Coaching Carousel (Basketball)

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#226      
NarrowJ
USAFILLINI said:
At some point, when you realize you don't have the shooters you thought you did, adjustments are necessary. If you didn’t see how our reliance on the three-point shot cost us games, I don’t know what to tell you. Robbie Hummel mentioned several times how puzzled he was by our approach, does he not know basketball? It’s frustrating when people try to dismiss criticism with the “you don’t know basketball” line.

I believe Tyler has the potential to be a great coach in college basketball. But there’s no one, not even the insiders who hold him in high regard, who can justify the position he’s in right now. And with the talent he's been given, how do we not know if our offense could have been even better with an established offensive coordinator?
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I agree with of this other than I think the folks you're referring to as "insiders" have been more supportive of what we do on offense than what we do on defense.

This year the offense itself was fine imo, but our shooting needs to be studied in depth. So many games we got open look after open look and could not make those shots. Why did Kylan's outside shot regress 15 percentage points?
 
#227      
USAFILLINI
nyc_illini said:
How do you know “there is no one…who hold him in high regard”?

Are you basing that on just this echo chamber?
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Not for sure what you are trying to get at here. I think you mightve read that wrong.
 
#228      
ChiIllini75
I feel like I'm spying on the early meetings Billy Beane had with A's scouts. One side with empirical evidence, and the other that says the numbers lie because my eyes say so.

If the standard you are looking for is an offense that runs smoothly for 40 minutes each game, I'm afraid you will never be satisfied. The fact we had, by relatively reliable metrics, a top 20 offense 2 straight years with very different approaches and the takeaway is fire the OC is mid-boggling.
 
#229      
USAFILLINI
NarrowJ said:
I agree with of this other than I think the folks you're referring to as "insiders" have been more supportive of what we do on offense than what we do on defense.

This year the offense itself was fine imo, but our shooting needs to be studied in depth. So many games we got open look after open look and could not make those shots. Why did Kylan's outside shot regress 15 percentage points?
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I completely agree, we need to figure out why our shooting was so poor. Was it mental, or is it time to reevaluate what we prioritize in recruiting, especially when it comes to three-point shooting? Something clearly wasn’t right.


From the start of the season, insiders and others were saying this was one of the most talented rosters we’ve had in a long time. If that’s true, you have to wonder what someone like Gentry (I know he’s not coming back) could’ve done with this offense. We’ve poured so much support and money into the program, yet we’re still rolling with the coach’s son.


The defense was flat-out bad—there’s no excuse for bringing Hamer back. None.
 
#231      
Se Il Illini
USAFILLINI said:
At some point, when you realize you don't have the shooters you thought you did, adjustments are necessary. If you didn’t see how our reliance on the three-point shot cost us games, I don’t know what to tell you. Robbie Hummel mentioned several times how puzzled he was by our approach, does he not know basketball? It’s frustrating when people try to dismiss criticism with the “you don’t know basketball” line.

I believe Tyler has the potential to be a great coach in college basketball. But there’s no one, not even the insiders who hold him in high regard, who can justify the position he’s in right now. And with the talent he's been given, how do we not know if our offense could have been even better with an established offensive coordinator?
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Who can justify the position he is in now? The head coach.
 
#232      
altgeld88
robertgoulet said:
There is a large group of people who don't like shooting 3s and would rather see post ups/taking open mid range jumpers. I would bet that a pretty large group of that group also doesn't think there is offense being run if they don't see constant cutting, passing and off ball screens.
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Agreed. I can do the math on PPP and eFG, but I fall into what's perhaps a mezzanine group of the confused who observe that a fully perimeter-oriented team that shoots threes poorly and fails to rebound offensively won't perform as well as the same team that does rebound aggressively and also keeps defenses honest through intermittent penetration. When we did the latter this season we usually won, IIRC. Against Kentucky we outrebounded them on the O glass (by 33%, 12-9); it was the turnovers (14-5) and marginally poorer shooting that killed us. Without the TOs and UK's pts off them, that game is really close and we probably win.

It seems to me that it's not a binary matter (POT v. midrange/penetration.) Please educate me otherwise as I'm fully open to being proven wrong about this.

I'll also admit to finding the aesthetics of Sean Miller's offense Friday night superior to ours. 'Cause I'm an old guy who ran those sorts of sets back in the day. Ultimately, however, all I care about for the Illini are the Ws. Seems that if we had enjoyed just one reliable stone cold killer on the perimeter we'd be in a much different and better place, even with our youth and inexperience. And that defense (yuck.)
 
#233      
USAFILLINI
ChiIllini75 said:
I feel like I'm spying on the early meetings Billy Beane had with A's scouts. One side with empirical evidence, and the other that says the numbers lie because my eyes say so.

If the standard you are looking for is an offense that runs smoothly for 40 minutes each game, I'm afraid you will never be satisfied. The fact we had, by relatively reliable metrics, a top 20 offense 2 straight years with very different approaches and the takeaway is fire the OC is mid-boggling.
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That is pretty ironic.

For all the praise Billy Beane gets for being a forward-thinking, metrics-driven GM, his teams consistently fell short in October—despite regular season success. Sound familiar?

During his 18 years as GM of the Oakland Athletics (1998-2015), Billy Beane's teams made 9 playoff appearances, winning 2 playoff series (2006 ALDS and a 3-game tilt against the White Sox in 2020) but never advanced past the ALCS.
 
#235      
USAFILLINI
Se Il Illini said:
Who can justify the position he is in now? The head coach.
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Exactly—and that’s the core of the frustration.


If you're looking at justifications for handing him the reins, the resume is incredibly thin. The only thing he really had going for him was proximity, he’s BU’s son. And that’s not a reason to entrust someone with a program of this caliber.


The irony is, we already saw the conflict of interest play out when BU struggled to separate what was best for the team from family loyalty—like when Tyler got minutes over more deserving players.
 
#236      
ChiIllini75
USAFILLINI said:
That is pretty ironic.

For all the praise Billy Beane gets for being a forward-thinking, metrics-driven GM, his teams consistently fell short in October—despite regular season success. Sound familiar?

During his 18 years as GM of the Oakland Athletics (1998-2015), Billy Beane's teams made 9 playoff appearances, winning 2 playoff series (2006 ALDS and a 3-game tilt against the White Sox in 2020) but never advanced past the ALCS.
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The difference is he was doing that for a poverty franchise, not exactly the Illini predicament. Beyond that, I'd say that roughly equates to maybe getting to Sweet Sixteens 50% of the time and taking your chances from there.

I'd be ok with that. There are no guarantees, so give me a smart, effective approach that puts a team in the position to succeed consistently.

And if you want to trust your eyes, I'd think the mess on defense would be the red flag, not our offense. If the critique is the offense is more, or even equally as troublesome, as the defense it will be tough to take that opinion seriously.
 
#238      
Gbop
Credentials besides being a friend of the head coaches son
 
#239      
ChiIllini75
USAFILLINI said:
Exactly—and that’s the core of the frustration.


If you're looking at justifications for handing him the reins, the resume is incredibly thin. The only thing he really had going for him was proximity, he’s BU’s son. And that’s not a reason to entrust someone with a program of this caliber.


The irony is, we already saw the conflict of interest play out when BU struggled to separate what was best for the team from family loyalty—like when Tyler got minutes over more deserving players.
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Not to go down a rabbit hole here, but regardless of the resume we now have a body of work in this role. The metrics say it has gone well, so now the conversation should be whether those numbers are relevant or not (I tend to think they are).

As for minutes, I don't really recall a ton of TU minutes. Those pesky stats seem to agree, he averaged 2.3 MPG in 7 games played his last season, and 3.3 MPG over 49 games played in 3 seasons total. Not sure he played enough to be taking real minutes from others, maybe a short burst tossed a message at best/worst.
 
#240      
Knee brace
illini0440 said:
We can go back to scoring 33 for the game against PSU
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Oh My God Omg GIF
 
#242      
Grandpa
In spite of being the worst* 3 point shooting team in the nation and taking the most* 3s in the nation. Imagine if they played with a little common sense.

*Almost
 
#243      
Piotyr
What's interesting to me about the defense the past couple years is that it would be top 20 in the country for about 3 months, and then take a noticeable dive. I'm not sure if that has more to do with the discrepancy in talent faced in non-con vs conference foes day in, day out, or the defensive plan is so simple to scout that teams eventually figure out an effective counter and Illinois can't adjust or add complexity quickly enough, but it's extremely frustrating to see this team completely exploited defensively in March and not be able to do anything about it.

On the flip side, this offense hums along even when they can't hit 3's, and their shot charts are basically textbook desired efficiency for a modern offense, at least until someone decides that fadeaway ISO 18 foot jumpers are what they want to do.
 
#244      
bluemountain
NarrowJ said:
That's the group that as 0440 and others have pointed out, do not understand how contemporary offenses work.
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The issue with our offense is that it is amazing when we are hitting 3 pointers and can open the floor, but it will kill us during those inevitable times we shoot 25% from 3 on high volume. On average it works out well and will get us to the tourney every year with the talent BU brings in, but we are going to lose games because of it, especially against teams that know how to defend us.

Having said that, offense is certainly not our biggest problem
 
#245      
ChiefGritty
illini0440 said:
We can go back to scoring 33 for the game against PSU
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I was there.

One bit of color from that game: at the under-8 TV timeout in the first half, the score was 13-6 Penn State. It was a veritable offensive explosion from there.

We also did not shoot a single free throw in that game.

That was Weber's best post-Dee team.
 
#246      
PepeSilvia
NarrowJ said:
Loyer is one of the most efficient offensive players in the entire NCAA.

So you're forgetting about him.

They also shot nearly 50 percent overall and nearly 40 percent from 3 as a team.

We had a top 5 offense last year with really 2-3 guys doing the bulk of the work on offense as well. So it can be done.

If we have to posit that one of the best offenses in the country was ran by a bunch of scrubs then I think it hurts your point more than it helps.
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Loyer is solely a spot up shooter.

That entire offense is driven by Smith and TKR who are very very good players but I'm just pointing out that Purdue but up a better offensive efficiency rating despite having a far less talented roster than Illinois from top to bottom.

How many players on Purdue's roster would have started on Illinois? Purdue ended up being more than the sum of its parts where I think Illinois was probably a worse product that what it should've or couldve been.
 
#247      
robertgoulet
PepeSilvia said:
Loyer is solely a spot up shooter.

That entire offense is driven by Smith and TKR who are very very good players but I'm just pointing out that Purdue but up a better offensive efficiency rating despite having a far less talented roster than Illinois from top to bottom.

How many players on Purdue's roster would have started on Illinois? Purdue ended up being more than the sum of its parts where I think Illinois was probably a worse product that what it should've or couldve been.
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I'd argue that a big reason for Purdue being more than the sum of its parts whereas UI seemed to occasionally look like a team of very talented young kids who haven't played together much before that was just thrown together is because...well...that's exactly what it was. Purdue has guys who have been there for multiple years playing together. They're built like one of the mid majors from the 00s that cause issues for the "big" schools in the tourney.
 
#248      
NarrowJ
PepeSilvia said:
Loyer is solely a spot up shooter.

That entire offense is driven by Smith and TKR who are very very good players but I'm just pointing out that Purdue but up a better offensive efficiency rating despite having a far less talented roster than Illinois from top to bottom.

How many players on Purdue's roster would have started on Illinois? Purdue ended up being more than the sum of its parts where I think Illinois was probably a worse product that what it should've or couldve been.
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I think those 3 could start, not only for Illinois, but for any team in the country

Just an aside but whoa... Loyer is most certainly not only a spot up shooter, where on Earth are you getting that from? Half his attempts are inside the arc and his FT attempt rate is double that of Braden's. It was only a couple weeks ago he was killing us with side step mid-range shots, ducking and dodging guys for lay-ins and shooting 8 FTs against us as he carved through people and drew contact. So now I am forced to ask if you have watched Purdue play?
 
#250      
splitter
USAFILLINI said:
Exactly—and that’s the core of the frustration.


If you're looking at justifications for handing him the reins, the resume is incredibly thin. The only thing he really had going for him was proximity, he’s BU’s son. And that’s not a reason to entrust someone with a program of this caliber.


The irony is, we already saw the conflict of interest play out when BU struggled to separate what was best for the team from family loyalty—like when Tyler got minutes over more deserving players.
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Tyler taking all of those minutes from Mark Smith certainly didn't help Mark's development. If only he had taken more of his minutes on the treadmill.
 
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