There was some talk about Larry Krystkowiak in the postgame thread, thought it was worth posting here since this is where we are supposed to discuss Groce's future.
First of all, Krystkowiak's first year of going 6-25 at Utah has little to do with him, and much to do with the fact that Utah was transitioning to the Pac-12 the same year. Even when Gary Patterson's TCU Football squad transitioned from the MWC to the Big-12, there was an adjustment period, with back to back losing conference records after joining their new conference. Krystkowiak also had to deal with the fact that the preceding coach (Jim Boylen) was gawd awful. Since taken over the program, Krystkowiak's Utes have won 6, 15, 21 and 26 games. Their conference record has similarly made big jumps each year. He has the pedigree, having won with both Montana and Utah at the college level, as well as stints as assistant and head coach at the NBA level.
He also can point to getting multiple players at the positions most of need into the NBA. Delon Wright (PG) was drafted #20 last year, and all signs suggest his big man, Jakob Poeltl (C), will be a lottery pick this year. There is talent on the team in addition to the names mentioned above as well (Kuzma and Loveridge are my personal favorites). He has work to do still this conference season (currently 2-3), but I would be less than worried about the future of Utah basketball were I a fan and Krystkowiak was in charge.
There is no doubt in my mind that Larry Krystkowiak would be as home run a hire as it gets. That said, there is also no doubt in my mind that he would not even consider entertaining the thought of coming to Illinois. As best I can tell based on a google search, he currently earns about 1.6 million dollars at Utah. He is certainly likely to be in a position to renegotiate that, safe to say he could get 2.5-3 million out of them following this season. Even assuming Illinois were to throw him 3 million+, the likelihood he leaves his current GREAT situation for a reasonable raise, when all indicators suggest he is going to be a hot name for the best programs in the country (and possibly even a shift back to the NBA), leaves me thinking our odds at attracting him to Illinois are about as close to 0% as it gets.
Net point, I just don't see a hot name at a lower tier P5 conference considering Illinois at any point in the near future when they could use Illinois to re-negotiate a bigger deal at their current P5 school. Furthermore, given a couple years, most these coaches are in for much bigger paydays than they would be should they choose to make the small jump to Illinois. Shaka Smart played his hand pretty intelligently, holding out for the big money from Texas. Similarly, Brad Stevens was able to parlay his success at Butler into a head coaching gig with the Boston Celtics.
This is not to suggest we hold onto Groce beyond this year, I still don't know the answer to that question and my personal opinion is we need to do what we can to bring our biggest alum and owner of multiple sports teams (Khan) into the fold moving forward. Whether he botched getting George here or not is semi-irrelevant to me as one mistake does not make a legacy. Our next coach needs either to be the strongest Mid-Major coach out there (Drew? Jacobson?) or an outside the box hire like Krystkowiak was. I would leave that to the board to debate as I am likely not that creative, but getting someone in at this point that is going to quickly resurrect Illini bball to where we believe it should be is going to be no small task given the last decade of basketball. That does not mean we shouldn't try though! Something clearly has to happen, I still think Groce can be a successful college basketball coach, I just have serious reservations whether he can right Illinois' ship or his own coaching career in Champaign. His career likely needs a re-boot at another school as bad as we need a re-boot with a new coach. The ease with which he can be recruited against at this point makes me skeptical he can correct course here at Illinois.
I hope to heck something happens after this year, it is so hard to watch anything relating to Illinois revenue sports these days. Whether it be Groce making internal changes to his staff/coaching philosophy or a change in leadership for the program, it is simply not okay to watch such embarrassing displays of complete ineptitude. Here is hoping we look back on this in a couple years and think "wow, who would have thought the turnaround would come this quickly?!?", but I have a bad feeling it is going to be years before we find ourselves back competing for conference titles and deep runs in the NCAA Tourney.
Good luck and Godspeed Illini Decision makers, we have quite the hill to climb moving forward.