Alonzo Verge.
There's a recent throwback of a name.
In honor of Mike "the Elevator"!!
Alonzo Verge.
There's a recent throwback of a name.
For my part, I'll be happy if we just land a couple of bigs in the fall who we've scouted thoroughly and who fit the system, and then go out and win just more games than last year.
But the non-negotiable pieces of that are that we show increased sharpness and fluidity in the system we're running, and that we don't suffer any more damaging defections. That stuff is the most critical.
And, at this point, Walker ought to be gone for someone new, preferably an Underwood vet and/or a spread offense guru.
I believe they were referring to Chicagoland talent.
Man has The Show recruitment been quiet.
For my part, I'll be happy if we just land a couple of bigs in the fall who we've scouted thoroughly and who fit the system, and then go out and win just more games than last year.
But the non-negotiable pieces of that are that we show increased sharpness and fluidity in the system we're running, and that we don't suffer any more damaging defections. That stuff is the most critical.
And, at this point, Walker ought to be gone for someone new, preferably an Underwood vet and/or a spread offense guru.
This narrative is so tired. Yes, he was a master at diamond in the rough finding and player developing, but all his good teams contained some high rated talent. Not to the level of Duke or Kansas or UNC these days, but guys like Dekker and Butch were 5 star guys, and I'm sure if recruiting ranking was as prolific as it is now, many more would be higher ranked, especially guys like Joe Krabenhoft, Jon Leuer, and James (?) Bohannon would've been higher, though IIRC they were considered good gets.If recruiting"by rankings" was everything Bo Ryan would have been fired by Wisconsin before he had a chance to start a legacy.
Moral of the story is that you need to do more than just one thing good, unless you're a blue blood, and there will only ever be 4 of those.
Shiny new toys are nice but only a (small) part of the formula. We went 339-77 in Huff Hall including 9-0 the year before we moved to the Assembly Hall. That gym that Duke plays in now is just a slightly larger version of Huff. We are 13-17 in B10 home games since the $160M renovation on Assembly Hall. Putting a little lipstick on our practice facility won't hurt, but it probably won't help much either. Henson's teams practiced in Huff or Old Men's Gym when they were available. Other times they used high school facilities. They didn't have a dedicated practice facility.
I find it interesting that pessimists always call themselves realists. Not saying that applies to you, just in general.
Exactly! I don't think that facilities are the deciding factor in getting a recruit but, one will certainly lose recruits if one doesn't have prime facilities.I think one thing a lot of folks seem to overlook is facilities. Take a situation like the one we just went through, for example. Now, I am not saying that this is what pushed Liddell to Ohio State over us, but it's a plausible factor in similar situations. A guy come in and sees several schools. All have second-year coaches with not a lot of track record at said school but solid track records elsewhere. All are power conference schools (arguably) in driving distance. So, what makes the decision? You have to think that, for someone with NBA potential, he wants those top flight training facilities on day one to help maximize his potential as soon as possible, such as what Ohio State has. Meanwhile, we have committed to upgrading our facilities, but a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
So, in short, I don't think winning solves everything. I think winning helps. New training facilities help. Building up some swagger around the program helps. I think we are on our way to doing all of these things, but it takes time, and our program had been dragged so far through the dirt prior to this that it's almost like starting with nothing. Ayo is an outlier, not a trend. We need that to be a trend.
I think Ohio St. got some tremendous mileage out of Bates-Diop just coming of age. He wasn't much of a factor prior to this last season. If AJ has a Bates-Diop season this year, all the credit in the world would go to our staff for player development and recruits will be beating down the door next year.Sorry to keep beating the dead horse, but how much different would our recent history be if we managed to keep the Illinois kids that went to Ohio St.? The unfortunately long list includes Evan Turner, Lenzelle Smith Jr., Sam Thompson, Keita Bates-Diop,and now EJ Liddell. All were "getable" and those types of kids were the bread and butter of Illinois recruiting during our successful runs; very good players just a notch below blue blood status. Sprinkle in a top player every now and then (Frank Williams, Cook, Dee) and that was the recipe for success. What is funny is that we have managed to maintain a similar pace with the high end talent (Richmond, Leonard, Ayo) but it is the next tier where we have fallen off.
My other point is that I can't believe it's Ohio St. doing this to us. I lived in Columbus for 4 years and it is a fine school in a nice town, but I just don't see what the draw is for these Illinois kids to go to a mid-tier basketball program two states away with no special connections. Basketball will always be second fiddle to football and all the jokes about that are absolutely true. Yes they've had some recent success starting with Matta getting fortunate with Oden/Conley when IU was a mess and then in the Sullinger years, but it's not like they've been some powerhouse for a long time now. It's been 6 years since they made it out of the first weekend of the tournament. There are a number of other programs that would make a ton more sense if they were doing this to us. Michigan St. with all their success. Indiana with their history and proximity. Even Wisconsin with the run they went on recently. Purdue under Painter. But Ohio St.??? I just don't get it.
Exactly! I don't think that facilities are the deciding factor in getting a recruit but, one will certainly lose recruits if one doesn't have prime facilities.
I have an acquaintance who is an athletic trainer and he recently got to tour Alabama's facilities. They basically have stuff that you'd only expect to see in places like the USOC facilities in Colorado Springs, or in forward-thinking pro facilities. I would expect that OSU or Oregon would have that type of human performance infrastructure as well, and I can confirm that Illinois does not.One more point supporting my original thesis, this time taken from the football side of things: Jimbo Fisher left FSU in part because Texas A&M offered him a fat paycheck. But the biggest factor he cited was that the FSU administration would not commit to upgrading the training facilities in a timely manner, and A&M's administration would. Training facilities are a huge party of today's haves-and-have-nots landscape in NCAA athletics.
Whitman, for his part, seems to understand this.
The only thing Matt Doherty did well was get in a fight with Chris Collins. In a just world, that would be enough to make him a successful coach.Ask Matt Doherty or Billy Gillispie if blue bloods only need to do one thing good.
The four guys occupying those jobs at present are all HISTORICALLY great coaches who would have been enormous successes absolutely anywhere.
Anything, ANYTHING, throw any combination of words you can find at the truth to make it go away and let Loyalty get back to holding up a boombox outside the house of whoever the next Diane Court is. This one will understand how special we are.
IllinoisLloydDobler.com
Who said that Holtmann had anything to do with it? I was responding to someone who appears to have been comparing the success Holtmann is having with what Underwood has accomplished, and I stand by what I said. Recruiting to OSU is far easier right now than recruiting to Illinois, and if you're expectation is that we can do what OSU is doing right now, you're going to be disappointed.
As for last year's performance, who cares what we thought would happen? Preseason predictions are notoriously and grossly unreliable, and yet it seems like some folks are making the argument that since we performed worse than expected that we underachieved. Underachieved against those expectations, yes, but that's it, and that's not super meaningful when trying to evaluate whether a team performed better than its true talent level.
I am unhappy with how things have unfolded. I'm also unwilling to ignore the structural issues that were in place when Underwood arrived on campus, and largely remain in place to this day.
I don’t think anyone is saying that any specific thing is the deterrent for recruits but we there needs to be a focus on some of the limitations since they are the ones that can be controlled. At the very least we should have some of the best practice facilities in the conference but I’d be surprised if we’re even in the top half.Facilities help but are not the main determinant. Illinois has never had the best facilities in college basketball, yet there were periods of time (80s and 1999-2006) that we really really good, if not outstanding. If we are waiting for all facilities to become state-of-the-art to become contenders in the B1G, then unfortunately that will be a long wait. Again, taking a steady NIT team and making it a steady NCAA team is not the impossibility that some fans believe. It should be expected to happen, and it should actually happen before major upgrades are undertaken let alone completed. We just completed a major major renovation at Assembly Hall (SFC), yet there was no impact on performance or recruiting.
I don’t think anyone is saying that any specific thing is the deterrent for recruits but we there needs to be a focus on some of the limitations since they are the ones that can be controlled. At the very least we should have some of the best practice facilities in the conference but I’d be surprised if we’re even in the top half.
It’s hard to say. Maybe we wouldn’t have gotten Ayo or Tevian without the renovation but we’ll never know. I agree with the last part though, if anything for my own sanity.I understand that, but hey, we just finished an amazing renovation at Assembly Hall that was frequently cited as a potential positive influence. No real effect on performance or recruiting. Was it a bad idea? Of course not, great idea and needed to be done. But that was not the core of our problems. Same with practice and training facilities. We should eventually do a renovation, definitely. But it will take some time and in the meantime I believe we really CAN become a consistent NCAA team/program. Even before completing the renovations that will take some time.
enormous successes...except at West Point. Success maybe...but not "enormous".Ask Matt Doherty or Billy Gillispie if blue bloods only need to do one thing good.
The four guys occupying those jobs at present are all HISTORICALLY great coaches who would have been enormous successes absolutely anywhere.
enormous successes...except at West Point. Success maybe...but not "enormous".
I find it interesting that optimists call realists pessimists.