madillini4
Ozamataz Buckshank
- Millywaukee
Malcolm never getting to the tournament is a travesty.
Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread
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The one thing I can never forgive John Groce for. Malcolm is still one of my favorite players for us and he deserved so much more.
Didn't a certain AD swoop in and get Brad from OKSt?
There's a lot of credit to go around with the program rise. Josh, Brad, and a lot of players who've given it their all. And program supporters helping out too. Ayo is probably the singular guy who would put guys on his back and not shy away from a big moment. We've had it sooo good these past few years - Kofi, Ayo, TSJ, Keaton. The list of AA level guys keeps growing.
Great call on Josh.....he just rolls with the ever changing landscape of college sports. He's a sharp guys who always seems to be one step ahead.
I'll go one better...without JW do we get Brad....and if no Brad....do we get Ayo
Guess I should have read the other posts before posting.....delete
Well, if you think about it, Josh Whitman probably doesn't end up as our AD if he didn't play football for Illinois. And who recruited him here? Lou Tepper. So basically Illinois basketball is enjoying its current success thanks to Lou Tepper.
iLL 89ers
- Dallas,TX.......Born and raised in Alton,Illinois
Very fair argument no doubt...Ayo,.as a player who stayed true to their home state IMHO in Illinois basketball along with Dee Brown or Frank Williams changing the program...what they did for the program often gets forgotten...with all due respect too past great players from all over Illinois. Whether from Chicago. Downstate...central Illinois etc...but so many can be argued !!! you mentioned....Eddie Johnson etc....but I'm very pro `89 Illinois team when all the instate studs came and called Illinois home...from every area of the state of Illinois....pretty much all them guys was from Illinois was GOATS...I would love them days to be re-visited.....but in this day and age of NIL...I think them are long gone. To this day my biggest heartbreak from a Illinois (Chicago) kid not becoming an Illini' would be Derrick Rose....my heart is still broken along with "Benji" Wilson who I truly believe would have been in that "Cloud" RIP, I know I have moved off your great post...but all that stays in my head rent free....and I enjoy it!
He's not born with the genes to play football, so if it's not for his parents, grandparents...................
.......Adam & Eve. They were behind all of it.
hooraybeer
- Peoria, IL
by that logic, we should really be thanking John Mackovic for taking the Texas job. without that, Tepper isn’t promoted, doesn’t recruit JW who then doesn’t become AD and hire BU who then never lands Ayo. thanks John Mackovic
you could also argue that we should thank RG for keeping Tepper long enough to recruit JW…
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I'm workshopping a theory of head coaches in the NIL era:
A football coach is like hiring a CEO of a Fortune 500 multinational corporation. A massive infrastructure already exists in terms of finances and personnel and the job is fundamentally about choosing the people to lead those departments and managing and orienting them in a way that fits together and leads the whole enterprise to success.
A basketball coach is like a startup founder. They're working much more intimately with a much smaller group of people and being able to sell a compelling vision for the project internally and externally is how the resources and infrastructure get built and sustain.
Whoa.....lets not go down that path.....kind of like cutting the arm off at the elbow to save a finger
Very cool analogy and on point.
While this absolutely true, I’d argue Frazier was the first real building block of the current program from a player perspective, with Frazier essentially becoming the first extension of Brad on the court. Not only was the Underwood-Frazier pairing critical to establishing the foundation, but it also had an almost destined feel to it since Underwood offered Frazier at SFA.
If Frazier had gone elsewhere in 2017, I think it’s fair to say we’d probably be in a similar spot today for two reasons: 1) Brad is that good, and 2) Ayo and Kofi were that good. So those dudes deservedly get their flowers, especially Ayo. But those ‘20-‘22 teams wouldn’t have been nearly as good without Frazier. We don’t win conference titles and experience the program resurgence we did without the ultimate Robin to Ayo’s Batman. Forever 1.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I tend to agree with the perspective that during the dark times we had a number of Frazier's (including one named Frazier!) that were great players with a team-first culture building attitude, but ultimately that didn't lead anywhere because we didn't have an Ayo.
The only thing I would add is, don't underrate what Kofi meant to our turnaround. Both in the excellence of his play individually, and also triggering the change in our playing style that made us a much better team overnight.
The losingest team in the history of the program had both Trent and Ayo on it, but Kofi went 44-16 in the B1G with two (legitimate) titles in his three years here.
On the day Ayo committed, Brad Underwood was a flashy new hire who hadn't coached a game here yet.
On the day Kofi committed, Underwood was 18-29 (4-18) and was playing a style that couldn't accommodate a Kofi-style center.
Pretty easy to argue that Kofi took a bigger chance on us than Ayo did.
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Kofi was just such an absurd matchup problem for basically every nearly every other team in college that he immediately raised the floor of the program the second he was on campus(the 2022 team that won the big10 title wasn't even really that good imo). Honestly if he stuck around one more year Kofi paired with Mayer and Shannon would have been a problem.
When you look at the recruiting lists for both it's pretty easy to say Kofi took a bigger chance. (Though I think him working with Fletch actually might have helped him improve more than anything Illinois did for Ayo.)
Kofi chose Illinois on a paired down list that included Kansas and UConn. Ayo ended up choosing between Wake Forest and Illinois while Wake Forest was in a pretty similar spot to Illinois. Honestly, Xavier with Chris Mack was the best program in Ayo's final four.
Agree. I've long said the most important job of a head football coach is to hire and develop assistant coaches. We are seeing this play out in real time with Dabo Swinney
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
My lasting memory of Kofi will always be those games against lesser Big Ten opponents, especially those that lacked size, where you knew after about three possessions the game was over because the opponent's plan for defending him just stood no chance of working over 40 minutes.
That guy rocked.
My lasting memory is Kofi punching a ref in the face
Ha, and he's such a sweet guy that he was immediately mortified that he accidentally connected. For me, Kofi was a guy that other programs land. It seemed like we were often making do at center, and getting a unicorn that would absolutely dominate for 3 years....what a luxury.
This stood out to me in games at Wisconsin. I think we won a couple in a row up there after not winning there in forever. They had no idea how to plan for Kofi.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I remember one of those bad early Fred Hoiberg Nebraska teams having their 6'8" center trying to front him on every possession and it was like "sir, don't be silly"
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