We will release them from their LOIs if that is what they want.
2017 Coaching Carousel
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We will release them from their LOIs if that is what they want.
Gotcha. Thanks.
My point was to illustrate the inherently fatal limitations to that analysis.
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Others have posted the stats on this. While players can request release from their LOIs upon a coaching change, historically most recruits do not ask to be let out of their commitment. Malcolm Hill did not leave when Weber was fired, to take one example.
Doesn't mean anything. If you're firing your HC you need to be prepared to lose his recruits.
Personally, I want to see TJL, Kipper, JCL, Black, Tilman, Frazier all on the team. Very pumped. I want Groce to get a shot with two strong PGs. Yes, he hasn't recruited them well, but I'm still proud of him for aiming high with his targets. Abrams 6yrs hurt us with recruiting and on the floor. Groce still owns it, but I get it. He has always needed that PG and he will have it next year in TJL + TF. I'm cool with Coach regardless of ROS outcome.
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You are missing the point. The odds are that we lose no more than 2 of these recruits, and even then, that's more than most teams lose in a transition. Is it a risk we have to be willing to take? Yes. But statistically (relatively small sample size, but anyways), the odds that we lose even two of the recruits in this class are pretty low.
rmlsr
- El Paso,IL
Khalid Lewis is a bad example, he was not a recruit Groce pursued, we had an empty scholarship that we were not going to use, and we only filled it in August after Tracy Abrams went down with ACL. Groce did not pursue Lewis over a HS PG.
I accounted for him being a special case in that post (need/late add), but it was still a scholarship we could've filled earlier with a HS player for long term depth, especially because KL wasn't particularly good or sought after.
This is another excellent point! Some of these could not have been foreseen and some of them were formed out of necessity. We have to remember what Groce was trying to sell these early recruits. Kind of hard to convince upper echelon talent to commit to play with the shell of a program he inherited. I think you are starting to see what happens when you can sell a recruit a spot playing with like talent.
I know you're a Groce supporter, but those aren't exactly impressive wins. Nebraska has a losing record and dismal 3 point defense. Iowa is a middling, young team with one guy to really game plan for. NW's record is inflated by a weak non conference schedule. If we win out, Groce's conference record at Illinois is still only 38-52.
To follow up on this point, what happens if Groce is kept around another year or two(e.g. Zooker) and disappoints? You could have these vaunted recruits transfer off the sinking ship. Not only that but the continued mediocre play could damage future recruiting.
Except that it does count. Can we throw out his first year since all those games were won by the majority of guys that he did not recruit? People can try to come up with reasons to spin numbers in their favor, but I'm done with that. I want to see results, not excuses.
Straight from Whitman2020. I'm with you here. I think Groce finally has some momentum recruiting. Finally a couple of guys to get you in transition or penetrate in 1/2 court and better bigs than we've had. Better players sure make for a better coach.
I still think he's gone but, like you, I would have liked to see this group play out. Minus Tilmon or Frazier, it is diminished.
That just makes your argument that much more absurd. So take out his worst season and he's still 6 games under .500 in conference in his 4 other years. And he's never finished with a winning conference record or higher than tied for 7th in conference standings.
mattcoldagelli
- The Transfer Portal
This is made up.
ILL in IA
- Iowa City
Pretty much everything on here is.
2011/12
- Big10 #1 conference RPI
- finished 9th in conference
- 4 weeks ranked
- 3-6 (33%) vs ranked teams, 2 victories vs top 10 teams with 4 of 6 games vs ranked teams in the top 10
- 3-10 (23%) vs RPI top 50
Last 4 years
- Big10 #1, 4, 5, 4 conference RPI
- finished 9th, 8th, 12th, tbd in conference
- 2 weeks ranked
- 4-21 (16%) vs ranked teams, 1 victory vs top 10 team
- 13-34 (27%) vs RPI top 50
Weber's last year was a disaster because he folded under the pressure, and lost his team. That 2011/12 team produced better results than Groce has these last 4 years.
Weber finished worse than 5th in conference twice his entire tenure, 2008, 2012. Groce's best finish is 8th pending this year.
Weber was absolutely terrible for our program, and should have been fired much sooner. I think his final season is perceived much worse than it was because how badly it unraveled at the end. His Purdue and Nebraska press conference blunders, etc. I credit Groce for maintaining his compsure, and keeping the team focused, and hopefully dancing this year. That alone shows how much of a better person and leader he is than Weber in my opinion. Weber's last year produced better results than Groce has the last 4 years.
I can't accept dismissing any of Groce's failures as due to Weber. Groce had already reversed the perception of the program after his first year. The fact that only lasted half a season the next year is all on him. Groce needs to go.
There is no question the last 4 years have been bad . I feel like he he has the players on the roster and coming in that will put near the top of the league, the future is what we are all worried about . I think with these players you win more, then recruiting continues to pick up and I feel good about the future. I am not an insider with knowledge of who we could get as the next coach, obviously if he is an outstanding coach it will be good. I am coming to the game today hoping like crazy that we win, get in the tournament and build on this.
It did not. As I said, If you exclude last year's injury season, ALL of Groce's other seasons have been better than Weber's disastrous final year.
In Weber's last disastrous season, we went 17-15 and 6-12 with no post-season. If you exclude the injury season, all other Groce's seasons ended up with post season appearances (NCAA or NIT). This year we are fighting for post-season as well. It's a silly argument that Weber's last season was better than Groce's seasons that ended up in post-season.
Was Weber's last season better than this season? C'mon...
Groce may have changed the perception of the program his first year but not the reality. Recruiting here is tough unless you're winning. Weber couldn't recruit after a run to the NC game. So it took Groce 4 or 5 classes. Often locked out of Chicago and the Peoria pipeline went dry.
I think Illinois has benefited from the racial tension in Columbia, Missouri in football and basketball. Glad to have more StL kids looking at us.
We couldn't have filled it earlier, the only reason we had that scholarship is because TA got injured. If anything it would've been more wasted had we not picked up a 5th year guy after TA got hurt. Unless you think we should've picked up a HS kid after TA got hurt... Which doesn't make sense given the timing.
The issue here was TA was supposed to be our pg for the past 3 years. You can't blame him or Groce for using up another scholarship on him. What you can blame Groce for is not going after a guy like TJL 2 years ago when TA got hurt the first time, or even before he got hurt (this is the correct answer). Guys who are that severely injured aren't going to come back and become all conference players.
Don't blame anyone for that specific scholarship, if anything the KL pickup was a major positive, given the situation and the fact that Tate was our only other PG. This gap between on-paper talent and court results is almost certainly our shortcomings at the 1 and 5. Its been discussed for the past four years, but Groce's system relies on a PG to be a playmaker (like 90% of teams). We haven't had that and TA before injuries would barely be considered that. Heavy recruiting of wings has killed our team. Outside of the 2/3, before 2017, only one top 100 player Groce recruited was not a 2/3 and that was Black.
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