Sources: Iowa to hire Drake's McCollum as coach
Iowa has agreed to hire Drake's Ben McCollum as its next men's basketball coach, sources told ESPN on Monday.
Coaching Carousel (Basketball)
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Mike B was able to get Cade Cunningham to OK St (don't know how involved he was with getting Jawun Evans there, but there's that too). He'll be another ace recruiter on our staff I'd reckon
Did our offense really have that low of a floor though? We scored less than 70 points only like 3-4 times in our last 30 games played......
Sure we had some in game stretches where the ball gets stagnant, but that happens to every team at certain points, that's just basketball.
robertgoulet
IL Board Resident Crooner
- Austin, TX
If you have other guys who handle the gameplan I am perfectly fine with him just being valuable over the summer. That doesn't mean just recruiting, he's also the bigs coach.
sacraig
- The desert
We play with a high pace, so I'm more interested in efficiency. Like PPP. Admittedly, I haven't run those numbers, but a high volume/low percentage three game isn't efficient, and we've had to fall back on that too much.
Admittedly, outscoring opponents would be easier if we played an actual defense.
Fair point..... I'm not an advanced stats nerd by any means, so all I can go off of is Kenpom efficiency numbers which I gotta assume is taking pace into account.
Thanks for posting this. As there is validity to your point, but your bar isn't everyone's bar.
I'd be curious to see how we stack up based on weeks ranked in the Top 10 compared to other programs since Brad's tenure. How do we compare from a seeding perspective in the tournament to other top programs. My guess is that we would not be in the Top 10 in those categories.
if I am an affluent donor (and I am not) that writes a six-figure check to support Illini MBB, am I getting a net-positive ROI on my investment?
I think the answer for this year is a clear No. Last year was a Yes. Prior to that it was a mixed bag.
Bottom line is that Illinois MBB has been brought back up to being respectable and consistently good. Have we been great or Top 10, I don't think so, and the expectations have increased correspondingly to the investments in our program
sacraig
- The desert
It is, and I think our offense has been pretty good, but with too many flops against good teams that can take it away. I think it just needs more dimension, not an overhaul.
Our offensive philosophy is very boom/bust - we play at a fast pace and shoot a high volume of 3's, so if we are hitting our 3's, we can blow anyone out of the water. If we aren't hitting our 3's, we can lose to Morehead State. You are inevitably going to have games in which you shoot 25% from 3, especially against good defensive teams. In those situations, you need to have a way to score enough to win. A team with great offensive rebounding and good defense can survive a 25% 3 pt shooting night on high volume. We are a good offensive rebounding team, but a poor defensive team.
When I say we have a high ceiling/low floor, that is on an individual game basis. Over the course of a regular season we will have enough good nights to get us to the tourney and maybe even challenge for a conference championship if we have the talent. In the NCAA tourney however, you can count on a bad 3 point shooting night at some point, which limits how far we can go.
My ideal would be Alexander gets a head coaching job. Then our staff becomes Antigua, Boynton, Yaklich, I'll bite on this Samarippas guy, and Tyler.
That sounds like a pretty elite staff. I agree with those that have said we don't look to have a Charlie Weis-esque decided schematic advantage (sidenote: as a life long Catholic, Charlie Weis made me dislike Notre Dame) in pretty much any game.
I have said this many times before, but in an NIL world, I don't think you need a staff of recruiters anymore. Underwood has shown he's a very strong recruiter, Antigua is a great recruiter, my proposed staff has plenty of recruiting firepower. You do need to have solid Xs and Os. You buy the roster, then coach them.
If you look at the Sweet 16, I think you've got some great tactical coaches: Beard, Painter, Izzo, Sampson, Barnes, McCasland, Golden, Oats, Lloyd, etc. If I wanted to spend the time, which I don't, I bet most of the staffs have either the head coach as a Xs and Os brain, or a former head coach that may not be a recruiting star but always knew their Xs and Os. When everyone can buy the talent, it is the actual coaching that will separate teams going forward.
He is your International guy though. the Euro agents love him. I don't think it'd kill us if he left it's just so easy in Europe for us with him though.
I don’t need you to Brad explain to me . I’ve been watching and supporting Illinois athletics since 1978. Tired of people like you acting like a know it all and telling other fans we don’t know what we’re talking about. Your opinion is your opinion and I don’t agree with anything you’re saying . Who cares about all the meaningless stats you laid out. What matters is Winning. Final 4s Elite 8s Sweet 16 national championships. Just getting to NCAA tournament IS NOT GOING TO CUT IT. That should be automatic for a program like Illinois. You don’t get special points as the coach of the University of Illinois for just making the NCAA tournament. Who do you think Illinois is Northwestern. Brad Underwood is not getting the job done and I’m tired of him and all the people making excuses for him. Do you donate to the collective? I donate to the collective .
This … Wouldn’t kill us but would still be a major loss …
skyIdub
"I can't tell you. Secret."
Bring back trash can kicking, a$$ chewing, no BS Brad.
I don’t want to “fire Brad”, I want fiery Brad.
This team laid down for at least 10 min every game this year. In our worst L’s it was entire halves.
No cutting and passing on O, lackluster D, lazy passing.
So hard to watch.
I don’t want to “fire Brad”, I want fiery Brad.
This team laid down for at least 10 min every game this year. In our worst L’s it was entire halves.
No cutting and passing on O, lackluster D, lazy passing.
So hard to watch.
For sure. Although, I will say that my bar is based on:
A) Our program's performance from 1980 - 2006
B) Our performance relative to the field
So, it's not a completely random bar.
That's a level of research I'm not prepared to commit to haha.
I bet we're actually pretty competitive on the seeding though. Remember, there are only 5 teams who have longer active streaks than us which means all but about 10 teams will have at least one seed value of 18 for missing the tournament. If you add our seeds up for all 5 years it's 23.
Did you not see him kick the scores table yesterday? or him leave the sideline interview and chew them out? or the report from the halftime locker room?
or earlier in the year when he cut up and bruised his right hand so bad he had it wrapped up in a towel and couldn't use it to shake hands after a game? He is still the same Brad.
Illini in OC
In. The. Alley.
Hi 0440 -
Changing directions - just replying to solicit your insight....
I assume that a big part of OA's recruiting prowess (and value) is related to his reputation as a big-man developer. Agree?
It would further seem to me that OA could/would/should make significant game planning and adjustment recommendations based on how to best utilize "his" guys.
Thoughts?
If they give him the necessary resources, Medved might kill it there. Great coach.
skyIdub
"I can't tell you. Secret."
I didn’t! Lol apparently I’m just not paying enough attention or missed the mentions of it!
mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
Geoff seems pretty indispensable right now. There are advantages in Europe (eligibility, price, experience) compared to here. Geoff obviously opens doors over there, or gets preferential treatment that the program would lose if he leaves.
Geoff's situation is also why I'm cautious about constant turnover and the belief that another coach out there is an upgrade. If there is an obvious, no-doubt upgrade, then sure. I also remember in 2019-20-21 that folks were begging for Geoff to get a low-level head coaching job or Brad to fire him because his recruiting was sub-par compared to the OA's or Chin's on the staff, and he wasn't as involved in the X's and O's as Gentry. I also appreciate that Geoff is one of the only pieces on the staff that has long-term perspective - it's slightly concerning that so many staff members have left during the Underwood tenure for other assistant jobs and not head coaching jobs.
As long as talent is continually coming onto the roster and Underwood is showing strategic flexibility at a higher level than other coaches, I'll trust his choices (but reserve the right to discuss them with an open mind on here
).
Geoff's situation is also why I'm cautious about constant turnover and the belief that another coach out there is an upgrade. If there is an obvious, no-doubt upgrade, then sure. I also remember in 2019-20-21 that folks were begging for Geoff to get a low-level head coaching job or Brad to fire him because his recruiting was sub-par compared to the OA's or Chin's on the staff, and he wasn't as involved in the X's and O's as Gentry. I also appreciate that Geoff is one of the only pieces on the staff that has long-term perspective - it's slightly concerning that so many staff members have left during the Underwood tenure for other assistant jobs and not head coaching jobs.
As long as talent is continually coming onto the roster and Underwood is showing strategic flexibility at a higher level than other coaches, I'll trust his choices (but reserve the right to discuss them with an open mind on here
).I'm pretty sure the adjusted offense (AdjO) is tempo free which is why he accounts for tempo with (AdjT).
My biggest beef with our pick n roll was that our picks didn't create much separation. Most of the time our ball handler would leave 3 feet between himself and the screener which would allow the defender ample room to slide through and stay in front of KB or KJ, versus how many times Boswell had to go out and around the screener for Kentucky and would always end up on the ball handlers hip....
If you are going to have someone set a screen, use it.... otherwise it's just a continuation of passing the ball around the perimeter.
I think he has gotten soft in his decision making. The coach that preaches eliteness for his program should not be running two 30 or younger coaches as our expert tactitians. We should have an elite staff with the money we shell out. Hopefully it changes soon
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