Let me apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I've been wanting to do this analysis for a while. To put some numbers behind the argument that Groce is underachieving with the talent he has, I created a chart comparing the talent level and on-court success. Here are the two things measured:
- B1G Standing: Pretty straight forward, just the final B1G standing for each season (and current standing for this season)
- Talent: This one is a little more complicated. To create a proxy for talent, I created a four-year average of the team's recruiting class ranking in the B1G, from 247Sports' Composite Rankings. For example, the talent metric for 2016-17 is the average B1G recruiting class ranking of 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Illinois
Based on this data,
Groce has consistently underachieved given the talent available. Of course there are come caveats wth this data: the talent metric doesn't take into account players leaving early, transfers, injuries, etc. and suffers from the same bias as all recruit rankings services. But regardless, evidence points to Groce underachieving with very solid talent.
Let's compare this to some other programs and coaches over the same period:
Indiana
Indiana under Crean has been a roller-coaster, and this backs that up. Crean has gotten consistent talent since he got there, but results have fluctuated widly (just like his rosters).
Wisconsin
Wisconsin on the other hand (like we might expect) has wildly overachieved. You can definitely argue that they've found some gems recruiting (like Kaminsky) so the talent level here is artificially low. But regardless, Bo and not Gard have done a great job coaching up Wisc teams.
I have other examples I could add (
like Purdue overachieving and MSU not) but for the sake of not making this any longer I'll stop here.