Indiana 103, Illinois 69 POSTGAME

[KSmooth]

The first job for the new AD may very well be to find a replacement for John Groce. I hope I'm wrong about this, there is a lot of basketball left and even after a stinker like this the team could still find a way to rally.

But obviously we've got to start thinking through the contingencies. Including the possibility that we need to go down a whole new direction -- not just a new coach.

We've got to accept that we are not a destination school right now for coaches or players, and are not going to be for a while even with a shiny remodeled Assembly Hall. We are not going to be able to recruit five star players and four stars will be a reach for a while. We'll be mostly looking at three star players. It would not shock me if TeJon Lucas decommits if things go down the current track.

I don't have a name as much as a profile.

Our next coach needs to be a teacher and Xs and Os guy who will be able to make the most out of so-so talent. Preferably he should be a Midwesterner so if he makes any headway there will be a decent chance we keep him.

Whoever is the next Big Thing in the Mid Majors, odd are we don't get him. My candidate would be a guy who was a success (win percentage in the .700 range) in the low majors who has shown he can cobble together winners out of spare parts either by teaching superb technique or by novel strategy on offense or defense.

My two cents. Hope it doesn't come to this, but this is the backup plan I hope the next AD has ready if it's needed.

 

[indianapolisillini]

I went to the game tonight. There are just way too many problems that point to a coach that is in way over his head. Groce's best attribute is dealing w/ the media. But the media is being way too nice to him.

I think it's time to turn up the heat. We need answers from Groce's boss. Why no AD yet? Then...why not ask the coach some more pointed questions like these.

Coach Groce, could you explain why we don't even try to get offensive rebounds? We launch quick shots & we retreat w/ 4 or 5 guys many times even before the ball leaves the shooter's hand. I saw countless long misses at IU that bounced out hard dropping to the floor right where one of our fleeing players used to be standing. There is just no effort to even try to rebound offensively. I'd like him to explain why... EVERY team I've watched this year tries to a much higher extent than us. I'd like to hear him explain how he thinks this is a tactical advantage?

I'd also ask why he feel he needs Tate or Lewis in the game at all times. It is the worst PG tandem that I think I've ever seen in the B1G. Tate is SO bad that the other team just sags off him & clogs everything up. His defense is horrible. His shooting is the worst I've EVER seen in D1 basketball. It's insanity to keep doing the same crap year after year. Latulip would provide a better solution. So would Nunn. So would Hill and Finke and DJ and AJ....

Lastly, if I were the media I'd acknowledge Groce's recent frustrations & point out his record at Ohio / Illinois and just flat ask him if he thinks he's in over his head. Why has Illinois basketball fallen into the darkest days EVER.

It's clear to me that he's in over his head. If they hired me as the AD tomorrow, I'd be meeting w/ John this week & I'd ask some of these questions and I'd be figuring out my game plan to replace him. And, I'm sure I'd be letting him go within the week. A change is mandated at this point. Why prolong the agony. Illinois basketball can't get any lower. And maybe we can find a coach that can still seal the deal with Demonte, Tilmon and the others.

 

[Obelix]

Our next coach needs to be a teacher and Xs and Os guy who will be able to make the most out of so-so talent.

If you expect to find a coach that will outdevelop so-so talent and outcoach coaches in the B1G, you will wait for a long, looooong time. As our history shows, we had very good talent when we had some our best teams (e.g., 1989, 2001, 2005).

Indiana has more than so-so talent and it was evident today. Two McD AA at key positions, and we were lucky that a third McD AA stud was injured. That does not excuse Groce's deficiencies as a coach, but posters on this board constantly overestimate the talent we have and out ability to outdevelop lesser ranked players, thinking our players will just collectively overachieve their rankings.

 

[Robert Bennett]

If we fire groce we can kiss the players goodbye , decommits , transfers and no team and then who are we gonna blame then ? You think it's ugly now we'll have to wait another five years just to rebuild , put a new system in place , recruit and sell the program again . we put up with Weber for years and his roster was better than this one by a long shot .take the lumps now and let it play out , besides this will be the first time groce hasn't made it to the post season here , a NCAA berth and two N.I.T 's (being on the bubble the last two) is a lot better than getting here and having no post season at all , then call for his head. You can't help it that some players are hard headed , don't listen and dont execute the plays drawn up
With two limited pg's , bigs riddle with injuries, all in all y'all set y'all selves up for failure after the snow ball started down hill trynnna pump yourselves up by thinking we still could compete with all that happened to us.Get the freshman game experience and lets see wat we can do when a real point guard get here and we're healthy.

 

[FanUND]

Looking at a common opponent, this is an Indiana team that handed it to Notre Dame on a semi-neutral court, 2nd half of that game. ND has defeated Duke at Duke (1st ND win at Cameron in 8 tries, all-time. GO IRISH!), and also has defeated Iowa.

There's no question that Crean has it going this year, "clown pants" warmups regardless. I'm not an Indiana Basketball fan, but all of you Illini have to face the fact that you were playing a very talented group in "Crean's Clowns." And for the record, Ronald McDonald's pants run their stripes horizontally, not vertically like IU.

 

[FanUND]

I have had to come accept something tonight. I will never live long enough to see a national championship in basketball or football . And that is heart breaking for me .

Illinois is in very good company. I'm sick of Alabama's football championships, and there are relatively few programs capable of bringing home the NCAA Men's BB crown either.

Notre Dame has had 4 National Championships in football in my lifetime, but the last one was in 1988. Just 1 Final Four in bb (1978). Neither sport will be bringing home an NC in my lifetime, unless I live to be 120.

I recommend that you read some of Murray Sperber's books to get a good idea on what's been going on in major college athletics, historically. It's a very sordid history, and the flaunting of rules in recent decades is just a continuation of the travesty.

 

[Serious Late]

If we fire groce we can kiss the players goodbye , decommits , transfers and no team and then who are we gonna blame then ? You think it's ugly now we'll have to wait another five years just to rebuild , put a new system in place , recruit and sell the program again . we put up with Weber for years and his roster was better than this one by a long shot .take the lumps now and let it play out , besides this will be the first time groce hasn't made it to the post season here , a NCAA berth and two N.I.T 's (being on the bubble the last two) is a lot better than getting here and having no post season at all , then call for his head. You can't help it that some players are hard headed , don't listen and dont execute the plays drawn up
With two limited pg's , bigs riddle with injuries, all in all y'all set y'all selves up for failure after the snow ball started down hill trynnna pump yourselves up by thinking we still could compete with all that happened to us.Get the freshman game experience and lets see wat we can do when a real point guard get here and we're healthy.

Losing players to decommitments and transfers would be the first failure of the next head coach, not a viable reason to keep with the current staff.

And the hopes/expectations of a currently unranked high school point guard to save this program from the depths it has reached simply astounds me. I feel terrible for TJL, given the obscene amount of hype placed on a non-top 100 PG.

I seriously hope he is the one to save this program, but the likelihood of it happening simply isn't in our favor.

 

[Cymoin]

Beating a Dead Horse

I've said this over and over: I truly think that JG's biggest mistake was pursuing top-tier recruits these past three years to the exclusion of gettable 3 star players. Why? Well, the overwhelming opinion is that Weber had taken this program to a low level and this was no longer a preferred destination for recruits. So think about it: why would anyone think that a top-rated recruit would want to come play for a declining program and a relatively unseasoned and inexperienced coach who had never put a player in the NBA which, incidentally, is what today's top-tier players are looking for in a program? Well, everyone cited JG's involvement with OSU's NBA alums and, together with his great persona in front of the camera/mic, we figured this was a recipe for success. We all concluded that we needed a recruiter because we all concluded that Weber's main flaw was in this area and we remembered the guys Self brought in. Times have changed since Self was here and he has a rare gift in the area of recruiting. In retrospect, JG should have realized that you have to walk before you run and he fooled himself into thinking he could pursue all these coveted players and somehow get them to C-U. And we drank the Kool-Aid because the media hyped it and the players showed interest. But just like the knockout girl who ultimately has her eyes on the BMOC, these recruits...like the girl...realize added attention and multiple suitors only helps their agenda and exposure. And JG&Co. were easy prey due to their gullibility and inexperience. And now we see these 3 star players who don't have entitlement mentalities but have a toughness and chip on their shoulders who are from Illinois or within a local recruiting footprint playing for other teams that are having success and we realize they were either not offered or were shown interest too late because our coaches were going after "girls" who were never going to commit. Back when my wife and I were married, we realized that we'd have to start out living in an affordable apartment, drive an affordable car and start our careers at the bottom of the totem pole. We recognized reality but also had a vision for the future. We knew we could not begin by living in a $1mil home, drive a BMW and start our careers as CEOs. My concern is that maybe JG knew he did not have the coaching acumen to take motivated 3 star players and turn them into better players that would put the program on a different trajectory. My fear is that JG believed his only shot was to get great players. Well, he has not gotten great players and we are seeing how he is faring as a developer of talent. As I look back at these past 3-4 years, I feel strongly that my assessment is correct. When you think of JG's portrayed persona, his teams don't seem to reflect their coach at all. Thoughts?

 

[Butkuser]

I was gone last night and didn't get to follow the game. Then I was exhausted and went to bed when I got home. I just saw the score this morning.

I knew we would lose, but...

I have lost my last bit of hope for the Groce era. I agree with the poster who said pony up the wads of cash for Greg Marshall.

So sorry to feel this way, but I don't think anyone can really say this is a knee-jerk reaction, it is cumulative, and this is not the straw, it is the hay bale that broke the proverbial camel's back.

 

[491illinois]

Indiana has more than so-so talent and it was evident today. Two McD AA at key positions, and we were lucky that a third McD AA stud was injured. That does not excuse Groce's deficiencies as a coach, but posters on this board constantly overestimate the talent we have and out ability to outdevelop lesser ranked players, thinking our players will just collectively overachieve their rankings.

Amen. We need coach who can increase our level of talent. How many games a year does coachng win? How many games a year does talent win?

 

[illynifan34]

If we fire groce we can kiss the players goodbye , decommits , transfers and no team and then who are we gonna blame then ? You think it's ugly now we'll have to wait another five years just to rebuild , put a new system in place , recruit and sell the program again . we put up with Weber for years and his roster was better than this one by a long shot .take the lumps now and let it play out , besides this will be the first time groce hasn't made it to the post season here , a NCAA berth and two N.I.T 's (being on the bubble the last two) is a lot better than getting here and having no post season at all , then call for his head. You can't help it that some players are hard headed , don't listen and dont execute the plays drawn up
With two limited pg's , bigs riddle with injuries, all in all y'all set y'all selves up for failure after the snow ball started down hill trynnna pump yourselves up by thinking we still could compete with all that happened to us.Get the freshman game experience and lets see wat we can do when a real point guard get here and we're healthy.

I bet there is a coach out there that we could hire that could bring in the 2017 guys. I think his name rhymes with Forebearance Coward

 

[491illinois]

Illinois is in very good company. I'm sick of Alabama's football championships, and there are relatively few programs capable of bringing home the NCAA Men's BB crown either.

Notre Dame has had 4 National Championships in football in my lifetime, but the last one was in 1988. Just 1 Final Four in bb (1978). Neither sport will be bringing home an NC in my lifetime, unless I live to be 120.

I recommend that you read some of Murray Sperber's books to get a good idea on what's been going on in major college athletics, historically. It's a very sordid history, and the flaunting of rules in recent decades is just a continuation of the travesty.

A friend of mine makes a pretty good argument, that the infusion of money into college basketball, the high cost of running major college sports programs, and the increasing influence of television and media pretty much ensures that only a handful of teams will compete for a national championship, it's more lucrative for the key stakeholders.

 

[KRSAS]

I really don't like the idea of firing Groce. But my biggest concern is that the team's ineptitude on the court and Groce's seat being scorching hot won't be conducive to landing the players we desperately need from the 2017 class. Unfortunately, the 2017 class is the ONLY glimmer of hope left for Groce's tenure and I just don't expect much to come from it given the circumstances. So what do we do? I guess you have to fire Groce. But the fear of the unknown and are current cluster mess of an AD situation makes me want to go hide in a cave somewhere as an Illini fan. It absolutely disgusts me to no end that freaking Northwestern is on the up and up and we are stuck in the bottom of the Big Ten setting our hopes and prayers on the class of 2017 and a 6th year Tracy Abrams.

We just cant hold on thinking the 2017 class will be our savior to this program. The 2017 class wont be here until 2017-2018 season and we have to hope that they can contribute right away which I doubt. So where does that leave our 2016-2017 season???? If you let go of Groce after this season you can still salvage the 2017 recruiting with a new coach. We have gotten worse every year since Groce has been at the helm. I applaud his effort but things just aren't clicking.

 

[KRSAS]

Did anyone catch the animosity towards Illinois by Dan Dakich?? I know it’s an every time occurrence when he announces Illinois games but this game I turned the mute on and it was lovely. Except for the Illini playing bad….

 

[Deleted member 586966]

We just cant hold on thinking the 2017 class will be our savior to this program. The 2017 class wont be here until 2017-2018 season and we have to hope that they can contribute right away which I doubt. So where does that leave our 2016-2017 season???? If you let go of Groce after this season you can still salvage the 2017 recruiting with a new coach. We have gotten worse every year since Groce has been at the helm. I applaud his effort but things just aren't clicking.

Exactly. They won't be here for TWO seasons and they likely won't be high level contributors for another 3+ seasons.

 

[Ransom Stoddard]

Did anyone catch the animosity towards Illinois by Dan Dakich?? I know it’s an every time occurrence when he announces Illinois games but this game I turned the mute on and it was lovely. Except for the Illini playing bad….

Dakich said very little about our program that I didn't agree with and presented some good insight (in his own way) about what's going on in the heads of Hill and Nunn.

Remember that he was interim HC at IU after the Sampson debacle, which explains a lot of his egotistical rantings in my mind.

As to the game...I was impressed with the first half stretch where we fought back to within 1 point. Then came the 8 minute TV timeout, Crean coached his guys up, and they never looked back.

I'm glad that there is only one more time I have to watch Max Bielfeldt have a good game against Illinois. It hurt to see him do it with Michigan, and it hurt even more seeing him do it with Indiana. His inside presence would have been very useful the last few years, and it shows a lot about the state of our program that a guy who's last name is on campus buildings avoided playing for us twice.

 

[Robert Bennett]

Losing players to decommitments and transfers would be the first failure of the next head coach, not a viable reason to keep with the current staff.

And the hopes/expectations of a currently unranked high school point guard to save this program from the depths it has reached simply astounds me. I feel terrible for TJL, given the obscene amount of hype placed on a non-top 100 PG.

I seriously hope he is the one to save this program, but the likelihood of it happening simply isn't in our favor.

He doesn't have to be the saviour just be better than Tate and Lewis , I agree its time to shake up the staff tho . and I don't believe it's hype around TJL it's just we haven't had a point guard like him since D Mac .

 

[Chase3]

Sam I Am ‏@B1G_Samb0 11h11 hours ago
Groce is the best coach I've ever had.

Retweeted by Kevin Berardini and some former Illinois players last night. Interesting stuff. I think it speaks to the kind of guy Groce is. I know he is probably out the door but I think his character shows here. Not that character is what wins B10 basketball games.

 

[madcrazeeballa]

I was gone last night and didn't get to follow the game. Then I was exhausted and went to bed when I got home. I just saw the score this morning.

I knew we would lose, but...

I have lost my last bit of hope for the Groce era. I agree with the poster who said pony up the wads of cash for Greg Marshall.

So sorry to feel this way, but I don't think anyone can really say this is a knee-jerk reaction, it is cumulative, and this is not the straw, it is the hay bale that broke the proverbial camel's back.

I don't think Gregg Marshall would have any interest in coming here.

 

[Illinnoying Orange]

If you haven't been following basketball what could you possibly be following? Surely not football, lol. Is it baseball? Volleyball?

Well since u asked, definitely not football during the Beckman era. He was an embarrassment. After his first year as coach, I vowed not to go to another game until there was a new coach. I went to a game this year and had fun.

The past couple of years, I found myself following the baseball and wrestling teams due to their success.

B-ball hasn't been interesting since the Dee Brown, Deron Williams years.

 

[Soxfreak64]

Amen. We need coach who can increase our level of talent. How many games a year does coachng win? How many games a year does talent win?

Look at Lon Kruger's Oklahoma team for your answer.

What are they right now, #1 nationwide?

 

[WesterveltVictoryCigar]

Funny thing is we didn't even shoot all that bad at 43%. Of course Indiana shot lights out but still. Our perimeter defense is laughable. Almost every game. I would love to see what the average 3pt% of our opponents is this season. I would bet it's over 40%.

It's right at 40% for the season, 42% in conference games. Amazingly bad.

 

[IlliniRunIn07]

Sam I Am ‏@B1G_Samb0 11h11 hours ago
Groce is the best coach I've ever had.

Retweeted by Kevin Berardini and some former Illinois players last night. Interesting stuff. I think it speaks to the kind of guy Groce is. I know he is probably out the door but I think his character shows here. Not that character is what wins B10 basketball games.

He's a player's coach, so that isn't surprising. Guys absolutely love him, and it's not hard to see why. Groce can be inspirational. While it's nice that he's not considered a #dreamkilla, I'm just about off the Groce bandwagon.

Like many others, I tuned in last night expecting a loss. I just wanted to see if we could keep it interesting down the stretch, maybe see some nice freshmen progression, and see the impact Thorne had on the game. I didn't have high expectations whatsoever, but wow last night was awful. I watched every minute of the beat down in East Lansing, but I turned this game off once the score got to +20. For those of you that only saw the final score and thought that it was bad, the actual game was 10 times worse. They were not hitting tough shots. They were getting the easiest looks I've ever seen, a dunk or a layup every other play or a wide open three. Every play IU ran coming out of a timeout was executed masterfully. Without Thorne, we were getting manhandled on the rebounds. Our players completely wilted under that adversity. I'm not going to say that they don't care. I'm sure all the players hurt worse than we all do today. But man, they sure didn't act like they cared all that much last night.

There's still too much of the season for me to say "Fire Groce!" I really thought this year was a freebie for him. But injuries or not, there is absolutely no excuse for what happened last night. I can deal with inconsistency from this young group. I can deal with an off game every now and then since we are still not at full strength. But to lose by almost 40 to a team we used to consider our biggest rival, and to look completely basketball illiterate while we did it, unacceptable.

 

[IlliNYC]

Amen. We need coach who can increase our level of talent. How many games a year does coachng win? How many games a year does talent win?

Here's what I know: good coaches win. They do it in different ways--some getting great talent like Cal while others do it with less talented system players like Bo did for so many years.

 

[IlliniOllie]

If we fire groce we can kiss the players goodbye , decommits , transfers and no team and then who are we gonna blame then ? You think it's ugly now we'll have to wait another five years just to rebuild , put a new system in place , recruit and sell the program again . we put up with Weber for years and his roster was better than this one by a long shot .take the lumps now and let it play out , besides this will be the first time groce hasn't made it to the post season here , a NCAA berth and two N.I.T 's (being on the bubble the last two) is a lot better than getting here and having no post season at all , then call for his head. You can't help it that some players are hard headed , don't listen and dont execute the plays drawn up
With two limited pg's , bigs riddle with injuries, all in all y'all set y'all selves up for failure after the snow ball started down hill trynnna pump yourselves up by thinking we still could compete with all that happened to us.Get the freshman game experience and lets see wat we can do when a real point guard get here and we're healthy.

No. Just... no. The Not Invited Tournament doesn't count as the postseason. Maybe at a small school low major it does, maybe at Northwestern or Rutgers it does, but it's worthless as currency here. Especially when we roll out the performance that we put on the floor last year against Alabama.