The Illinois Coaching Search

[EthanM]

Well I'm not entirely shocked that Cuonzo is headed to Mizzou, but that does go against what I heard from my source on a WCC team. I'll be watching Cal's coaching replacement just to see if he was completely full of crap.

I hope that JW has someone else better in line, because if our search falls to our 4th or 5th choice and we end up losing this recruiting class, we'll be doing this again in 3 or 4 years.

 

[Deleted member 236589]

:smash:

This may be a gross overreaction.....But there are multiple coaching positions starting to open up and we have a dire need for an impact hire given our last two coaching "situations".

The coaches that are being talked about are.....Hard to imagine. I don't see Bennett getting out of Virginia. They're going to ante up.

Cuonzo was attainable. That ship has now sailed.

If Keatts ends up at NCSt......Watch the meltdown.

 

[GoIllini40]

Why are you guys freaking out over Martin to Mizzou bringing the #1 recruit? We all knew Martin could bring in recruits, we also know the man has trouble with Xs and Os. Just because you get talent doesn't mean you'll win. I'd still rather have a Keatts or Bennett for the long term and I think we'd win more right away. Don't sweat it!

Bennett for sure. Keatts has no recruiting history to go by.

 

[Love the Illini]

His name hasn't been mentioned yet but I think Illini should at least look at Ben Jacobson at Northern Iowa. He has had a lot of success at a place that is basically in the middle of nowhere with no recruiting base at UNI. A top notch X and O Coach runs the packline defense and a great person. Has proven he can compete at the power 5 level beat both North Carolina and Iowa State last year with lesser talent and went to a sweet 16 beating Kansas few years earlier. Year before had a top 15 team with mostly Iowa kids. Competes with both ISU and Iowa most years. Would love to see what he would do with Big 10 talent. Has turned down interviews in the past but now might be the time for him to move only paid about 500,00 at UNI. Only possible question with him might be on the recruiting end.

 

[Deleted member 10676]

Well we can clear up one question.

Martin, whose first name is pronounced KAHN-zo,

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/coll...cle_806a09fe-50f1-516c-bac3-ce3204d00d14.html

 

[Obelix]

Again, it just shows you that Cuonzo Martin to Mizzou is bad news. He can recruit. Recruiting closer to Illinois and regularly competing in recruiting against us, has little to do with whether people like his overall coaching abilities or not.

We need a very dynamic recruiter to counter.

 

[PostersLastStand]

Pre-Groce. I'll wear that one.

Theus had a stronger resume than Groce.

I never saw Reggie lose a game on T.V. Amazing prime time record. But seriously he did have a better resume. And we are not getting Ken Anderson aka The White Shadow, sadly he passed away last year.

 

[BananaShampoo]

His name hasn't been mentioned yet but I think Illini should at least look at Ben Jacobson at Northern Iowa. He has had a lot of success at a place that is basically in the middle of nowhere with no recruiting base at UNI. A top notch X and O Coach runs the packline defense and a great person. Has proven he can compete at the power 5 level beat both North Carolina and Iowa State last year with lesser talent and went to a sweet 16 beating Kansas few years earlier. Year before had a top 15 team with mostly Iowa kids. Competes with both ISU and Iowa most years. Would love to see what he would do with Big 10 talent. Has turned down interviews in the past but now might be the time for him to move only paid about 500,00 at UNI. Only possible question with him might be on the recruiting end.

He has been mentioned actually, but it's just been buried in the hundreds of pages of this thread. :thumb:

 

[GBPillini]

This may be a gross overreaction.....But there are multiple coaching positions starting to open up and we have a dire need for an impact hire given our last two coaching "situations".

The coaches that are being talked about are.....Hard to imagine. I don't see Bennett getting out of Virginia. They're going to ante up.

Cuonzo was attainable. That ship has now sailed.

If Keatts ends up at NCSt......Watch the meltdown.

The majority of the candidates are still coaching their teams in the real tournament. Going to need to be a little patient with this. It's been less than a week. Have a little faith in Whitman before we start the meltdown.

 

[Second and Chalmers]

Well we can clear up one question.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/coll...cle_806a09fe-50f1-516c-bac3-ce3204d00d14.html

 

[madcrazeeballa]

This is undeniably true.

But if the Porters and Cuonzo were a package available to Illinois (a set of facts which are NOT in evidence and which there is considerable reason to doubt), that changes the calculus to some extent. It just does.

I agree it may change the calculus, but I'm not convinced it changes it so much so that Cuonzo would have or should have been at the top of our wish list. I definitely get the allure of adding Porter Jr to an already very good class (assuming we would keep everyone in this scenario), but Porter Jr is a one year rental and I've already seen a scenario where Cuonzo coaches a team with two NBA talents to a first round exit and falls on his face the following year (last two years)

Regardless, this is all moot now and I hope JW makes a great hire in the next week or two that can get Illinois basketball back to where it belongs.

 

[Second and Chalmers]

We need a very dynamic recruiter to counter.

No, we need the same thing we've needed the whole time. The right guy.

 

[Deleted member 236589]

Game film


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Ok.....If you've done the analysis on Cal and/or Tennessee games and determined that he struggles with his game planning and adjustments, I can accept that. That's, if you've actually done analysis that's deeper than, they have two NBA players, didn't make the tournament, so he doesn't know X's and O's.

 

[dweebs19]

Again, it just shows you that Cuonzo Martin to Mizzou is bad news. He can recruit. Recruiting closer to Illinois and regularly competing in recruiting against us, has little to do with whether people like his overall coaching abilities or not.

We need a very dynamic recruiter to counter.

which coach who is out there do you think Illinois could counter with? just curious on who you think would be a good coach to get to counter the Mizzou move

 

[Second and Chalmers]

Ok.....If you've done the analysis on Cal and/or Tennessee games and determined that he struggles with his game planning and adjustments, I can accept that. That's, if you've actually done analysis that's deeper than, they have two NBA players, didn't make the tournament, so he doesn't know X's and O's.

I'm kinda surprised they haven't done better based on the games I've watched. They look well coached to me.

Save for the Hawaii tournament game though I don't think I've ever seen a Cuonzo loss.

They do things like lose by 30 to Utah in a make-or-break bubble game. I'm sure that film isn't pretty.

 

[Deleted member 228346]

This may be a gross overreaction.....But there are multiple coaching positions starting to open up and we have a dire need for an impact hire given our last two coaching "situations".

The coaches that are being talked about are.....Hard to imagine. I don't see Bennett getting out of Virginia. They're going to ante up.

Cuonzo was attainable. That ship has now sailed.

If Keatts ends up at NCSt......Watch the meltdown.

There are more than three basketball coaches in existence that can improve Illinois basketball. I'm betting the field.

 

[champaignchris]

If Keatts ends up at NCSt.......

It's because Archie Miller took the Illinois job.

 

[PostersLastStand]

We made a mistake not hiring Cuonzo Martin. He held the keys to the #1 overall recruit in the nation in Michael Porter, and his brother Jontay who is a consensus top 40 player. With Porter, you can almost be certain we keep our recruiting class in tact. We all know Cuonzo can recruit the talent, and he is an upgrade over Groce? I don't see why we would say no to him? Unless we can somehow pull off Tony Bennett, or a miracle happens and we get Monty Williams, I think we will regret this.

I have always thought Cuonzo Martin, being a devoted disciple of Keady, would never come here after Bruce Weber, also a Keady devotee was fired. (Read treated horribly in Cuonzo's eyes). He was never going to be our coach.

 

[Love the Illini]

Rumors of big Illini offer coming for Tony Bennett though I can't see us spending almost 5 million a year on a coach

 

[Second and Chalmers]

There are more than three basketball coaches in existence that can improve Illinois basketball.

This, this, a thousand times this.

 

[Obelix]

No, we need the same thing we've needed the whole time. The right guy.

Unless you define the "right guy" as a guy who is also a very dynamic recruiter, you are looking at testing the hypothesis that you can consistently win at Illinois without greatly upgrading recruiting and incoming talent. History does not support that argument.

People can argue all they want against Ford and Cuonzo, but Illinois needs a dynamic recruiter who can consistently recruit against them, plus all the other name schools who successfully recruit Illinois.

 

[Deleted member 10676]

I have always thought Cuonzo Martin, being a devoted disciple of Keady, would never come here after Bruce Weber, also a Keady devotee was fired. (Read treated horribly in Cuonzo's eyes). He was never going to be our coach.

We certainly were never going to pay him 3 to 3 and a half million a year, so as soon as Mizzou offered that, yes, he was never going to be our coach. Regardless of what he told Finebaum.

 

[Second and Chalmers]

Unless you define the "right guy" as a guy who is also a very dynamic recruiter, you are looking at testing the hypothesis that you can consistently win at Illinois without greatly upgrading recruiting and incoming talent. History does not support that argument.

People can argue all they want against Ford and Cuonzo, but Illinois needs a dynamic recruiter who can consistently recruit against them, plus all the other name schools who successfully recruit Illinois.

The "recruiting" dial on the mixture of qualities Illinois ought to be looking for in a coach did not suddenly get cranked to 11 today.

Our needs remain the same.

 

[Johnny Lawrence]

Anyone have a notion of what the deal for a temporary coach like Walker might entail, if anything. I sort of envision an amendment to the assistant's existing contract dealing with comp matters like additional base, maybe bonuses for games won in postseason, etc. But I'm wondering if somehow JW was on top of the Martin to Mizzou possibility -- maybe for some reason he already knew he wasn't going to hire Martin or might get outbid because he was going to slow play him -- and if so what he might have built into the Walker deal to contractually "dissuade" him from joining the staff of another school. One-time additional bonus if asked to stay by Illinois, clawback of any additional comp from taking over the helm as temporary coach, good-faith effort to hear pitch of new coach to stay at Illinois, etc. Any thoughts? Just wondering what, if anything, a bright guy like JW with a legal background could anticipatorily do to protect Illinois, to the extent possible, from a Walker/Tilmon exodus to Mizzou (or maybe even SLU). Folks have talked about possibly allowing Tilmon but prohibiting transfer to those two schools. Maybe JW could do something to effectively preclude JT and Walker from ending up at the same place.

Just biding my time with what-ifs before we find out who our new man (or woman) is.

Is it possible the longer we last in the NIT, the longer Walker remains on staff (like our real candidates currently prepping for the NCAA) and the better chance we have of him not pouching our commits along to his next stop? It works with ways.

And for the record, I am fine with losing some or all of our recruits if it means hiring the right coach along with his assistants.

 

[PostersLastStand]

I see Cuonzo making it tough for us in the Metro East Area, but I don't see him making in roads in Peoria or Chicago areas.