The pay is warranted but the increased pay comes with increased expectations. Just making the tournament isn't enough for Woodson or BU.
While this take is more than fair, I would argue that Illini fans are slightly better than Indiana fans at taking a more intellectual and less emotional approach to judging a coach's circumstances ... even if just by a tiny margin! Indiana fans expect new coaches to waltz in there and quickly win because "they're Indiana" or some other BS. We were pretty patient with Underwood early on, because we understood that Groce left him a mess.
Even with our frustration at not getting to a Sweet Sixteen, MOST of our fans are somewhat logical about it. 2020 was an opportunity stolen from us, but it was stolen from everybody (even if it hurt us at a worse time for program trajectory than most). 2021 was an abject failure given how good we were, but upsets happen; still, that one is clearly and obviously counted against Underwood. 2022 is a "par" to most normal observers ... we hung a Big Ten championship banner, and we lost a pick 'em 4/5 matchup in the Second Round. The 2022 Second Round loss is not comparable to the 2021 Second Round loss in any way, shape or form.
Last season is a bit more difficult to judge. The pessimistic view is that we had too much talent to be that bad, and Underwood's construction of our roster led to the chemistry issues that sunk what could have been another top 25 season. The optimistic view is that
we lost ALL FIVE of our starters and still managed to assemble a roster that had us ranked preseason and our fans expecting more high-level results because
Underwood has built up our program to that level of expectations again. The answer is likely somewhere in the middle, which is why this year is going to be huge. We will have a team with clear top 25 potential, and the alleged "causes" of our team chemistry issues last season are gone. The Tournament will always be a crapshoot, but we are more than due for a stroke of luck here or there, so it's time to get to the Second Weekend or possibly conclude it's Underwood's coaching style that cannot get there. That goes hand in hand with having a good enough season to earn a decent seed and not doom ourselves with an excessively difficult path like last year.