https://amp.kansas.com/sports/college/big-12/kansas-state/article259374684.html
Or it’s a former KSU player returning to his home town for the back end of his career. It almost makes TOO much sense…
College Hoops Coaching Carousel
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Or it’s a former KSU player returning to his home town for the back end of his career. It almost makes TOO much sense…
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Come on, you know that’s $hit logic. BU is responsible for 2021 and on, period. Nothing before that matters one bit in judging him … he can’t bear the stress of John Groce’s and Bruce Weber’s failures.
He unambiguously failed in the 2021 NCAAs as a #1 seed, but it happens. Baylor in 2022 and Kansas in 2023 went down in the same way, and it’s happened in 5 of the last 6 Tournaments. In 2022, we were not better than Houston, and in 2023, we likely weren’t better than Arkansas … on paper, he lost two pick ‘em games. Honestly, the biggest indictment on him is not getting a high enough seed this season, but we’ve all rehashed that argument here before.
'Guess that would make it a case of bagging Two Birds with One (Stepping) Stone?
Absolutely agree with this type of mindset. This is a logical and well thought out rationale regarding not going after disloyal coaches. Although guys like Painter, Matta, and Altman haven't won national championships, they have all made it to the Elite 8/Final 4 while maintaining loyalty to the institutions that hired them. We can get the best of both worlds here. In the long run, maybe Underwood is that but maybe he isn't. I'm not willing to cut bait on him yet but I also agree that we need to see some improvement when it matters in March
To be fair though, this is commonplace in the portal era.
Look how many teams are full of transfers. KState's entire team is transfers pretty much.
Correct
There seems to be a big assumption here, and that is that Skyy came here courtesy of a rich donor. Do we know that to be the case? Do we know the name of that rich donor, and/or where Skyy's Name, Image and Likeness were put to use? Or did Skyy receive a series of checks from an Illinois collective?
I am not really trying to challenge you out on this. Mostly, I am just frustrated by just how little I have been able to learn about who gets what NIL from where. A lot of money seems to be changing hands, but how much and from which hands? Those remain unknowns.
On a different front, I think your earlier speculation about the bigger picture of this season and the coaching carousel here was absolutely spectacular. Right or wrong, it is by a wide margin the closest I have seen make anything resembling sense out of the big picture that was this almost entirely nonsensical season.
Govoner Vaugn Fan
- New Orleans
Nailed it. How many top ten teams have Freshmen at the 1 and 5 positions, have their top sophomore shooter out for the season and the team 'leaders' are one year transfers who are auditioning for the NBA? Then midseason the top frosh PG quits and PG duties fall to two frosh off guards. I think many of us were sold on some media analysts calling Illinois the most talented team in the country, which we were not, but were the youngest and, as a team, the least experienced plating together. I believe we had a team facing unrealistic expectations, that was good, but not great and hd the pieces to become great in future years.
I'm not sure where the idea that Sean Miller would only take the Illini job as a stepping stone for another HC job comes from. IMO, Arizona is probably an Illini peer in the NCAA world, similar in status. Miller coached there for 12 years. And, as far as the "scandal" that happened while he was at Arizona, SF Austin had to forfeit a lot of games from when BU coached there. I am absolutely on board if BU stays as our head coach - but only if he is truly bought in to the Illini future, which is a question mark at this point.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
That 2021 BTT final v. OSU was one of the most intense finals I can recall. A classic.
I was supposed to go to that game with some buddies but told them to go ahead and go without me since I was planning on going to Indy to watch them in the S16 and E8 in a couple weeks anyway. They remind me of that often.
yep, a quality experienced backup PG would be nice next year as well.
chrisRunner7
- Spokane, WA
For Underwood to leave, he needs to find a place better than his current situation, which might be a bit concerning but far from Chaos. I am pretty sure LvilleILL has a reason to believe he stays rather than just speculation (he kinda already said it.) As an outsider, I blame NIL for everything but unfortunately, that might be a hard problem to solve. It's effect is beyond the portal.
It's not necessary Brad will be at Texas if they don't want Terry. However, things might get very interesting if they choose to hire a HC from another university.https://www.statesman.com/story/spo...-rodney-terry-as-potential-coach/70039735007/
Not that we needed evidence that Indy was blowing smoke, but here’s an article backing up one of the Indy bombs. Maybe all this isn’t just a figment of our imagination
I think this year we found Brad's recruiting ceiling. I don't think this is the cause of the friction, nor do i think the donor situation is, directly anyway, but i do think that is why we would be moving on soon even if there were no friction.
Brad's been recruiting dawgs (and signing them and winning with them). Not only dawgs, but i think Epps, Harris, Rogers, Hansberry, and Morez all fit the bill. Trent and Monte as the OGs, Ayo, Kofi learning dawg while he was here. His first years it was dawgs and dice rolls for the most part, with Giorgi a winner (against his rating) and Hutcherson coming up snake eyes. He took 'em and won games with 'em.
Skyy (and Matt too) represented something new for Brad - a talented non-dawg. Both had some red flags, maybe just orange, but Brad wanted/felt he had to move up the talent ranks. This is something his job performance is judged on. As a poster said the other day 'no one with any basketball knowledge takes a vet for one year over Skyy.' And yet it failed, spectacularly. If you are Josh Whitman looking to see how a talent upgrade moves the needle for your team, what is your takeaway?
I think i am safe in saying that the higher up the recruiting rankings you go, the fewer Underwood-style dawgs you see. Yet that top 10 salary has barley got us a sniff from any top 10 talent. (Whitmore was an even bigger miss in retrospect.) Underwood has proven that he can win with a team of his 30-100 ranked guys, but if you can rarely even make a play at a top 10 guy... Then you factor in that the highest rated Dawgs every year are going to have some blue blood program after them.
If you are, let's randomly pick, uhhhh, Xavier, you don't have to recruit dawgs only. You can go and get a one and done showcase guy. You can target any high school player and see what happens. You can recruit dawgs too, everybody needs 'em, but you are not limited to only them. Have some made up numbers!
Top 100 Players our competition can recruit: 100
Top 100 Players Underwood can recruit (with the expectation they can handle his style): 60?
Top 25 players our competition can recruit: 25
Top 25 Players Underwood can recruit (with the expectation they can handle his style): 10?
Brad is out here winning games with one hand tied behind his back. It really is impressive, but i feel like we learned this year that it isn't going to change, and Whitman would prefer a coach who can and will use both hands. Those donors who would be happy to spend money to help Illinois succeed would like to spend it on even higher level recruits and then have them stick around or get drafted. That doesn't seem like the Brad Underwood trajectory at this point.
Well thank you. But let me clarify. I’m not 100 percent opposed to getting someone like a Sean Miller. If he could get us over the top. That would be great. (Pitino…forget it…that’s the day I trade in my Illini stuff for Badgers wear.)…but if I had my druthers it would be more like someone I described.
Loyal\Disloyal is kinda dramatic…because everybody wants to do the best they can.$$ But not everybody needs a helicopter to be happy at a place.
Sounds like Sean best strategy needs to be beating Texas in order to get his dream job. /s
Thank you for the kind words!
I use donor singular just to simplify. I am sure that is not how it works in reality. In reality there are far more people who feel their money/time/efforts went to waste. When the post is so long to begin with i feel like i gotta cut some corners.
Completely agree. I've heard a lot of folks (not necessarily on this board) mention how point guards are no longer important in the modern-era of basketball. That may true to an extent in the NBA, but not in the college game. The importance of a solid point guard can't be understated.
I agree. Also I think that if Josh is letting donors run the program then he is not doing his job. And the increase in of buyout the new contract is telling me, and the donors, that Josh wants BU to stay.
If Whitman is so enthralled in getting Miller, and we have the ability to strong arm Xavier for him, why do we need to rely on other dominoes to play out to make it happen? Is Xavier a satisfactory landing spot for BU if he's truly seeking a restart?
redwingillini11
White and Sixth
- North Aurora
Lol are you suggesting a coaching trade?
I think the Underwood era is at a similar point to where Lon Kruger was when he left. Not really upset if he leaves, and are confident an upgrade can be made to get to the next level.
Kruger was a solid coach, but at the end I think many were ready for him to leave. His recruiting misses on all that Chicago talent in 1998-99 was very disheartening (Simmons,Richardson, Lance Williams, Steven Hunter, Corey Maggette) and then physically our teams would get punked by Michigan State. We were physically weak, but when Self came in that changed.
Kruger was a solid coach, but at the end I think many were ready for him to leave. His recruiting misses on all that Chicago talent in 1998-99 was very disheartening (Simmons,Richardson, Lance Williams, Steven Hunter, Corey Maggette) and then physically our teams would get punked by Michigan State. We were physically weak, but when Self came in that changed.
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