Demetri mooovvveee
Coaching Carousel (Basketball)
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See, the reaction you get from this post will be strong and you're going to claim that you're getting dumped on for valid criticism.
But this is wild. Each of those points are very very carefully framed to be negative about Illinois ( like using seeding instead of Kenpom for Loyola or that the Houston loss was as a lower seed with our best players hurt) during the most successful sustained success this program has seen in 20 years.
IL is a legitimate title contender this year and is a fun watch. Why not stop being so miserable and enjoy the team?
IlliniwekKDR
- Colorado Springs, CO
Statistically speaking - the recruiting claim is incorrect. Weber had the third highest ranked recruits in school history. He just couldn't get them to exel. We use 20 win seasons as a benchmark. 7 of his 9 seasons were 20 win seasons. They just weren't nearly as competitive as the first 3 seasons. Why he couldn't get Jereme Richmond, Crandell Head to see the light or Mike Davis, Mike Tisdale, Demetrie McCamey, Meyers Leonard or Brandon Paul to play at the level that the players he inherited played at - is a mystery. But he got his share of highly ranked recruits.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Now here's the pure, uncut Weber-Guentherism
People used to valorize, almost worship losing around here. It was horrible.
Dang idk... I recall a ton of excuses and rationalization in various forms of "if/when recruiting improves" or "it was IDKWTI fault" or even "what if Jamar/Jereme" but never people saying they really, really, really wanted us to lose all of the time lol
A lot of us even saw the writing on the wall even the year after the 04-05 team where recruiting was already an obvious problem and the holes in an offensive scheme that only worked when we had 3 AA level guards became apparent
The amount of in-state talent during those years was incredible. If Bill Self stayed...
Bruce was a really good coach but he wasn't meant for recruiting during the bag man era. That's not a knock, either. He has integrity. Bret ran into similar issues in Arkansas and I think the world of him as well.
THIS POST SHOULD BE READ BY EVERYONE.
Bruce refused to get payments to players the way Self did. In fact, one of the reasons Self left was that he knew he couldn't pull at Illinois what he did at Kansas. Before the NLI era, the best teams PAID players. Everyone one of them. Especially Kansas. Duke, etc. You wanted to compete at the highest level, you paid. Bruce was a good coach who thought that integrity meant not paying players (narrator: he was wrong). Plus, he was awful at PR, as he sounded whiny and petty.
I would argue today, as I did pre-NIL, that forcing young basketball players into a serfdom arrangement where they have no control and make little money was done by people without integrity. The system was built to take advantage of the young. Inherently, it had no integrity, and following the rules of an unethical entity does not mean you had integrity.
The people who got young players paid were fine in my book. Integrity doesn't mean that you follow laws or rules that were set up to exploit others. Integrity means doing the right thing.
The game is MUCH better today than ever before, as young people get to share in the benefits of their labor.
skyIdub
"I can't tell you. Secret."
You know, this is one of the threads I like to wait a few days between visits to have some “good” reading material.
It would be nice if there was a feature that….popped
….up when a thread gets…let’s call it ”interesting”….that prompts me to bring my popcorn!
My goodness.
It would be nice if there was a feature that….popped
….up when a thread gets…let’s call it ”interesting”….that prompts me to bring my popcorn!My goodness.
I think this right here is the crux of the Brucie argument honestly. Some people have this idea that Bruce is obviously a good coach because his teams played hard on D and his motion offense system obviously was so potent and dangerous when he was able to have the horses and mentality to run it.
However the counter point is that being a "good basketball coach" is more than just your X's and O's chops, to me.....if youre a coach who loses the lockerroom entirely in multiple seasons.....how can we say you're a good coach? Your job description is literally to mold a group of young men to follow you through a brick wall.
To me that's the #1 thing a coach does --get everyone on the same page and working hard and with purpose to make something greater than the sum of the parts. A ton of criticism he got back in the day was how he would throw his players under the bus far more than himself. Contrast that to the level of cohesion this year under BU, and the recent run to the E8, and it's a huge difference.
Illinois pays it's basketball coaches among the best in the nation, if not top-10, certainly top-20. I don't want to judge him too harshly, but that context is the benchmark for where the bar needs to be.
Sure, I agree it’s a coaches responsibility to keep a locker room engaged and that that is a major aspect of the job. I just think saying Bruce is a bad/awful HC is a tired and hindsight induced take.
Honestly, if we’re going to scapegoat anyone it should be a combination of Guenther and Thomas. Both awful at their job, though in different ways.
Truly, absolutely amazing what a great AD can do. No doubt in my mind Whitman will go down as the best AD we’ve ever had. He might be there already.
Do you think Lou Henson didn't have integrity? You think all those studs in the 80s were coming here for free? There's a reason why Jimmy Collins was beloved in CPS circles. Does Brad not have integrity? If you think Kofi and Ayo came here pre-NIL just because of warm and fuzzies I have some beachfront property in Tuscola to sell ya
Bruce really pulled a fast one on sooooo many people by just screaming into the void year after year that if he just had the right players which he *obviously* could never get because he was just such an upstanding honest coach compared to his peers then we'd be amazing!!! Yeah well, once Jerrance got forced on him to play more in the 'grey' area he was able to get highly ranked recruits as other posters have mentioned and he still failed miserably.
Stevegarbs
- Mokena, IL
and 69 others
“Timeout South Carolina”
My guess is when you start your post with THIS POST SHOULD BE READ BY EVERYONE that 60-70% of this thread immediately skipped over your post.
I remember after Lon Kruger left Mike Jarvis’ name was thrown around for Illinois. I don’t think he’s busy at the moment if Brad were to leave. Steve lavin is also available.
Ya my Alma mater. Had some hopes. In his defense he was better than his predecessor who was married but then fired for domestic violence against his girlfriend in San Francisco. So I’d argue Steve isn’t the worst coach out there, but close.
People like to bag on Weber a lot and some of it is fair and deserved but even at his worst, he was still taking Illinois to the tourney every other year. The bottom fell out with Groce and Groce is the true reason this program fell to its lowest point since before Lou Henson arrived in Champaign. When you cannot recruit a PG for the life of you and you're having to pin your hopes on Jaylon freaking Tate or Khalid Lewis or Tejon Lucas given Tracy's injuries, I mean that just speaks to what a terrible place this program was in and how poor of a recruiter Groce and his staff were. Groce lost double digits every single year including the first year he got us to the tournament. I mean for goodness sake, it's not even a comparison. Weber still recruited McCamey and Abrams at PG after Dee Brown left. That's better than any PG that Groce got in his entire tenure. Let's be serious for a moment. Underwood struggled mightily with Groce's leftovers(Finke, Black, Nichols). The covard was completely empty. At least Weber left Groce with a good core between BP3/DJ/Egwu/Abrams/Bertrand. I contend a better coach would've gotten that group to a 4/5 seed at worst
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Air Force has announced a "mutual parting of ways" with head coach Joe Scott. He had been suspended indefinitely last month after the school began an investigation into his treatment of cadet-athletes. Scott's second tenure in Colorado Springs wasn't nearly as successful as his first run there. This time around, the Falcons failed to finish better than 10th in the Mountain West, including last-place finishes the last two seasons, in any of his 5+ seasons. This was a far cry from his first stint at Air Force between 1999 and 2004 when he guided the school to a Mountain West title and an appearance in the 2004 NCAA Tournament.
Illini lost its 3rd OT game this year!!! We must fire Brad Underwood and Tyler!!! Not acceptable
I think its highly unlikely Otz would leave especially for Osu.but i think that'd be a home run hire if they could somehow pull it off
I think its highly unlikely Otz would leave especially for Osu.but i think that'd be a home run hire if they could somehow pull it off
I’d hate if we added Otz to the Big Ten.
But I remember last year when UK was sniffing around, the buyout was astronomical.
Also think Iowa State is a sneaky really good job
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