Agreed that team got completely jobbed. Your final sentence confirmed what I was thinking....
Coaching Carousel (Basketball)
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Because then he wouldn't have time to post on here....?
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
Depends. Is he a helluva coach?
/s
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I would take Miller in a heart beat. He’s a good coach and great people person. Give him our resources in this new world where anything goes and he would thrive!
I live in the St Louis area, always had an affinity towards SLU since the days of Ron Ekker and Rich Grawer.
Losing Shertz would be a blow....unless winning the A10 tournament, not going to March Madness. He's been working hard with a short roster. Injuries and portaling out has affected the team. Still, the future looks better.
But I agree, it would be an underwhelming hire for IU.
Losing Shertz would be a blow....unless winning the A10 tournament, not going to March Madness. He's been working hard with a short roster. Injuries and portaling out has affected the team. Still, the future looks better.
But I agree, it would be an underwhelming hire for IU.
I’m assuming Villanova is likely to open as well, no? Curious how desirable of a job that would be
I TRUST JOSH WHITMAN. Mike Thomas was the reason for Groce and Beckman he single handedly almost destroyed Illinois athletics . If Brad walks or gets fired I’m confident because Illinois has the best Athletic Director in all of College. Your athletic director makes or breaks your sports programs
Coaches that if you replaced Underwood would have this current Illinois team at the top of the Big Ten Injuries Sickness and all
Rick Pitino
Dana Altman
Bruce Pearl
Chris Beard
Izzo
Shaka Smart
Dan Hurley
Bill Self
Pat Kelsey
Chris Collins
Jon Scheyer
Calvin Sampson
Scott Drew
Sean Miller
Greg McDermott
Jay Wright
Rick Pitino
Dana Altman
Bruce Pearl
Chris Beard
Izzo
Shaka Smart
Dan Hurley
Bill Self
Pat Kelsey
Chris Collins
Jon Scheyer
Calvin Sampson
Scott Drew
Sean Miller
Greg McDermott
Jay Wright
Ball is life
mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
Come on now, here's the opponents records + KenPom rankings for the teams Miller has beaten during this winning streak:
12-18 (KenPom: 96)
12-18 (KenPom: 128)
13-17 (KenPom: 75)
7-23 (KenPom: 202)
21-9 (KenPom: 35)
13-17 (KenPom: 75)
And the "only one loss since 2/1" lumps in a loss to a bad Villanova (KenPom 55) team that's going to fire their coach and a win against Georgetown (KenPom 83).
If he wanted to get into coaching it wouldn't be a bad start but he probably could have done it years ago if he wanted to.
Huh....and here I was thinking that winning conference titles 3 out of the last 4 years, along with being the only B1G team without a losing conference record in the last 6 seasons, and coming off a deep tourney run last year counted as "building sustained success" already.
Silly me!
Some people can’t understand that March is sometimes random. Underwood has built sustained success and then some. Big ten regular season, big ten tourney, and most recently Elite 8.
For those who don’t like facts, here are some.
Note - Resume quality is only based on wins and losses too yet this still proves Underwood overachieved. Predictive metrics are even better.
It amazes me how much people just look at wins. Maybe BU should stack garbage opponents out of conf and we would easily have 22-23 wins again. Quality matters.
USAFILLINI
- Florida
Are you comfortable with the idea of only winning regular-season games without ever contending for a national championship?
I'm fully aware this might seem like a first-world problem, but we’re in a different era than we were with Groce. My question is: what do we think BU's ceiling is? You clearly believe he's the guy, but aside from that one year with TSJ, I don't see much evidence supporting it. Again, while you may have cherry-picked my words, I'm 100% rooting for these guys and hope that BU proves me wrong.
Thought this was a message board where we could come to talk about stuff like this?
There's no ceiling in the Pizza Hut parking lot.
I would argue we still have too small a sample size to see if Brad is “the guy who will get it done in March.”
2020- no tourney but we were tough and coming on late, very well could have played above our seed and we aren’t even having this convo.
2021 -One seed. Title contender . Lost R32. Underperformed but also had a tough draw
2022- Lost R32. Slight underperformance but also a really tough draw.
2023- Lost First Rd. “Off” year, first year post Ayo and Kofi (let’s see how Painter does when Smith leaves.
2024 - Lost E8. Slight overperformance but benefit of good draw early. Ran into historically dominant UConn in E8.
So we’ve really only had one year where I feel like we were a legit F4, national title contender. And of course we really underperformed so that one really stings.
But we’ve also had some really tough draws. If we lose to Loyola in the S16 (which they probably should have been a 4 or 5), I think the second weekend takes some of the sting out. If we ran into Houston (who should have been a 1 or 2) in the E 8 I think there’s a different narrative. And though we got a good draw in the first 2 rounds last year, if we aren’t in UConn’s bracket I think there’s a good chance we make the F4, as Terrence was on another level before the UConn game.
Even the best coaches stub their toes in a single elimination tournament. Look at Painter’s last 3 tourneys before last year’s run.
Good news is we are going to the tourney every year. That is probably the single biggest factor in having a tourney run.
ptgrd23
- orange county CA
At Illinois Lou went to two final fours in 21 years. It took him 14 years to make the first one. Lou also went to one at NM state.
Lon Kruger went to two final fours (FL and OK) in 31 years at P4.
Sean Miller in 21 years has never gone to final 4 (4 elite 8)
Brad Underwood has reached elite 8 once in 9 years at OK State and Illinois. I think he has still growing and improving. I think you can complain if he does not make it to 2nd round this year. I hope Brad cracked the code last season on how to win in NCAA tourney.
Lon Kruger went to two final fours (FL and OK) in 31 years at P4.
Sean Miller in 21 years has never gone to final 4 (4 elite 8)
Brad Underwood has reached elite 8 once in 9 years at OK State and Illinois. I think he has still growing and improving. I think you can complain if he does not make it to 2nd round this year. I hope Brad cracked the code last season on how to win in NCAA tourney.
IlliniwekKDR
- Colorado Springs, CO
Damn right. You can't win if you don't play. Make the tourney, get a little lucky, and go on a run.
Some great coaches have had excruciating early tournament exits. Self, Izzo, Coach K, Henson, (Painter and Bennett especially) they've all had early upsets. 2021 was a brutal exit for us, but it was a hell of a fun team to watch and we are in a great position now and moving forward.
Honestly and I think that many who've been here for a while will agree.....I believe that you and you alone have created this Sean Miller "hate" on this board. For two years, you've touted him as a replacement for Brad because you wanted him gone after the 2022-2023 season, then when we lost the PG to Baylor. Those were the two most notable times. The overwhelming majority of our fans want Brad and while they might be disappointed at times....the big picture is that we're extremely fortunate.
When things go wrong, it's generally your take that the donors aren't happy, they won't stand for it, etc. Then, the need for a coaching search is triggered.
Nobody hates Sean Miller, but I think that you force fed him for a couple of off-seasons and the wise cracks are more at that versus any issues with the actual coach.
To be clear, OBVIOUSLY you are extremely valued and rightfully so. However, I do believe that you can take a bow with each and every Sean Miller dig.
I wouldn't put myself in the Miller 'hater' group, I'm pretty much indifferent until we get to the point someone argues we should fire Brad and hire him
He's a really good coach, but so is our guy
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
Should I direct you back to the last coaching thread?
For what?
Show me where I made a single disparaging remark about Sean Miller outside of stating he hasn't made an E8 in 10 years (which isn't even disparaging in any way, it's just a fact).
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
There were a few people saying fire Brad and hire Miller in the last thread.
To be clear, both are good coaches and I want to keep Brad as our coach.
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