Coaching Carousel (Basketball)

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#251      
RockfordIllini
In fairness to Brad, these sorts of seasons happen in the portal era. For instance Self recently got embarrassed by BYU. 30 pieced instead of 40 pieced and road vs neutral but a far inferior opponent and worst lost in KU history I believe.

And I think the injuries and illnesses have hurt. Teams tend to get better throughout the year because they practice. When you have such a disjointed mess as we’ve had since Jan 1 it’s hard to get better. I think we’ve been held together with scotch tape for awhile now but we hit the hardest part of our schedule and also lost Morez and so the wheels have just come off.

I’m ready for this season to be over. As far as what comes, call me concerned but not worried.


I do think Brad hates losing and he’s proven he’s willing to adapt/learn from his mistakes. Biggest key to me is if he still has our donors’ confidence. If the NIL is there think Brad can turn it around next year. If NIL is gone probably time to move on. If Brad stays and has NIL backing, I’m good with it.

If not we are in a much different place than our last search and I’m confident with our resources we will get a good coach who in turn can get good players.

Each route is a risk to some degree. But either way I think we’ve will be okay.
 
#252      
dainjazoner
RockfordIllini said:
In fairness to Brad, these sorts of seasons happen in the portal era. For instance Self recently got embarrassed by BYU. 30 pieced instead of 40 pieced and road vs neutral but a far inferior opponent and worst lost in KU history I believe.

And I think the injuries and illnesses have hurt. Teams tend to get better throughout the year because they practice. When you have such a disjointed mess as we’ve had since Jan 1 it’s hard to get better. I think we’ve been held together with scotch tape for awhile now but we hit the hardest part of our schedule and also lost Morez and so the wheels have just come off.

I’m ready for this season to be over. As far as what comes, call me concerned but not worried.


I do think Brad hates losing and he’s proven he’s willing to adapt/learn from his mistakes. Biggest key to me is if he still has our donors’ confidence. If the NIL is there think Brad can turn it around next year. If NIL is gone probably time to move on. If Brad stays and has NIL backing, I’m good with it.

If not we are in a much different place than our last search and I’m confident with our resources we will get a good coach who in turn can get good players.

Each route is a risk to some degree. But either way I think we’ve will be okay.
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Why did he go young after repeating the best way to win was staying old and before people say the vets on this team suck nobody wanted tre white, boswell had some red flags with the drinking, and humrichous hasnt lived up to expectations, but there was some DOGS in the portal at guard. Javon small, oweh, richmond, Deivon (who i remember indy wanted) lanier, claude (more of a point forward), wooga, and tyrese hunter off of my head.
 
#254      
azillini1
ChiefGritty said:
The thing about Underwood at Illinois is not that he's made every right choice and not made mistakes, it's how much he's won and elevated the program DESPITE making his fair share of mistakes.

I have no more explanation or positive spin to offer about the last month and a half than anybody else, but I have decades of being a fan of Illini Basketball that tells me that I'd rather have BU responsible for finding a solution than the coaching carousel.

A day may come when the NIL market has matured to the point that I can confidently say "any Illinois coach can cycle through impact talent, we are permanently in that part of the food chain". But that day is not today, and I'm getting old enough that I really wonder whether anyone who takes BU's ability to bring us great players for granted was actually around for "Dunigan and Humprhey to Oregon" and the like.

We used to dream about the kind of problems we have now.
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Never can accept being beaten like we have recently. There were many years in 80's and early 2000's where we would only lose 1 or 2 games by double digits and in most of those games, we were very competitive. Remember when we would have winning streaks at home of 20 or 30 games in a row... I do?

BU is very stubborn and does not change his defensive or offensive game plans to match the team he is playing. The nonsense of shooting +30 3's a game when we are such a poor long range shooting team just doesn't make sense to me. I am ready for a change.
 
#257      
CleverHandle1
Illini2010-11 said:
I disagree here, as you need to fill in early season games that will allow for scrimmage like games and get deep in bench. By end of regular season, if everything holds relatively steady: The Illini will have played 18 Quad 1 games, 7 Quad 2 games, 0 Quad 3 games, and 6 Quad 4 games. That is a remarkably crazy challenging schedule. I do not see much difference between quad 3 and quad 4 for the most part here (when it comes to scheduling non-conference games), so only scheduling about 20% of the games against lower-tier teams (in lower half tier), that is actually quite a good schedule (58% of games are tier 1!).
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Fair enough. For me, then, split those 6 Q4 games into 3 games in Q3 and 3 games in Q4.
 
#258      
TheodoreRex
skyIdub said:
Listening to MLT has actually helped my perspective tremendously. Highly recommend.
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I listened as well- 1 thought and 1 question.

1 Thought- Latulip should be big time in commentating at some point, he's excellent at it.
2) Question: What did it help regarding your perspective? Did your thinking change?
 
#259      
Big Jack
CrazyIlliniLady said:
I wasn't even upset when Podz transferred...
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Lies No GIF
 
#260      
logjam
AirNeazy said:
I think if we're gonna criticize Underwood for losing as a #1 to Loyola and underperforming expectations, etc....than we should first at least give him credit for getting us back to the point where even had expectations to begin with.

The thing that has always made me have faith in BU was his willingness to adapt and change and course correct if things weren't going well, whether it's in his offensive/defensive schemes (remember the up the line pressure from the first 2 years?) or roster construction philosophy. He's always been humble enough to recognize he made a mistake or needs to change things up to remain competitive.

Looking back at the last 4 years, we had a B1G conference chip + rough tourney, then a falloff year, then another B1G chip + E8 season, and now a falloff year again it looks like. I think Brad has more than earned one more year to show that he's still got it and is willing to make the changes again that are necessary.

...however the question here is if BU is willing to do those changes or not? It's been the most striking thing to me this season how "stubborn" he's been. We're still shooting 25+ threes a game as the worst shooting team in the B1G....is this really the same Brad that changed his defense completely in the middle of the season at OK State and almost got them to the S16? The same guy who went from an offense centered around a gigantic big man to booty ball?

It seems pretty clear to me that after making the E8 last year, Brad feels like he's earned the benefit of the doubt and maybe his ego got just a wee bit bigger? Letting TA leave -> promoting Tyler as if NBD....keeping Hamer after we had a marked defensive drop last season, going all in on youth + portal even though it failed in '23....not to mention the hagiographic preseason "behind the look" videos (I remember thinking at the time these were more appropriate for a team coming off a Nat'l Title or at least Final Four vs getting dog walked in the E8).

Brad obviously thrives under job pressure, whether it's at OKSt, or during the '19 season when we started the season badly at 9-5 (or even the #1seed '20 season where we also started 9-5). People forget the calls to fire Brad were much, much louder in December of 2019 than now! I think Josh ultimately has got to decide if BU still has that pressure/fire in his belly to make the decisions that need to be made. If he's just resting on his laurels now that he's taken us to our first E8 in 20 years, and wants to potentially cash out with a low pressure gig at South Carolina where he can name Tyle HC-in-waiting.............. then maybe it might be best for both parties to split. But in Josh I trust!!
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Name checks out...😉
 
#261      
Second place is 1st loser
Indy Illini Fan said:
Bingo … Our ROI so far has been 💩 … Underachieving with All Americans outside of 1 year …

One 2nd weekend … And we got blown out in the Elite 8 … And it’s year freaking 8 and we’re getting 50 pieced on National TV … Worst loss in program history …

UNACCEPTABLE !!!!
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How many Big Ten Championships(Tournament or Season) did we have from 2007 - Brad. How many with Brad at the helm?

How many NCAA Tournaments did we make from 2007 to Brad? How many under Brad?

How many top 4 NCAA Tournament seeds from 2007 to Brad? How many since Brad has been here?

Feel free to add or not add the COVID year.

The last three games have been good awful, but to say results haven't been good is ridiculous. To act like it's a guarantee that we can just plug and play another coach, which will even remotely come close to Brad's success.....is also ridiculous.

The grass is always greener......
 
#262      
OrangeKrush1981
sacraig said:
We promoted them but they both still get paid relative peanuts. We aren't going to get an Xs and Os guru for those types of pay. Shoot, we couldn't even keep TA for 2-3x that much pay and he isn't even an Xs and Os person.

Ultimately, assistants have egos just like the players and the head coach. If you get too lopsided on a single coach, it can make it harder to attract or retain other good coaches if you aren't willing to compensate them comparably. They start feeling undervalued and/or underappreciated.

So I really don't know if paying that much for one coach is worth it, no matter how good they are, if it inhibits your ability to find and keep 4 other top notch coaches. What if we had 3 coaches making $500k-600k instead of 1 making $900k and a bunch making $100k-300k? What's the better strategy? Hell if I know!
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A top Xs and Os coach must be much less expensive than is a top recruiter, I would think. Recruiting is a zero-sum game, while Xs and Os just isn't all that complicated.

Though I suppose that selecting a system that works optimally for your players, then teaching them to be consistent in running the system, and finally being able to make timely adjustments (nothing radical, merely straightforward adjustments) are things that are higher-order art and not simply technical details (like Xs and Os themselves are).
 
#263      
jrichisamazing
ChiefGritty said:
The thing about Underwood at Illinois is not that he's made every right choice and not made mistakes, it's how much he's won and elevated the program DESPITE making his fair share of mistakes.

I have no more explanation or positive spin to offer about the last month and a half than anybody else, but I have decades of being a fan of Illini Basketball that tells me that I'd rather have BU responsible for finding a solution than the coaching carousel.

A day may come when the NIL market has matured to the point that I can confidently say "any Illinois coach can cycle through impact talent, we are permanently in that part of the food chain". But that day is not today, and I'm getting old enough that I really wonder whether anyone who takes BU's ability to bring us great players for granted was actually around for "Dunigan and Humprhey to Oregon" and the like.

We used to dream about the kind of problems we have now.
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Facts. And to add on, we are still very very much in the unregulated wild west of the NIL era. The majority of programs are going through ups and downs right now. There is very little consistency.
 
#264      
skyIdub
TheodoreRex said:
I listened as well- 1 thought and 1 question.

1 Thought- Latulip should be big time in commentating at some point, he's excellent at it.
2) Question: What did it help regarding your perspective? Did your thinking change?
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It didn't necessarily "change" because honestly I couldn't get too far in either direction. It just helped my perspective. There are hard questions that should be asked w/regards to BU and staff, but there's also so much that goes on we (fans) have no real good insight until someone as level headed as MLT can provide it.

I can see both sides of the Insider takes, and it's very hard for long time fans to keep their emotions in check...which is where I live honestly. When you are so emotionally attached to something and things are in a bit of turmoil, it's hard not to overreact.

I don't know if any of that can overcome a L at home vs Iowa tomorrow night. Whooo boy it will get explosive.
 
#265      
Second place is 1st loser
21ChampaignSt said:
I'm generally in the camp of BU has earned more time to right the ship. But the Loyola loss is squarely on him and will probably hang over his head forever unless he makes a Final Four. If I take my orange glasses off, what Moser did that game was one of the best coaching performances I've seen. That wasn't just a scrappy mid major who caught fire from three as often happens in tourney upsets. They knew exactly how they could hurt us. They inserted the knife and twisted it over and over and we looked more confused than anything.

Anyway, if we win that game, BU is pretty much on track. I've posted this before but every coach who has been here for 9+ years has made multiple S16's in their first 9 years. And this is how it breaks down by decade starting in the 80s:

80s: 4 S16
90s: 0 (sanctions)
00s: 4
10s: 0 (Inept leadership)
20s: 1

The way I see it, BU has one more year to get one more S16 and if he does that, then he gets four to make it to two. Longer leash than most here have for him but it just doesn't seem reasonable, IMO, to fire a guy for failing to do something that literally no one in our history has done - go to the 2nd weekend 5 times in a decade.
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So, 100% of your support depends on two games in March versus the 30 prior......over the last 5 years?

This is always the million dollar question. Is the multiple conference championship banners(season and tournament )not as important as one more March win?
 
#266      
Second place is 1st loser
ChiefGritty said:
The thing about Underwood at Illinois is not that he's made every right choice and not made mistakes, it's how much he's won and elevated the program DESPITE making his fair share of mistakes.

I have no more explanation or positive spin to offer about the last month and a half than anybody else, but I have decades of being a fan of Illini Basketball that tells me that I'd rather have BU responsible for finding a solution than the coaching carousel.

A day may come when the NIL market has matured to the point that I can confidently say "any Illinois coach can cycle through impact talent, we are permanently in that part of the food chain". But that day is not today, and I'm getting old enough that I really wonder whether anyone who takes BU's ability to bring us great players for granted was actually around for "Dunigan and Humprhey to Oregon" and the like.

We used to dream about the kind of problems we have now.
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Great post. Cosign.
 
#269      
Second place is 1st loser
21ChampaignSt said:
No.
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You're not the only one who thinks that. If we have a losing record 6 of the next 8 years, don't make the NIT, but the years we do get to the NCAAT.....we get to two sweet 16's, you'll be happier. I call BS. It sounds good now, but the years that were 15-17....you'll be pi$$ed because you're pi$$ed now that we're in the tournament every year, but we don't get as far as you want.

The basketball season is 5 months long. Don't take 4 months and 25 days for granted.
 
#272      
bluemountain
OrangeKrush1981 said:
A top Xs and Os coach must be much less expensive than is a top recruiter, I would think. Recruiting is a zero-sum game, while Xs and Os just isn't all that complicated.

Though I suppose that selecting a system that works optimally for your players, then teaching them to be consistent in running the system, and finally being able to make timely adjustments (nothing radical, merely straightforward adjustments) are things that are higher-order art and not simply technical details (like Xs and Os themselves are).
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not complicated, yet very few people can execute properly. There are more great recruiters out there than there are coaches who are great at teaching players to properly play the game
 
#275      
OrangeKrush1981
And 5th, nationally, in percentage made. Our staff would benefit from study of that: success with twos leads to success with threes. Just a thought.
 
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