Coaching Carousel (Basketball)

[pruman91]

Vest Wirginia

ver-gin-ya.....................

 

[BashCtIllini]

Kwa was elevated as a temporary assistant coach … He’s going to be placed back into the role that was he was hired to do …

That gives us 1 opening …

As far as Hamer goes … I’ve said it on here before that I expect transition there … But just because I expect it doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll happen …

Brad hasn’t sat down and figured that out yet … Focused on the tournament …

Usually, that last taste in your mouth can have an extra influence.

Texas is the #69 (haha) team offense and Xavier is #78, in terms of ppg. If we end up losing because of a poor defensive performance, I could see him gone before the plane gets home. Our defense in the BTT was laughably bad.

People seem to like Kentucky as the likely round 2 matchup. Kentucky is scoring 85 a game when they're not playing against Hamerball. I shudder to think how many they could score.

For the record, we are #11 in ppg scored and #261 in ppg given up. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see something is amiss.

 

[21ChampaignSt]

But I will say this, our basketball investment is at an all time high which raises the expectations of the program.

It's all relative to the field. We're spending top 15 money now. Where were we in the 80s? I don't know the answer, but I'm guessing we were probably around top 15 then, too. It's not as if we've started putting significantly more money into our program while other schools remain flat.

 

[mattcoldagelli]

So then Brad Underwood's potential firing isn't being discussed because of results, it's because he failed to do the positive, hard-to-quantify thngs? Tell me, what's the ratio of results to positivity in terms of value here? John Groce brought an awful lot of positivity.

@STLini25 kind of hits on this, but you're not even comparing apples to apples. It's not like we named the court after Lou Henson while he was coaching on it and said "this is it, we've reached the pinnacle of our aspirations!" We did it 20 years after he retired and while we were doing it explicitly said that the program is at much higher level now* due to what he did both on and off the court (somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Lou start both the Krush and the Rebounders Club?)

I know you think you've got some kind of cool gotcha with "we're so un-elite we named the court after Lou Henson!!!111" but that's contingent on the person you're talking to not knowing a whole lot about college basketball, or, you know, how time passes.


*ed. note: um, somewhat debatable in 2015-16, but I digress!

 

[sacraig]

Kwa was elevated as a temporary assistant coach … He’s going to be placed back into the role that was he was hired to do …

That gives us 1 opening …

As far as Hamer goes … I’ve said it on here before that I expect transition there … But just because I expect it doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll happen …

Brad hasn’t sat down and figured that out yet … Focused on the tournament …

Ordinarily, I'd argue he shouldn't cut loose an assistant without a plan to get someone better, but an empty chair could coach defense at least as well as Hamer.

 

[Keisersose]

For the record, we are #11 in ppg scored and #261 in ppg given up. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see something is amiss.

Tempo and number of possessions play a role in this.

If you shoot early and get more possessions, you should score more points. But you are also giving the other team more possessions and opportunities to score. I haven’t seen data on how many more possessions per game are seen in our games compared to others, but I’d love to.

In my younger years, I spent some time with a high school coach that won multiple state championships. A primary part of his strategy was to get more shots up than the other team. He relied on a trapping pressure defense to force a lot of turnovers. He figured most teams at this level would shoot similar percentages. If you put up more shots, you’ll have an advantage as long as you are hitting your percentages. When Brad was making comments about “if we’d only shot 30%”, it sounded similar to what I heard this other coach say before he won his championships.

 

[Mr. Tibbs]

Seems to me that Ole Miss took a shot and it is going okay so far. This is high stakes collegiate sports. People get second chances all the time short of someone like Dave Bliss

agree
if what her initial report said was true , he did a real bad thing , but it’s not like he needs a lifetime ban .

I get it that some schools want to stay away from him , but I also get it that some schools will give him another chance .

people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Thats all I got to say about that .

 

[altgeld88]

He probably can no longer afford insurance.

... or even find it.

 

[BashCtIllini]

Tempo and number of possessions play a role in this.

If you shoot early and get more possessions, you should score more points. But you are also giving the other team more possessions and opportunities to score. I haven’t seen data on how many more possessions per game are seen in our games compared to others, but I’d love to.

In my younger years, I spent some time with a high school coach that won multiple state championships. A primary part of his strategy was to get more shots up than the other team. He relied on a trapping pressure defense to force a lot of turnovers. He figured most teams at this level would shoot similar percentages. If you put up more shots, you’ll have an advantage as long as you are hitting your percentages. When Brad was making comments about “if we’d only shot 30%”, it sounded similar to what I heard this other coach say before he won his championships.

and that's why our rebounding has been so important. There is a pretty strong correlation between our winning the rebounding battle and winning the game.

 

[STLini25]

It's all relative to the field. We're spending top 15 money now. Where were we in the 80s? I don't know the answer, but I'm guessing we were probably around top 15 then, too. It's not as if we've started putting significantly more money into our program while other schools remain flat.

If your point is Underwood’s expectations should be similar to Illinois results from 1980-1990 and 2000-2005 I think that’s generally fair.

 

[the juiceman cometh]

Tempo and number of possessions play a role in this.

If you shoot early and get more possessions, you should score more points. But you are also giving the other team more possessions and opportunities to score. I haven’t seen data on how many more possessions per game are seen in our games compared to others, but I’d love to.

In my younger years, I spent some time with a high school coach that won multiple state championships. A primary part of his strategy was to get more shots up than the other team. He relied on a trapping pressure defense to force a lot of turnovers. He figured most teams at this level would shoot similar percentages. If you put up more shots, you’ll have an advantage as long as you are hitting your percentages. When Brad was making comments about “if we’d only shot 30%”, it sounded similar to what I heard this other coach say before he won his championships.

This is why efficiency metrics are better. We are not the #261 defense in the country lol. We are the #41 defense in the country per Kenpom, which is not nearly as bad as #261, but still too low considering the talent we have on the roster.

 

[NarrowJ]

For the record, we are #11 in ppg scored and #261 in ppg given up. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see something is amiss.

I think we all (maybe not all... overwhelming majority, at least) want to see an upgrade from whatever Hamer is doing, but these stats are this way largely due to us being top 10 in pace of play.

I'm in full 100% agreement with your overall sentiment, though. We are 90th in overall defensive efficiency. That's a very poor defense, indeed.

 

[21ChampaignSt]

If your point is Underwood’s expectations should be similar to Illinois results from 1980-1990 and 2000-2005 I think that’s generally fair.

I was just saying I don't think our expectations as a program have skyrocketed that much. But I do agree with that ^.

 

[robertgoulet]

Not saying he is not to blame at all but I'd be interested to know how our defense was in the non-injury/sickness months, as I seem to recall being pretty OK defensively until mid January (wheels started to fall off after Indiana). It seems like missing Tre, Ivisic and Mo would really hurt our ability to defend the paint (Mo, Ivisic) and long wings (Tre).

 

[IlliniwekKDR]

Ordinarily, I'd argue he shouldn't cut loose an assistant without a plan to get someone better, but an empty chair could coach defense at least as well as Hamer.

For a couple hundred grand, I could get at least the same results. Sign me up for the job!

 

[sacraig]

Tempo and number of possessions play a role in this.

If you shoot early and get more possessions, you should score more points. But you are also giving the other team more possessions and opportunities to score. I haven’t seen data on how many more possessions per game are seen in our games compared to others, but I’d love to.

In my younger years, I spent some time with a high school coach that won multiple state championships. A primary part of his strategy was to get more shots up than the other team. He relied on a trapping pressure defense to force a lot of turnovers. He figured most teams at this level would shoot similar percentages. If you put up more shots, you’ll have an advantage as long as you are hitting your percentages. When Brad was making comments about “if we’d only shot 30%”, it sounded similar to what I heard this other coach say before he won his championships.

That's why metrics like KenPom are useful. It adjusts for pace and strength of opponent. We are #15 in adjusted offense (pretty good) and #41 in adjusted defense (honestly, not as bad as I expected).

Still, #41 is t going to cut it if you want to play consistent and win big in the tournament.

 

[the juiceman cometh]

Not saying he is not to blame at all but I'd be interested to know how our defense was in the non-injury/sickness months, as I seem to recall being pretty OK defensively until mid January (wheels started to fall off after Indiana). It seems like missing Tre, Ivisic and Mo would really hurt our ability to defend the paint (Mo, Ivisic) and long wings (Tre).

This is an interesting point. You can filter by date on Torvik, and if you go through the Penn St. game on 1/8 (next game was USC where things kinda started to go downhill) Torvik has us as the 5th best defense in the country. That would paint the view that the defense is actually good when we are healthy. But then you filter from the Iowa game onwards, when we supposedly got healthy again, and in that stretch where we went 5-1 our defense is #107 in the country! Yikes.

So was it injuries? Was it initially injuries initially, and then other teams figuring out what we were doing and us failing to adjust? It's really hard to say. But last year our defense was #25 on Torvik through December 31, 2023, and then from January 1st on was #109!! It's starting to feel like not-a-coincidence that our defense starts out strong and then ends up extremely weak.

 

[skyIdub]

Ordinarily, I'd argue he shouldn't cut loose an assistant without a plan to get someone better, but an empty chair could coach defense at least as well as Hamer.

 

[GrayGhost77]

This is an interesting point. You can filter by date on Torvik, and if you go through the Penn St. game on 1/8 (next game was USC where things kinda started to go downhill) Torvik has us as the 5th best defense in the country. That would paint the view that the defense is actually good when we are healthy. But then you filter from the Iowa game onwards, when we supposedly got healthy again, and in that stretch where we went 5-1 our defense is #107 in the country! Yikes.

So was it injuries? Was it initially injuries initially, and then other teams figuring out what we were doing and us failing to adjust? It's really hard to say. But last year our defense was #25 on Torvik through December 31, 2023, and then from January 1st on was #109!! It's starting to feel like not-a-coincidence that our defense starts out strong and then ends up extremely weak.

Perhaps it has something to do with a certain in-over-his-head assistant coach?

 

[HensonHall71]

Not saying he is not to blame at all but I'd be interested to know how our defense was in the non-injury/sickness months, as I seem to recall being pretty OK defensively until mid January (wheels started to fall off after Indiana). It seems like missing Tre, Ivisic and Mo would really hurt our ability to defend the paint (Mo, Ivisic) and long wings (Tre).

It's fair that we've had a lot of injuries and illnesses this year, so it's hard to blame any coach for all of that, but my take is, that has nothing to do with wanting to replace Hamer. He's supposed to be the new breed of analytics driven young coaches, but his defensive gameplans against opposing teams has left a lot to be desired - playing drop coverage against Purdue, having Tomi on Reese and not Queen, etc. many examples of just bad gameplanning on how to slow down an opponent and limited in game adjustments for how we're getting beat.

Beyond all of that - Brad has to look to upgrade his staff every year and how bad we've been defensively for two years now certainly warrants making a change there. Particularly when you are not getting any recruiting from that position now and if the X and O's are good, upgrading to a defensive focused coach that can also bring recruiting and more developmental experience, would be a no brainer. Mike Boynton last off season for example would have been a perfect fit given he's a defensive coach that has coached some of the best defenses in the country, great recruiter and was an assistant under Brad at OSU. Someone with that profile would be a big upgrade

 

[the juiceman cometh]

Perhaps it has something to do with a certain in-over-his-head assistant coach?

I'm not privy to whatever goes on behind the scenes but my highly speculative presumption based on these numbers would be someone who is good at setting up a successful defense at the outset, but is limited in his ability to make adjustments as the season progresses. It looks like opponents figure out how to attack our defense once they have enough tape to review, and we don't make the necessary counter-moves.

 

[NarrowJ]

This is an interesting point. You can filter by date on Torvik, and if you go through the Penn St. game on 1/8 (next game was USC where things kinda started to go downhill) Torvik has us as the 5th best defense in the country. That would paint the view that the defense is actually good when we are healthy. But then you filter from the Iowa game onwards, when we supposedly got healthy again, and in that stretch where we went 5-1 our defense is #107 in the country! Yikes.

So was it injuries? Was it initially injuries initially, and then other teams figuring out what we were doing and us failing to adjust? It's really hard to say. But last year our defense was #25 on Torvik through December 31, 2023, and then from January 1st on was #109!! It's starting to feel like not-a-coincidence that our defense starts out strong and then ends up extremely weak.

This is a very good point. The fall-off on defense halfway through the season has happened two years in a row now. I'm interested in how that might help diagnose problems.

 

[IlliniFan42]

This is a very good point. The fall-off on defense halfway through the season has happened two years in a row now. I'm interested in how that might help diagnose problems.

Non-con vs. conference opponents perhaps

 

[TampaToo]

This is a very good point. The fall-off on defense halfway through the season has happened two years in a row now. I'm interested in how that might help diagnose problems.

Could be other teams are watching film after some games played early season and making adjustments to what the Illini’s defense is showing them. Maybe we’re not making adjustments to that. Might be the B1G grind. Or some of both?

 

[sacraig]

This is an interesting point. You can filter by date on Torvik, and if you go through the Penn St. game on 1/8 (next game was USC where things kinda started to go downhill) Torvik has us as the 5th best defense in the country. That would paint the view that the defense is actually good when we are healthy. But then you filter from the Iowa game onwards, when we supposedly got healthy again, and in that stretch where we went 5-1 our defense is #107 in the country! Yikes.

So was it injuries? Was it initially injuries initially, and then other teams figuring out what we were doing and us failing to adjust? It's really hard to say. But last year our defense was #25 on Torvik through December 31, 2023, and then from January 1st on was #109!! It's starting to feel like not-a-coincidence that our defense starts out strong and then ends up extremely weak.

I sort of chalked it up to other teams figuring out a relatively simple scheme and how to attack it and us not adjusting. It just feels like it's defense by statistical analysis but with a real lack of attitude. That's where I miss Chester the most.