Illinois does not seem likely to hire someone with Henson, Kruger or Self's qualifications before they took Illinois job.
Tough to analogize as far back as Henson's time.
Lon Kruger made a Final Four! Lon Kruger made a Final Four! Say it until you're blue in the face. Just to establish the record on this, Kruger's 1994 Florida team defeated 14 seed James Madison, 11 seed Penn, 2 seed UConn in overtime after Donyell Marshall missed two free throws in a tie game with 3.4 seconds left in regulation, and 9 seed Boston College.
After that season, Kruger's Florida teams went 17-13 (8-8 SEC) and then 12-16 (6-10 SEC).
And just as surely as Ron Guenther hired Bruce Weber as a guy who was going to stick around and stabilize the program, he hired Kruger as a by-the-book straight arrow who wasn't going to get into any funny business recruiting-wise.
The idea that he was a monster coup akin to Tony Bennett today falls completely apart on the barest reading of the facts. He has much more in common with Cuonzo Martin, with one notable difference being Martin's obvious perfect fit with the job.
As for Self, you could do a similar thing with his greatest tourney success. Tulsa's Elite Eight run was over 10 seed UNLV, 2 seed Cincinnati, which was a shadow of the team that was #1 in the nation until National POY Kenyon Martin broke his leg in the conference tournament and they were punished with a 2 seed (I never thought that was fair), and 6 seed Miami.
Neither Kruger nor Self needs to apologize for the teams they beat on the way to their tournament successes but in both cases, as in any case, the judgment should be made on the entire resume (including those wins), not just looking at a single tournament run over a couple weeks.
Kruger was a plain vanilla coach with an up-and-down record, and Self was the "hot mid-major" that we treat like a curse. Those are the facts.
If we do hire a new coach this offseason, when you look at their resume and compare it to Self's and Kruger's versus Groce's, I PROMISE you, it will look more similar to Self and/or Kruger. I promise you. If, that is, you're willing to understand what a quality coaching resume actually looks like and aren't determined to see reality through the prism of your emotional tenor about the program.
