icengineer
- Southern Illinois
His Royal Frankness.
Hayes' game seems to have slipped a little if anything.
BTW, Damonte's commitment sealed the deal for JG's return next year, IMO. I thought he'd be back next year regardless, but landing HRF's son was the coup de gras. The needle is beginning to point up again. If LB and/or MT (doubting the latter) returns next year, good times are coming, barring another spate of injuries, of course.
He is always JFG. JFG the good way when he is landing recruits. Or JFG the way Red Sox fans refer to Aaron Boone or Bucky Dent. AFB & BFD.I felt JG would be back too due to the instability in the athletic department and all the large buyouts.
Dare to dream but if he can land Goodwin and Tilmon he might be back to being JFG lol.
What does "HRF" stand for? Obviously Frank Williams - but trying to figure out the acronym.
I'm in a weird place right now. I simultaneously desperately hope Groce is back for another year and find every argument I read for his retention to be nails-on-chalkboard awful.
There is no question that he deserves to be fired, and yet no question that the best move for Illinois' future is to keep him. Strange times.
:thumb:His Royal Frankness.
His Royal Frankness.
I've been trying to not comment on anything Groce related, just assuming he'd get another year, and I know this result was not shocking by any means. But the non-competitiveness of this team and the complete lack of anything resembling an offensive or defensive system has me believing now is the time for a change. There is literally nothing you can hang your hat on or look to and think, "ok we're on the right track, if we have some better health next year, this is a top half of the big ten program."
I know people will point to the Damonte Williams verbal, but I'm willing to take our chances that the next coach can keep a legacy that supposedly was going to be an Illini all along. Also, I've seen the Tilmon story way too many times since I started following Illinois recruiting in 2004. The 5 star that loves Illinois and is just a matter of time until he verbals. I'll let a new, exciting hire that hopefully can keep Williams and Pickett, try his hand at the Tilmon recruitment.
Been a very difficult year for the fans.
However, were we to get back the bigs we lost, we should have been in far better shape. That much I am willing to give to Groce.
Where I think he has done very poorly is in recruiting - his supposed strength. He should have had at least one if not two very good (not great) PGs by now. And same with a center.
When MT first hired him, I recall, he had the backing of a few players at tOSU and a parent who is a rather well known broadcaster and an ex tOSU star.
Now that he has two PGs in the fold and assuming he gets a good center, he deserves a year or two.
Just hypothetical, if Whittman fires Groce, is it time to seriously look at Jerrance as a candidate?
I'm not an insider at all, but I believe I recall the opinion of the board when JH and BW were here was that BW told the players one thing and JH told them another. That it made discipline and commitment to the scheme more difficult than it needed to be.
That's a rumor and a pretty well dated one, but it concerned me then and if not refuted, would continue to concern me now.
This ^^^I have already stated in other posts the statistics and anecdotal evidence of why JG should not be here after this year. Watch the first five minutes of last night's game. That is the season, that is the JG era. No plan on offense resulting in poor shots and no ability or desire to create pressure or pace. An out of his depth AD hired an out of his depth coach. Make the right hire and Williams stays. Look for a young up and comer, like Hurley or Drew. Drew is a better fit b/c he has won consistently. Someone who played at a high level who can win the press conference (which JG does as well) but has the coaching chops to boot.
I only bring this guy guy up, because his success has been pretty remarkable at every stop, but what was wrong with hiring Cuonzo Martin back in 2011? I believe he was on the carousel back when we were making our hire and with his Midwest roots, especially the St. Louis area, hind sight to me says that may have been too good to be true.
For one thing the job wasn't open in 2011. Martin had just finished his first season at Tennessee when we fired Weber. But I do remember his name coming up. The knock on him was that we wanted away from the Gene Keady coaching tree and the ugly basketball that goes along with that.
People at the time associated a slow, plodding, physical style of basketball with an inability to recruit elite players. Anyone familiar with the careers of Ben Howland, Bob Huggins, or now Cuonzo Martin knows that's not true, but that was the conventional wisdom on this board at the time.
No, he isn't qualified at this moment of his career.
and I said the Illini tanked without him --where?
I said a team that went 27-1 with him went 4-4 without him even with some very good players on the bench. So, ok, my memory isn't the best, but a team that went 23-1 with him went 8-4 without him. Still quite a difference. Losing key players whether they're future NBA stars or not severely disrupts a team and it stands to reason losing multiple key players only makes it worse. And it doesn't matter who the coach is.
I don't think anyone knows whether Groce is da man yet, but saying he isn't based primarily on this season is ridiculous.
. And Henson had to play the season with Nick, Gill or Bardo, Smith, Kaufmann and Liberty (who I realize were both freshmen), Bowman etc. Might have done okay now with that team but back when players stayed 3 or 4 years on every team, they wouldn't have been very good.
Jerrance Howard has never even been the actual #1 assistant on any D1 team. Meaning if the HC got fired he'd be the one to step in. I don't know that he's ever even been the #2 assistant anywhere, let alone 1st. Here at UI he was def 3rd, at SMU Jankovic for sure was above, maybe he was 2nd there? At Kansas he's the 3rd assistant. So aside from possibly one year of being the second assistant at SMU he's done relatively little to warrant any consideration as a HC anywhere. His number one priority at every stop as a coach has been as a recruiter. Heck I think even a Bradley type situation would even be a bit of a stretch at this point, though I could see that happening a few years down the road. Given these facts, I wonder why any Illini fan would even give a moments thought to JH being the HC here at UI???? :noidea: