And both Indiana and Minnesota had coaching changes. Imo a reflection of underwood and the program. As an Illinois fan these facts are concerning
Definitely concerning at first glance but a closer look I think we are mostly okay.
A lot of the transfers have been a revolving door of big men who just haven’t quite worked out. Hamlin, Omar, Spicy G, etc. Or it’s been an end of bench guy looking for a bigger role like Podz or BBV.
The only 3 rotation players we’ve lost are Ace, Belo and Alan Griffin, all of whom had some sort of drama attached whether it be a PITA parent, maturity issues etc. but they were all probably addition by subtraction in hindsight.
Really the only player that left that has thrived at their new location is Podz and that was sort of out of left field.
Yes it’s hard to build culture and get old/stay old with that kind of roster turnover but frankly an Ace/Belo backcourt would have been a disaster this year. No way to know two top 50 guys would fizzle the way they have.
Biggest concern for me is trying to steer clear of high drama players, whether that’s themselves or their camps. I’m afraid staff hasn’t learned that lesson yet as they are bringing in DGL, but who knows, law of averages says one of these kids has to hit.
Jury is out on Epps. I wish him well and if he thrives at another P5 program it’s definitely a miss but even with that you can count the number of transfers out you wish they’d kept on one hand IMO.
Edit: forgot to include Skyy and of course jury is still out but he looks like he is headed down the Mark Smith, replacement level chucker who doesn’t play defense role or has an outside shot at an Emoni Bates good stats bad team type career.
it's outside the B1G.
