2017 Coaching Carousel

MrOizo · Jan 8, 2017

Groce could get me more comfortable with giving him one more year if that's the only way to get this current recruiting class here. I hate to say it, but the coaching and lack of talent are killing us and Groce has taken a huge step towards solving one of those problems. I'm not convinced that the next coach, should Frazier and Tilmon decommit, will quickly solve the problems here. No guarantees.

Groce bought himself some leeway with me through the top 10 class, especially if he adds Mark Smith.

For me, if Groce is forced to shake up staff, plays young guys a lot more, and has the team playing hard through the end with a respectable finish (TBD what that is), I admit the move for Whitman may be a tough one.

Ideally, the team out-performs the rest of the way. I would love that. Failing that, perhaps we can change coaches with a scenario where we expect to keep our key incoming recruits. Failing that, we recognize that Groce has this year's team playing hard, the younger players developing well and getting real playing time, and value protect the incoming class.

This is where I'm at.

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CUWPC · Jan 8, 2017

MrOizo said:
Groce could get me more comfortable with giving him one more year if that's the only way to get this current recruiting class here. I hate to say it, but the coaching and lack of talent are killing us and Groce has taken a huge step towards solving one of those problems. I'm not convinced that the next coach, should Frazier and Tilmon decommit, will quickly solve the problems here. No guarantees.

Groce bought himself some leeway with me through the top 10 class, especially if he adds Mark Smith.

For me, if Groce is forced to shake up staff, plays young guys a lot more, and has the team playing hard through the end with a respectable finish (TBD what that is), I admit the move for Whitman may be a tough one.

Ideally, the team out-performs the rest of the way. I would love that. Failing that, perhaps we can change coaches with a scenario where we expect to keep our key incoming recruits. Failing that, we recognize that Groce has this year's team playing hard, the younger players developing well and getting real playing time, and value protect the incoming class.

This is where I'm at.

Sent from my LG-H811 using Tapatalk

Exactly where I'm at with this situation. We need to get this class on board and let another coach take the talent to the tourney.

mattcoldagelli · Jan 8, 2017

Much like if you're asking "Should I go to the funeral?" you should, if you're asking "Should we keep that coach solely for the recruiting class?" you shouldn't.

MrOizo · Jan 8, 2017

mattcoldagelli said:
Much like if you're asking "Should I go to the funeral?" you should, if you're asking "Should we keep that coach solely for the recruiting class?" you shouldn't.

I was convinced of that for a minute but it's not that simple. Sadly, I can't take another year with marginal talent. I can't take watching some of the current players struggle to score, pass, defend... I know coaching is a factor but so is talent. It's just not that clean and simple for me, admittedly.

mattcoldagelli · Jan 8, 2017

MrOizo said:
I was convinced of that for a minute but it's not that simple. Sadly, I can't take another year with marginal talent. I can't take watching some of the current players struggle to score, pass, defend... I know coaching is a factor but so is talent. It's just not that clean and simple for me, admittedly.

Except we don't have marginal talent, at least as far as making the tournament and being competitive in the conference is concerned. This team should absolutely be doing both of those things.

Stricker9 · Jan 8, 2017

The staff must be held accountable to meeting performance expectations. Those expectations for me are making the tourney, but the AD ultimately sets the goals.

I want this team, coach and players, to be wildly successful. Short of meeting this year's expectations should be met with termination... we cannot keep kicking the can down the road.

MadSeason · Jan 8, 2017

MrOizo said:
I was convinced of that for a minute but it's not that simple. Sadly, I can't take another year with marginal talent. I can't take watching some of the current players struggle to score, pass, defend... I know coaching is a factor but so is talent. It's just not that clean and simple for me, admittedly.

Depends how you are defining this talent. RSCI rankings? We currently have 5 top 100 which I think puts us above marginal talent. We lose 2 this year (Abrams and Hill) and gain 1 Tilmon.

If you are going off what they have shown to date in college, we have no idea what Damonte, Frazier and Pickett will bring to table next year. Timon is somewhat projectable due to his size, ranking and opening for major minutes but the others are no sure bets to make an impact.

I think the incoming class has a chance to be very good, but it is far from a sure thing, and not a reason to retain Groce imo

dmac279 · Jan 8, 2017

mattcoldagelli said:
Except we don't have marginal talent, at least as far as making the tournament and being competitive in the conference is concerned. This team should absolutely be doing both of those things.

Bingo, right on

MrOizo · Jan 8, 2017

Some well reasoned arguments for accountability now. I can't disagree with that point of view and I expect that I will only be in the "one more year" camp if the year ends rather well.

Still hard to imagine it will end well by my own standards, so I'll just watch and hope. I'm beyond frustrated. I'm unhappy with so many things. But I'm excited about the 2017 class and will watch for other positive changes by the coaches and players. More of the same, more grinding with the same players, same minutes, same results, forget it.

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BillMo · Jan 8, 2017

FatGreg said:
Re: Smith, I think it may be even more crucial to land him considering the potential for Groce's dismissal. If Groce goes, I think there's a better than 50% chance that Frazier decommits. A pledge from Smith (added to Da'Monte and Te'Jon) still leaves us in good shape at PG in the event that we lose Frazier. I hope it doesn't come to that, but it would be nice to have some extra security!

Obviously, Smith could also walk if Groce is let go, but since he grew up in-state as an Illini fan I'd bet on him coming either way.

I believe there is more then a 50% chance we lose Trent, Da Williams and JT if Groce gone, all 3 made it pretty clear Groce and the ASST coach's are why they picked the Illini. It would be nice if this team could just get things figured out and get to the dance so we could wait another year and see what Groce could do with having 3 or 4 guys who can Run the point handle the ball and score , Smith just adds one more guy into a nice group of PG/Combo we would have for a change. I love TA but he has never been a true PG Same with Tate they both just lack a part of there game to be a true PG for wht Groce is looking for

MakesNoSense · Jan 8, 2017

mattcoldagelli said:
Except we don't have marginal talent, at least as far as making the tournament and being competitive in the conference is concerned. This team should absolutely be doing both of those things.

Marginal talent is exactly what Illinois has and that is the problem.

MrOizo · Jan 8, 2017

LurkLongandProsper said:
Nothing is moot, I could argue our tournament hope talks are moot because we could miss the tournament based on our current resume. We can speculate just like folks can speculate about tournament odds even though we will be dogs in every road game this year except Rutgers with the way we've played on the road. You can find almost every active poster in this thread in the pre-game/game/post-game threads on this site, we are actively following the season, but don't foresee Groce as the future, so are engaging with the present while considering how to improve our future. There's nothing out of line in doing so.

Honestly, I disagree with basically every point in this post. Not to be read as an attack on you or anything! It seems like quite a few points here are opinions I've seen spread throughout this board by a few posters.

First, I am getting sick of guys arguing we have no talent, but still touting Groce as a recruiter. Either we have talent and he's not developing it, or he failed as a recruiter. This is his roster, and at the time of signing, we were excited about guys like Aaron Jordan, JCL, Leron Black, touting Michael Finke as underrated, and so on. Now the team struggles and we have no talent? Talk about revisionist history. Tilmon is the only de facto difference maker in this class, the other 3 are outside of the top 100 and not guarantees (and that's not to say Tilmon is either, but the odds are better). This class doesn't drastically up our talent level, ESPECIALLY not to cover the losses to graduation this offseason. It's not even #1 in the conference in average grade (even with Tilmon's top 25 ranking/score bringing it up) -- it's 4th, last I checked. That's right around the level of talent we've been bringing in throughout, feel free to go find Robert's post comparing the RSCIs of guys on every team throughout the conference and note we're at the top. We should have sufficient talent to not get destroyed by teams like Maryland playing multiple freshmen heavily in their rotation.

Second, this class isn't even top 10 anymore. As expected. Adding Mark Smith would likely get us back there, but who knows if it stays there once the full recruiting cycle ends. Without adding Smith, it's almost a guarantee we fall out of the top 15. What is the minimum ranking for this class that you guys think warrants having to keep him? If this class stayed the same, but fell to 20th, do we still hold onto Groce for it when we can't go around saying he landed a top 10 class? I don't get using such an arbitrary measurement as an argument for retaining him.

Third, we shouldn't have to force our coach to make changes to succeed. Making him change his rotation, change his staff is far more than Whitman should have to do. He should be able to spot the deficiencies in his current environment and results. If Whitman has to be the one to fix the team by making rotation changes and such, pay Whitman HC and AD money and let him do both. That's not his job.

Fourth, the team really isn't playing consistently hard, and the younger players 'development' is really just getting court time right now that they weren't previously. We aren't getting anything consistent from them on a game to game basis.

The first point on our talent level, I just don't see that we have the guys to compete consistently and across the board. I missed the analysis showing that we have top-half big ten talent based on rankings, that's news to me. It's possible that the answers to a better team by year end are on our bench, which would absolutely infuriate me. For the moment, I just see other teams with better pieces, a lack of top 4 big ten/top 15 national classes for several years, and inadequate information beyond that. Yes, this is Groce's fault. He made some big miscalculations in recruiting. He has failed, clearly, for years. I also acknowledge a little of this was taking time to build relationships in state and potentially the lack of talent down state.

For the 2017 class, beyond rankings I like the type of players and positions (PG and C). Those make this class better than the ranking to me, but that's very subjective I admit.

Lastly, I don't want Groce to be forced to do things. I want him to hear direct feedback and make changes. Too little too late would be a fair response, but I am expecting something different from here on out in order to see enough to support more. In Groce's tenure, there is some precedent for waiting until about this point to let the younger guys get significant PT. Not sure why, but I hope it happens now. The door is closing, but I'm holding out hope still.

I get that some, probably most will say there is nothing that would change their minds on Groce. I can understand that. I'm just being honest that I'm still clinging to the final rays of hope at what feels like the last stand for the staff without some drastic improvement.

homesickalien · Jan 8, 2017

LurkLongandProsper said:
Nothing is moot, I could argue our tournament hope talks are moot because we could miss the tournament based on our current resume. We can speculate just like folks can speculate about tournament odds even though we will be dogs in every road game this year except Rutgers with the way we've played on the road. You can find almost every active poster in this thread in the pre-game/game/post-game threads on this site, we are actively following the season, but don't foresee Groce as the future, so are engaging with the present while considering how to improve our future. There's nothing out of line in doing so.

Honestly, I disagree with basically every point in this post. Not to be read as an attack on you or anything! It seems like quite a few points here are opinions I've seen spread throughout this board by a few posters.

First, I am getting sick of guys arguing we have no talent, but still touting Groce as a recruiter. Either we have talent and he's not developing it, or he failed as a recruiter. This is his roster, and at the time of signing, we were excited about guys like Aaron Jordan, JCL, Leron Black, touting Michael Finke as underrated, and so on. Now the team struggles and we have no talent? Talk about revisionist history. Tilmon is the only de facto difference maker in this class, the other 3 are outside of the top 100 and not guarantees (and that's not to say Tilmon is either, but the odds are better). This class doesn't drastically up our talent level, ESPECIALLY not to cover the losses to graduation this offseason. It's not even #1 in the conference in average grade (even with Tilmon's top 25 ranking/score bringing it up) -- it's 4th, last I checked. That's right around the level of talent we've been bringing in throughout, feel free to go find Robert's post comparing the RSCIs of guys on every team throughout the conference and note we're at the top. We should have sufficient talent to not get destroyed by teams like Maryland playing multiple freshmen heavily in their rotation.

Second, this class isn't even top 10 anymore. As expected. Adding Mark Smith would likely get us back there, but who knows if it stays there once the full recruiting cycle ends. Without adding Smith, it's almost a guarantee we fall out of the top 15. What is the minimum ranking for this class that you guys think warrants having to keep him? If this class stayed the same, but fell to 20th, do we still hold onto Groce for it when we can't go around saying he landed a top 10 class? I don't get using such an arbitrary measurement as an argument for retaining him.

Third, we shouldn't have to force our coach to make changes to succeed. Making him change his rotation, change his staff is far more than Whitman should have to do. He should be able to spot the deficiencies in his current environment and results. If Whitman has to be the one to fix the team by making rotation changes and such, pay Whitman HC and AD money and let him do both. That's not his job.

Fourth, the team really isn't playing consistently hard, and the younger players 'development' is really just getting court time right now that they weren't previously. We aren't getting anything consistent from them on a game to game basis.

Agree pretty much on everything here.

BananaShampoo · Jan 8, 2017

MakesNoSense said:
Marginal talent is exactly what Illinois has and that is the problem.

We have experienced Top 75 players at every position except the 5. Our talent level is Top 5 in the B1G. If we had an average B1G level coach, we should expect a Top 5 in the B1G record. That doesn't seem likely, so what does that tell you?

BananaShampoo · Jan 8, 2017

BillMo said:
I believe there is more then a 50% chance we lose Trent, Da Williams and JT if Groce gone, all 3 made it pretty clear Groce and the ASST coach's are why they picked the Illini. It would be nice if this team could just get things figured out and get to the dance so we could wait another year and see what Groce could do with having 3 or 4 guys who can Run the point handle the ball and score , Smith just adds one more guy into a nice group of PG/Combo we would have for a change. I love TA but he has never been a true PG Same with Tate they both just lack a part of there game to be a true PG for wht Groce is looking for

DMW made it clear he was committing to the school. The other two I agree would probably be gone.

MrOizo · Jan 8, 2017

LurkLongandProsper said:
Here's the IlliniBoard article I referred to. http://illiniboard.com/2016/09/25/on-paper/ (MakesSense should read this, too -- we don't have marginal talent, we've had marginal talent development, though :thumb

I agree that it's nice to finally be addressing actual needs in a class rather than just taking another 3 wings, as you alluded to, but that shouldn't get him bonus points just because he failed to do that for four years IMO.

And the only reason I referenced forcing him to do things is because you'd said force in your first post :thumb: I would like to see him look at the numbers and such as he tends to say in press conferences that he does (after all, he's a math guy), but he doesn't tend to adjust at any point (in-game or not), which is why I have my doubts.

Thanks for taking the time for the solid rebuttal. Good stuff all around, appreciate it and I'll read the Illiniboard piece.

Joel Goodson · Jan 8, 2017

Sorry, you don't retain the staff because it puts Tilmon back into play. Love Tilmon, but kicking the can isn't going to work. The bar isn't high, it's Groce's team and it's loaded with experience. If we don't make the NCAA tourney, it's time to cut bait. No ifs, ands or buts. Changing assistants is tantamount to moving deck chairs on the Titanic.

MakesNoSense · Jan 8, 2017

BananaShampoo said:
We have experienced Top 75 players at every position except the 5. Our talent level is Top 5 in the B1G. If we had an average B1G level coach, we should expect a Top 5 in the B1G record. That doesn't seem likely, so what does that tell you?

It tells me whoever is doing these rankings is way off base. I watched 10 games yesterday and our talent is not that good. The other thread today talks how replacing throne with Morgan is what this team needs. That is all I need to know. I blame Groce for this but this team is exactly where most preseason forecatsers had them at. To many orange colored glasses on this site.

CUWPC · Jan 8, 2017

I think you go big or stay with what you have. Get a proven winner in Power 5. Shoot for Andy Enfield or Larry Krystkowiak. Archie Miller or Mick Cronin would be proven assets outside Power 5. Work the back channels see if there's interest. I think with new leadership in place Illinois can be a top job again. On the surface it seems Whitman has the boosters involved and ready to spend.

FiveStar · Jan 8, 2017

Let's say Groce is fired and Tilmon is gone too. This is what you have left over if there's no extra attrition:

1) TJL/Frazier
2) JCL/AJ
3) DJW/Pickett
4) Leron/Kipper
5) Finke

Extra guard/wing: DMW
Extra big:
Potential signee: Mark Smith

Looking at that roster, this would be the time to blow it up. Probably gonna be a huge step backwards next year regardless of Tilmon coming and Groce coaching his guys, or a complete blow up. Just too inexperienced. It would also give a new coach a chance to bring a big of his choosing, 5th year or high school. Attrition might also help balance the roster a bit if it did happen, which it most likely would.

Second and Chalmers · Jan 8, 2017

CUWPC said:
I think you go big or stay with what you have. Shoot for Andy Enfield or Larry Krystkowiak.

Should USC have stuck with what they had in Kevin O'Neill rather than fire him and take a chance on Enfield? Should Utah have stuck with what they had in Jim Boylen rather than fire him and take a chance on Krystowiak?

Both of those fired coaches had taken those programs to the tournament more recently than Groce has at Illinois.

IlliniInOK · Jan 8, 2017

Holding onto the recruiting class as a reason to keep Groce is foolishness. I mean, do we really think any of these guys can step in and have a Junior or senior year Malcolm Hill impact? Of course not. And yet, the two teams he has led are the teams that have given us the reason to start this thread.

We will inexplicably beat a decent team at some point in the B1G schedule, we will lose to someone we don't think we should, and have Groce say in the presser that the other team "just wanted it more tonight" and we will get blown out 2-3 more times and look like we don't belong on the court with our opponent. We know how this ends, let's not fool ourselves into thinking it's going to turn around after the inevitable upset where a few guys get hot on the same night and we make enough 3s to make up for what we give up that night.

MakesNoSense · Jan 8, 2017

LurkLongandProsper said:
Then that's Groce's fault for mis-evaluating and/or failing to develop the talent. The recruiting rankings are for fans, not coaches anyway. They do tend to be pretty accurate, however.

By your evaluation, the incoming class can't be good either because it is well rated, right? Or are you just applying hindsight bias to attempt to formulate an argument, but the incoming class is still excellent? Just want to make sure I follow this argument. :tsk:

I agree it's Groce's Fault. Pick your reason. Weber had the same problem. Top 20 recruiting classes but nothing to show. But the result this year is still a team with marginal talent.

Second and Chalmers · Jan 8, 2017

LurkLongandProsper said:
Black and JCL were top 50 players!

Not only WERE they top 50 recruits, they ARE solid, now-experienced, still-developing Big Ten players with difference making talents.

radiodj · Jan 8, 2017

IlliniInOK said:
Holding onto the recruiting class as a reason to keep Groce is foolishness. I mean, do we really think any of these guys can step in and have a Junior or senior year Malcolm Hill impact? Of course not. And yet, the two teams he has led are the teams that have given us the reason to start this thread.

We will inexplicably beat a decent team at some point in the B1G schedule, we will lose to someone we don't think we should, and have Groce say in the presser that the other team "just wanted it more tonight" and we will get blown out 2-3 more times and look like we don't belong on the court with our opponent. We know how this ends, let's not fool ourselves into thinking it's going to turn around after the inevitable upset where a few guys get hot on the same night and we make enough 3s to make up for what we give up that night.

Between MM, JCL and MH yesterday, who's to say that yesterday wasn't one of those games. And yet we still lost.

2017 Coaching Carousel

MrOizo

CUWPC

mattcoldagelli

MrOizo

mattcoldagelli

Stricker9

MadSeason

dmac279

MrOizo

BillMo

MakesNoSense

MrOizo

homesickalien

BananaShampoo

Captain 'Paign

BananaShampoo

Captain 'Paign

MrOizo

Joel Goodson

MakesNoSense

CUWPC

FiveStar

Second and Chalmers

IlliniInOK

MakesNoSense

Second and Chalmers

radiodj