foby
- Bonnaroo Land
What a story if Thad Matta goes back to Xavier huh?
At least it would end the domino effect.
What a story if Thad Matta goes back to Xavier huh?
I don't like the optics of Xavier hiring Matta, a retread. They should be playing with the big boys now.
I don't like the optics of Xavier hiring Matta, a retread. They should be playing with the big boys now.
Yeah, I think Kruger and Self leaving left him gun shy. But Weber had experience taking SIU to the Sweet 16 and recruited decently for that level. I'm sure he saw him as a Lou Henson steady and solid type.
He had some decent hires during his tenure. Some not so great.
Ron Turner - eh... good play caller, lousy team leader. When he had team leaders like Kittner etc. they did okay.
Ron Zook - eh - good recruiter, not so good play caller. Held onto him too long.
Kruger - good hire
Self - great hire
Weber - gunshy hire.
Theresa Grentz - WBB - most successfule WBB coach we've had.
Jolette Law - Not so much
Don Hardin and Kevin Hambly - Volleyball - both great coaches
Brad Dancer - Men's tennis - great hire.
Mike Small - Men's Golf - great hire.
Dan Hartleib - Baseball - Solid hire.
Renee Sloane - Women's Golf - program is getting better.
Justin Spring - Men's Gymnastics - Solid program.
Janet Rayfield - Soccer - started out strong. Program hasn't done well the last few years. Is that due to lack of facilities or bad recruiting? Probably some of both.
Sue Novitsky - Women's Swimming - Don't hear too much about that program.
Jim Heffernen - Wrestling - Solid program, but has seemed to slip since Mark Johnson left. Who I also think was a Ron Guenther hire.
Overall, I think Guenther had a good run of hiring coaches at Illinois. Football was his weakest link, I would guess.
I don't like the optics of Xavier hiring Matta, a retread. They should be playing with the big boys now.
Porter Moser to Xavier cashing in on flavor of the month with his run with Loyola? Would be a pretty good move for both imo.
Porter Moser to Xavier cashing in on flavor of the month with his run with Loyola? Would be a pretty good move for both imo.
Yeah sorry I should clarify. Didn't mean a retread in that sense but rather that he coached there and left them for greener pastures.
Mack to Louisville per Twitter.
It's not that the NCAA doesn't or won't punish big-time programs, it's that they can't. Louisville has a huge loyal fanbase, a decorated history, gobs of money, and elite facilities. Give them the death penalty, do whatever you like to them, they will come back.
SMU died because they were a house of cards to begin with. Bruce Pearl's Auburn will be a house of cards too. Things built on a solid foundation cannot be stopped by temporary sanctions.
(And they shouldn't be, by the way. To the extent the NCAA ought to enforce its ridiculous mandate at all, the enforcement should fall on the coaches who commit the acts, not the future leadership who had nothing to do with it, or the real moral calculation in the college sports internet world, the fans who experienced "undeserved" happiness and now ought to pay penance)
I think it'd be an absolutly terrible move. This is a coach that prior to this tourney run, finished below .500 in 4 out of his last 6 seasons with Loyola. Not to mention completely failing at Illinois State going 51-67 over 4 seasons. Hell, before this season, this is a coach who won more than 18 games ONCE over his 13 year career as a head coach!
Xavier can and will do better. We've all seen the effects of hiring a mid major coach after one special tourney run without a proven track record of success.
Overall, I think Guenther had a good run of hiring coaches at Illinois. Football was his weakest link, I would guess.
Interesting. I wanted Keatts, Musselman, or Prohm. Thought we had a shot with either or the latter but thought Keatts was a longshot.I think Mack is a tremendous hire at Louisville and Capel a very good hire at Pitt (although a really tough place to win).
Before last year's carousel started, my top 3 were Archie, Keatts, and Mack, followed by dark horses Capel and Anthony Grant in the top 5. All five ended up with new jobs within 12 months.
Yep. Pretty much. A long, slow, steady sad decline. Whitman has a hell of a job ahead of him.I would actually agree, and that just reveals how little of an AD's job is properly measured by looking at a broad-based measure of the coaches he hired.
The fundamental duty of an Athletic Director is to manage the brand of the University's sports program. The first thing that flows from that is that football and men's basketball are the only things that matter, weighted slightly toward football. Burning a successful football program to ashes makes an AD a failure on that alone. But it goes deeper than just wins and losses. Illinois basketball was largely excellent under Guenther, and the football team did not lack for good years and exciting moments. But between 1992 and 2011, RG's tenure, Illinois absolutely sprinted backwards relative to its peer schools as a recruiting destination, an entity of local and national media interest, a merchandising operation, a box-office draw, a game experience and atmosphere, in every measure that looks beyond W/L record to the health of the business, Illini sports atrophied away to nothing under RG's leadership.
Empty tailgate lots on fall Saturdays. That's Ron Guenther's legacy.
Interesting. I wanted Keatts, Musselman, or Prohm. Thought we had a shot with either or the latter but thought Keatts was a longshot.
Overall, I think Guenther had a good run of hiring coaches at Illinois. Football was his weakest link, I would guess.
Heard that St Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt is possible target for Xavier. Former assistant there finished 2nd in A10.
Interesting. I wanted Keatts, Musselman, or Prohm. Thought we had a shot with either or the latter but thought Keatts was a longshot.
If I was Moser I'd stay in Chicago. Very little pressure, good name and school for those guys from Chicago not going to Illinois or some other P5 school. Valley is wide open for a leader, so why not Loyola?
Illinois Football hasn't been good in about 100 years outside of the random sporadic year.
Mike White had a pretty good run in early 80s.This is so, so deeply untrue, especially when you date it to the start of Guenther's tenure.
Illinois was comfortably the 4th best football program of the then-existing Big Ten when Ron Guenther got the job.
Takes like this all spring from a misunderstanding of how good Bob Blackman's teams were, IMO. Blackman went 24-11-1 against Big Ten teams other than the Woody and Bo dynasties who no other B1G teams were beating either.
Mike White had a pretty good run in early 80s.
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I would actually agree, and that just reveals how little of an AD's job is properly measured by looking at a broad-based measure of the coaches he hired.
The fundamental duty of an Athletic Director is to manage the brand of the University's sports program. The first thing that flows from that is that football and men's basketball are the only things that matter, weighted slightly toward football. Burning a successful football program to ashes makes an AD a failure on that alone. But it goes deeper than just wins and losses. Illinois basketball was largely excellent under Guenther, and the football team did not lack for good years and exciting moments. But between 1992 and 2011, RG's tenure, Illinois absolutely sprinted backwards relative to its peer schools as a recruiting destination, an entity of local and national media interest, a merchandising operation, a box-office draw, a game experience and atmosphere, in every measure that looks beyond W/L record to the health of the business, Illini sports atrophied away to nothing under RG's leadership.
Empty tailgate lots on fall Saturdays. That's Ron Guenther's legacy.