors allowing more time for exams, I'm okay with it. I would hope for a good faith effort from all parties.

I guess I'm in the middle: give them extra help and special allowances if necessary, but I don't think student athletes should get free passing grades without putting in some effort (taking the tests themselves, at least collaborating on papers, etc.).