Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread (August 2018)

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#876      

PlayAZ

P
PlayAZ
Ga65 said:
Nnaji seems to be the best offensive player but Tschiebwe seems better on the boards. Would like to see what Kane looks like because Nnaji looks quick enough to guard a PF and maybe a wing but not as effective vs a big center. Would love to have a choice with either. Jitoboh would be my third choice but a great consolation prize.
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That is why I proposed this to get actual opinions. Thanks to all so far, Nnaji is the most offensive I agree, plus we might have the best chance with him(?), Tschiebwe, I would love over any other player not named Liddell actually...just don't see it, and as far as Jitoboh, he seems very non mobile, very stagnant in the little I have seen of him, he just doesn't seem to fit a BU type of big with our offense?

End of the day Kane will be owning the #5 non position type of slot...really looking forward to seeing him grown into a legit B1G player.
 
#878      

Johnny Lawrence

Johnny Lawrence
Johnny Lawrence
Second and Chalmers said:
You can't go back in time, but I am definitely interested to see how he does at DePaul. I wish him the best and suspect he might reappear as a better player.

The post-Illini careers of Myke Henry and Kendrick Nunn speak volumes, IMO. You could even include Mike LaTulip in that to a certain extent. Ahmad Starks and Aaron Cosby were also much better players in their pre-Illini iterations.
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Theoretically all transfers should be better since they are two years older physically and mentally. And if they have any pride I'm assuming they work on any weaknesses exposes in their first go around.
 
#879      

jmilt7

J
Waukegan
jmilt7
Indy Illini Fan said:
Cant forget about Tre Mitchell and Kai Jones. Antigua has a good relationship with Mitchell and is really trying on him.
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Just saw somewhere that Mitchell just picked up two CBs for Notre Dame. Don't shoot the messenger
 
#880      

Obelix

Obelix
Obelix
Bill Lumbergh said:
Recruiting doesn't take place in a vacuum. Ex: Groce's early classes came when our program was down, but not post-Groce era down as Underwood has faced.
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Weber inherited a brand new Ferrari, one of the best programs at the time with upward momentum and at the end of his tenure the program was not making post-season. Groce actually overachieved at the beginning, but his entire era is pretty much an NIT team. That is a far cry from the heydays of the program (2000-06) but not really "trash" as many have called it. Simply an NIT program that has been irrelevant, DePaul in comparison would be very far below. Groce was simply a coach who failed to return the program back to prominence. A lot of posters present the situation as much worse that it was to excuse some of the misses/bad season, yet 75% on this board believed that we were going to make the NCAA (before the EIU game) and 95% thought we were at least making post-season (at least NIT).

Illinois is not an easy job, but taking an NIT team/program and expecting to elevate the program to a steady NCAA team, with better recruiting results is not an unreasonable requirement. Actually, it is what should be expected, and more. BU and staff need to change the current direction/state of the program soon. We need a very strong finish to the 2019 fall recruiting class (which has not started well) and a good showing this coming basketball season. The rest is excuses IMO.
 
#881      

Dbell1981

D
Decatur, IL
Dbell1981
We need a very strong finish to the 2019 fall recruiting class (which has not started well) and a good showing this coming basketball season. The rest is excuses IMO.[/QUOTE]

As long as we can add some beef on the frontline the most important thing is the results and player growth this year. If we stink it up on D again it won't be an easy thing for coach to explain to his boss. The wide open layups need to be a thing of the past. If they are in position and contesting but getting beat because they are young and need to develop physically(Kane)I can grudgingly bear. Oh and no transfers out after the season!!!
 
#882      

Obelix

Obelix
Obelix
There seems to be a very popular view that recruiting will drastically change with a better showing than last year. While on court performance and results help, good recruiters are good recruiters, they overachieve given the state of the program. As our own history shows, good results and performance do not always translate into better recruiting. Weber had great on-court success (with Self's recruits) but recruiting deteriorated.

In one of his early interviews after BU was hired, Joe Henricksen had mentioned that he was hearing many people praise BU for his on-court coaching. Henricksen mentioned, however, what he was not hearing from people was that BU was a good recruiter. I was personally very encouraged when BU hired Chin and Antigua and mentioned so. Chin has the MIF connection, and Antigua is very well known in the AAU scene. I was talking to one prominent coach of a national program (not in Illinois) about 2 months ago and he said to me "Orlando is very good..." I also talked to a person extremely close to the Whitney/Shannon recruitments and he said to me that "Whitney will not end up at Illinois, but Illinois is in great shape with Shannon." So it is kind of discouraging when we somehow lose Shannon.

I really think both Orlando and Chin are great recruiting hires, and I do believe they are truly great recruiting assistants, but at the end players know that they will play for the head coach so their recruiting results may vary. Hopefully, it is early recruiting jitters for BU at UI, but we need some urgent surprising news right now. Some positive surprise.
 
#883      

EJ33

E
San Francisco
EJ33
Second and Chalmers said:
The point is, when you look at the instant impact Underwood was able to make at SFA and OSU, both looking at numbers and the eye test of having seen a good amount of that OSU team, as well as some of the later-year SFA teams, you are left with the strong impression that Brad Underwood is the absolute real deal with a greaseboard and in the practice gym. An X's and O's puppeteer who belongs at the Big Ten level. And with very little to no evidence to the contrary. Programs like ours are able to land resumes like that very, very rarely.
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This is just wrong. Recruiting a good, experienced coach was a Mike Thomas problem not an Illinois problem. Prior to Thomas, hiring a coach with a better resume than Underwood was the norm, not the exception - see Lou Henson, Lon Kruger, and Bill Self. Even Weber had a Sweet 16 appearance - something Underwood has yet to do. We could also mention Gene Bartow who was regarded highly enough that UCLA hired him after one losing season at Illinois. We could go through this in football too.
 
#884      

Second and Chalmers

S
Second and Chalmers
EJ33 said:
This is just wrong. Recruiting a good, experienced coach was a Mike Thomas problem not an Illinois problem. Prior to Thomas, hiring a coach with a better resume than Underwood was the norm, not the exception - see Lou Henson, Lon Kruger, and Bill Self. Even Weber had a Sweet 16 appearance - something Underwood has yet to do. We could also mention Gene Bartow who was regarded highly enough that UCLA hired him after one losing season at Illinois. We could go through this in football too.
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Bartow and Lou are a million years ago, a different coaching market. Self and Weber had never been in major conferences before. Kruger's Florida program was in decline.

Which isn't to say any of the above weren't great hires. Or that other programs comparable to us can't make great hires. Or that Underwood was or is some totally singular coaching superstar. But he had a great resume, of a kind non-blue bloods seldom have access to. I certainly stand by that statement.

Whitman is really good.

(Groce was a bad hire who had a really weak resume, a terrible mistake by Thomas, calling his judgment deeply into question, if that's what you're insisting upon here. That's totally true. Illinois could have and should have done better in that process.)
 
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#885      

skyIdub

skyIdub
Winged Warrior
skyIdub
sacraig said:
Of course, there are also mitigating facts here:
In year 1 at SFA, Underwood had a much lower level of competition than he does in the Big Ten.
In year 1 at OSU, Underwood had an NBA talent on the roster in Jawun Evans.
In year 1 at Illinois, Underwood was coaching what was essentially the national team from the Island of Misfit Toys. Lots of potential and good people there, but no history of actually putting it all together (or even getting particularly close).

All things considered, I was still happy with last year's improvements on both sides of the ball, even if the W-L record didn't reflect it as much as hoped. That was still nearly a 40-spot improvement on offense despite Finke suddenly forgetting how to shoot, having no other real sharpshooters, and losing most of our production from the previous year.
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QOTD. The whole thread was worth reading for just this mental image.

proxy
 
#886      

Johnny Lawrence

Johnny Lawrence
Johnny Lawrence
Second and Chalmers said:
The facts are these. (All per Kenpom)

In year 1 at SFA, Underwood, Boynton and Gentry transformed offense #215 into offense #58
In year 1 at OSU, Underwood, Boynton, Gentry and Evans transformed offense #151 into offense #1
In year 1 at Illinois, Underwood alone transformed offense #123 into offense #86

As I said during the season, all the major elements of Underwoodball were there for us, it's not like that transformation wasn't being attempted, but we were just a bad cover band version of the immediate sweet music he'd made at his other spots.

Having singularly terrible players is a potential explanation for that. A total lack of experience on the part of the staff in installing the system, getting the little things right, being multipliers of the coaches expertise, being the mortar connecting the bricks, that seems like the far more plausible explanation to me.

The good news is, while our staff still aren't truly "Underwood guys", they are unquestionably better equipped to be teachers of this system now than they were a year ago. That is one of my biggest sources of positivity when I look toward this coming season.



Not that it's an Illini syndrome, but I think that John Groce was a poor developer and deployer of talent. Not up to Big Ten standards in those regards.
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Just imagine how much we would have jumped in the ranking is we had guys who could make shots.
 
#887      

SergioKittner

S
SergioKittner
Obelix said:
There seems to be a very popular view that recruiting will drastically change with a better showing than last year. While on court performance and results help, good recruiters are good recruiters, they overachieve given the state of the program. As our own history shows, good results and performance do not always translate into better recruiting. Weber had great on-court success (with Self's recruits) but recruiting deteriorated.

In one of his early interviews after BU was hired, Joe Henricksen had mentioned that he was hearing many people praise BU for his on-court coaching. Henricksen mentioned, however, what he was not hearing from people was that BU was a good recruiter. I was personally very encouraged when BU hired Chin and Antigua and mentioned so. Chin has the MIF connection, and Antigua is very well known in the AAU scene. I was talking to one prominent coach of a national program (not in Illinois) about 2 months ago and he said to me "Orlando is very good..." I also talked to a person extremely close to the Whitney/Shannon recruitments and he said to me that "Whitney will not end up at Illinois, but Illinois is in great shape with Shannon." So it is kind of discouraging when we somehow lose Shannon.

I really think both Orlando and Chin are great recruiting hires, and I do believe they are truly great recruiting assistants, but at the end players know that they will play for the head coach so their recruiting results may vary. Hopefully, it is early recruiting jitters for BU at UI, but we need some urgent surprising news right now. Some positive surprise.
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I think we need to give him 3 seasons and evaluate. After the 1st season, there aren't a lot of encouraging signs on the recruiting front (although not completely hopeless by any stretch, either). Losing Shannon to DePaul at least makes some sense from a sentimental point of view (which seems to be a strong motivator in recruits decision-making process). I never believed we had a shot at Whitney, although I wanted to believe it, knowing what type of player he is. On the point of recruiting-centric coaches, Chin has already landed one big fish. Now it is Antigua's turn. A couple star players can take a program a long way (if they don't leave before they contribute to on-court success).
 
#888      

Goldtop

Goldtop
Goldtop
Second and Chalmers said:
(Groce was a bad hire who had a really weak resume, a terrible mistake by Thomas, calling his judgment deeply into question, if that's what you're insisting upon here. That's totally true. Illinois could have and should have done better in that process.)
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True, but what was more demoralizing to this Illini fan was the public dissing from all the coaches who wouldn't take the job, leaving us with Groce.
 
#892      

EJ33

E
San Francisco
EJ33
Second and Chalmers said:
Bartow and Lou are a million years ago, a different coaching market. Self and Weber had never been in major conferences before. Kruger's Florida program was in decline.

Which isn't to say any of the above weren't great hires. Or that other programs comparable to us can't make great hires. Or that Underwood was or is some totally singular coaching superstar. But he had a great resume, of a kind non-blue bloods seldom have access to. I certainly stand by that statement.

Whitman is really good.

(Groce was a bad hire who had a really weak resume, a terrible mistake by Thomas, calling his judgment deeply into question, if that's what you're insisting upon here. That's totally true. Illinois could have and should have done better in that process.)
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Dude, just admit it when your hot take is way off base.

Your take that "programs like ours are able to land resumes like that (Underwood) very, very rarely" is wrong and your rebuttals are weak. Let's just look at one metric that coaches are judged by: NCAA tournament performance. By that measure Underwood would be the least accomplished hire in about 50 years.

This whole thread you're driving is a bunch of pedantic gibberish. By next spring we'll have a much better idea about how things are going to go with Underwood. Until then it's just a bunch of weak predictions based on a small data set.
 
#893      

Ga65

G
Ga65
I'll say again, we can't judge the recruiting until the end of the season.
 
#895      

ugottabjoshinme

ugottabjoshinme
ugottabjoshinme
Joel Goodson said:
Coming in in March, I find it really difficult to characterize Underwood's first class as "year 1." Slap a big, fat asterisk on it.
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But March is the time when new coaches normally come in. It's not like he was way behind the cycle like Lovie was where he basically missed the whole recruiting season.
 
#896      

foby

foby
Bonnaroo Land
foby
To all you historians, when was the last time we had an early commitment? At least by the August before the signing period, if not earlier.
 
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