Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread (August 2018)

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#801      

Dbell1981

D
Decatur, IL
Dbell1981
Obelix said:
What does "direction of the program" mean though? Being excited about the "direction of the program" implies some kind of factual evidence, not just blind faith or hope. Reality is that last year we finished our worst season in at least 20+ years (maybe more), recruiting has not been going very well, BU's own first year recruits underachieved (including Mark Smith and Alstork who were highly regarded), and there was a mass exodus via transfer, including some players who were contributors and/or were expected to contribute. That is reality.

I am honest to say that so far in BU's tenure I have not been excited about the "direction of the program", yet I am very hopeful that the "direction of the program" will change. But that is "hope" and an aspiration statement, not excitement about the current direction of the program. And much of that "hope" is based on the fact that if the direction of the program does not change soon, we are looking at another 5+ years with yet another coach who was not able to bring Illinois back to prominence, a program that has become irrelevant for 12 years now.
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1 season with a divided locker room is way too early to pass judgement. It was as clear as water that the ones transferred out rejected the coaches style and split the locker room last year. In one of Trents interviews this year he eludes to this a bit. I'm not making excuses I'm just saying give the man more than 18 months and a few recruiting misses before you put him in the same category as Groce. I can say I was very excited to see an aggressive defense that caused a ton of turnovers. I think a lot of the frustrating non contested shots our bigs gave up time after time after time were old habits they just couldn't break. It's not gonna get a whole lot better this year with all freshmen down low. There again is why it's gonna take a couple years. The missed assignments on D was crazy by the basket but once again let him get players that have ran the system for more than 6 months before passing judgement.
 
#802      

3 point girl

3
texas
3 point girl
How many 4-5 star players did Kansas State or Loyola have last year. I am too lazy to look it up, does anyone know the answer?
 
#803      

Second and Chalmers

S
Second and Chalmers
Illiniwek06 said:
Yeah, I think they went from aggressive ball denying defense on the perimeter to more pack line, IIRC.
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Sorry to be so pedantic, but it's a pet peeve of mine when people use "pack line" to refer to any man defense which doesn't involve trapping and high ball pressure. Pack line defense is a pretty specific thing with unique principles involved. It would be like saying any football team running a spread offense is running the "air raid".

OSU did not play pack line when Underwood backed off the pressure mid-season. It was just a revised, more conservative version of what he's always run.

Underwood and his staff decided that the answer was to dial back the pressure, pull back the point of confrontation to just above the 3-point arc, and reign in the ball-denial aggressiveness. They’d also continue to mix in some zone. This wasn’t an overhaul; it was a slight tweak
 
#804      

Deleted member 643761

D
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Deleted member 643761
Obelix said:
What does "direction of the program" mean though? Being excited about the "direction of the program" implies some kind of factual evidence, not just blind faith or hope. Reality is that last year we finished our worst season in at least 20+ years (maybe more), recruiting has not been going very well, BU's own first year recruits underachieved (including Mark Smith and Alstork who were highly regarded), and there was a mass exodus via transfer, including some players who were contributors and/or were expected to contribute. That is reality.

I am honest to say that so far in BU's tenure I have not been excited about the "direction of the program", yet I am very hopeful that the "direction of the program" will change. But that is "hope" and an aspiration statement, not excitement about the current direction of the program. And much of that "hope" is based on the fact that if the direction of the program does not change soon, we are looking at another 5+ years with yet another coach who was not able to bring Illinois back to prominence, a program that has become irrelevant for 12 years now.
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I don't agree about recruiting. Last year's class was definitely a right direction class.

And part of the hope derives from the fact that Underwood has coached up previous teams.

Once again there's a wide range on this front. But there are cettainly facts to support optimism.
 
#805      

Deleted member 11196

D
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Deleted member 11196
Second and Chalmers said:
Where I apparently represent a minority on this board is lacking this belief that the word "rebuild" is some magical spell which totally eliminates any ability to analyze any signposts toward future success. It's like a smoke bomb, throw the word "rebuild" out there and all of a sudden all is shrouded in mystery and no truth can be gleaned until the smoke clears. And I think that's wrong. I think you see the progress all along the way.
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I tend to agree... However, doesn't it all depend on how you define 'progress' and the 'pace' of that progress that one sees.... Every positive step towards a goal is not always in a direct line to said goal.... JMLO....
 
#806      

Deleted member 643761

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Deleted member 643761
Second and Chalmers said:
Those seem exactly the same to me, but I understand what you're saying. No one is content to be 14-18 long term and I certainly wouldn't accuse anyone of that. Moving on.



Nah that's not fair. I thoroughly enjoy honest differences of opinion, that's why I come here. I'm fascinated by people who genuinely thought last year's team was better than I did, many of whom have forgotten more about basketball than I'll ever know.

But the way people constantly leap to the defense of the Loyalty Hivemind gives the game away. They know it's true.



First of all, get your facts straight, I'm the biggest Whitman fanboy here.

But I also don't think it's fair at all to say I minimize good things. I would point to the football board for evidence there.

Let's just get down to brass tacks here. It appears that I started this account in 2014. That's mid-Beckman and post-first year Groce. Forget about predicting the future, an attitude toward those years in the present tense that is unrelenting doom and gloom and just total ruined ashes of a once great athletic program is simply a correct, accurate portrayal of what we've seen. I think I'm less of a pessimist than my reputation here would suggest. It's just that Illinois Athletics has been a radioactive nuclear wasteland finding ever more spectacular ways to humiliate itself since Zook's Rose Bowl. That's changing in football, more rapidly than I think some appreciate. Now let's get things on the right track in basketball.



You can definitely see the similarities with Cockburn. Cockburn is the better player, but they're both big, thick, old-school back to the basket brawlers who you can hardly believe are still in high school from a physical standpoint.

Which is interesting because that's not the way things are going in basketball generally. SFA couldn't really acquire guys like that and BU's one OSU team didn't have any, I wonder how a mauler like that would fit in the system. Either Cockburn or Jitoboh would definitely address the rim protection situation, that's for sure.
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Didn't know you felt that way about Whitman.

I'm glad to hear you admit that the bad Illinois decade has caused your emotions to cloud your judgement. Just take a deep breath and try to view things objectively.
 
#807      

sacraig

sacraig
The desert
sacraig
goillini30 said:
Honest question: Why do you think that he didn't do the same thing last season when it became obvious his roster couldn't play the type of D that he wants?

My best guess was that he believed instilling an attitude was more important than a few more wins from a mediocre team.
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He did, though. At least, I thought I remembered hearing that he said we ran a defense that emphasized turnovers more than he would like (high risk, high reward) because of personnel and the need to disrupt early since we couldn't defend on the block at all. In other words, it seemed like it was still a variation of his preferred defense but still modified because of personnel. It actually worked pretty well toward the end of the season as long as we kept the ball away from the post. Maybe I am misremembering.
 
#808      

goillini30

goillini30
goillini30
sacraig said:
He did, though. At least, I thought I remembered hearing that he said we ran a defense that emphasized turnovers more than he would like (high risk, high reward) because of personnel and the need to disrupt early since we couldn't defend on the block at all. In other words, it seemed like it was still a variation of his preferred defense but still modified because of personnel. It actually worked pretty well toward the end of the season as long as we kept the ball away from the post. Maybe I am misremembering.
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I never heard that, but I wasn't reading many articles by late in the season. I watched almost all of the games, but wasn't interested in investing any more time into that season.
 
#809      

SKane

SKane
Tennessee
SKane
3 point girl said:
How many 4-5 star players did Kansas State or Loyola have last year. I am too lazy to look it up, does anyone know the answer?
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Kansas State had Sneed (four-star) and Wade (borderline four-star). No five stars.

Loyola did not have any four stars or five stars.
 
#812      

YankeeIllini

Y
YankeeIllini
ChiefIllini said:
Well as a HC yeah this is pretty much his first shot at high major talent. He was an assistant coach at high major programs for 7 years. He's had experience recruiting 4/5 star guys. How different is it being a HC rather than an assistant pursuing them? Not sure TBH. But to say he's only been recruiting with the big boys for 3 years is wrong. He's 10 years deep in high major recruiting. I wont go as far to say he should be "better" at getting 4/5 star guys, however. He's already pulled a better recruit than Groce ever did. Whether you want to attribute that solely to Chin is up to you, but I'm at least impressed by that. Now if we end up with a class of 4/5 next year, none of which even sniff the top 150, then I'll start to worry about his recruiting abilities more. For now, on court success is the easiest judge of his abilities as a HBBC.
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We'll agree that he's pulled better recruiting classes than Groce did right off the bat. However, recruiting as an assistant is drastically different than the HC. Think General versus Captain. The Captain executes the General's orders within the bounds of his or her training, experience, and judgement - but doesn't call the shots on a strategic level. Success is defined in terms of accomplishing the mission assigned. Just the opposite for the General. He or she is expected to win the war, and may fail at the occasional mission, but must win the war - at all costs. As an assistant coach,BU executed according to the plan defined by the head coach he worked for. He might or might not have had input into that plan, but his job was to execute. Now HE is the HMFIC, and we can only hope that he learned enough from the HC's he served under to develop the winning strategy
 
#815      

Deleted member 336259

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Deleted member 336259
Production will rue the day but can we at least all agree that this class is somewhat on par with what you could expect with a Bo Ryan class that turned out to be a pain in the !!!? Obviously, coaching will answer the question; however, Bo never really killed it on the recruiting trail either but with what they did/do.............would you take it....I would. If you ask me, the culture change has to be over with this last purge and results will start to count.
 
#817      

Second and Chalmers

S
Second and Chalmers
YankeeIllini said:
We'll agree that he's pulled better recruiting classes than Groce did right off the bat.
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I dunno man, there was no individual player as good as Ayo in that class, but our 2013 class as a whole was probably stronger than this one. And if we end up in the fall with the equivalent of Black and Finke I'd be thrilled.

Groce came in and in short order added Ray Rice, Malcolm Hill, Kendrick Nunn and Leron Black. Major conference difference makers all. Those teams should have been much, much better than they were.

(And as to the claim that Underwood has brought in a better recruit than Groce ever did, that's true, but Ayo is #32 in the RSCI and JCL was #37. Leron was #46. Pretty marginal. It's gonna be about what we can get out of our talent, as always.)
 
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#819      

Poe's Law

P
Poe's Law
Random question about past recruiting... who was the lead recruiter on Tevian Jones?
 
#820      

pruman91

pruman91
Paducah, Ky
pruman91
TyinLex said:
Put. The. Keyboard. Away. Thank you.
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I jst found the ignore button so I have put S & C ketboard
Dude said:
But who drops the best gifs?
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giphy.gif
 
#823      

Deleted member 654622

D
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Deleted member 654622
StateFarmCenter said:
Chin recruited our best pg, wing, and big in this class. Really makes you think what the other 2 are doing.
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Antigua is doing his part in my opinion. He has gotten us in on a lot of quality players. When we show we can win, they will commit. Now for the other guy..... I think his fate will be determined on where one EJ Liddell chooses to commit.
 
#825      

Second and Chalmers

S
Second and Chalmers
Joel Goodson said:
But we should can him because he didn't land Whitney or Shannon. (y)
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To the extent that's true, certainly he's not the one you get rid of. And to the extent it's true, it certainly puts a cramp in my narrative, completely fair.

But a highly paid staff leveraged to the max as a player-acquisition group needs to be acquiring players at a high level. That's an ongoing analysis.

For my part, in the inherent trade off between recruiting and coaching on an assistant staff, I am inclined to turn the dial to a different setting than others here.
 
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