John Groce at Illinois
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Sal Iacuzzo
- Yonkers, NY
Great but my expectations are higher. There should never be a four year stretch where we have a losing conference record at home. This isn't about one season. I was very skeptical on Groce coming into this year, and I haven't seen anything that makes me feel he is the guy. The effect of the injuries was amplified by Groce being a poor evaluator of talent (Tate), chrachter (Paul) and recruit interest (Evans, Brunson, etc.).
This is cherry picking of data.
The poor evaluator of talent, JG, also picked out Jalen Coleman-Lands. The poor evaluator of character also picked out Michael Finke (who can also fit into the "good talent" category). The poor judge of interest got left high and dry by QS and had a sadistic hat prank played on him by another target who Illinois had a real shot at.
I grant you he's not perfect, but let's be sure to consider the collective body of work if we're going to consider things at all.
Who was he supposed to take other than Tate in 2013? Lol, Jalen James? There weren't many options. The latter two are normal things that happen to every coach.
Sal Iacuzzo
- Yonkers, NY
Hardly, those are just examples I didn't even bring up the cadre of failed transfers. JCL is a top 50 player who had many offers and is playing to expectations. Finke had offers from Iowa and Wisconsin and would have been rated higher had he commited later. These were of course great additions. The problem is he hasn't got enough of these caliber players. Instead he has wasted opportunities pursuing transfers that didn't work out and highly rated recruits that ultimately weren't interested.
Not arguing your point.
On JG recruiting evolution....he has stated he's learned alot about what type of player/person he needs to aim for at illinois. Character and mental toughness are tough qualities to gauge. a simple example is I'd rather have a KN or MH than a JR.
My biggest frustration is I think JG was aiming for too many "program changer" recruits....2 of which have not turned out to be program changers at their respective schools (yet)....alexander and brunson. I also agree the multi year non-grad transfers have added more turbulence than help, IMO.
I think this is a key point here. A lot of folks like to describe this season as an aberration because of injuries when in fact JG had two poor seasons before that. We have to take a look at his total body of work when evaluating him.
We arguably had more talent on those two teams then we have this year.
It's because the offense is lacking in scheme and talent at the critical positions. Lay ups and dunks are high percentage shots. However, we get no easy baskets, thus we live and die by how well we shoot three pointers.
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I think my fear is that it is more on the scheme and less on the talent and that the FG% numbers (as rough of a measure as that may be) point to a long-term problem in the ability of Groce's offensive system to generate high % 2pt shots.
This is the most discouraging aspect of Groce's teams. The offense is totally dependent on hot shooting. There appears to be no scheme that ever produces easy shots. Thus when the shooting goes cold there are long stretches of no scoring. With the addition of no emphasis on offensive rebounding it is difficult to recapture confidence in shooting. Players feel the pressure which extends the cold streaks even further. Without a lock down defense it is very difficult to avoid the inevitable bad 5-10 minute stretch that results in lost games.
This isn't due to his offense, but the lack of players that can get high % shots in the post. Egwu wasn't much of a threat offensively during his time at Illinois, and wasn't efficient at all for his position. Morgan has been helping out a bit lately, but we're still lacking a banger in the post. We had that with Thorne and the offense looked so much different with him. It doesn't help that we're lacking a scoring point guard. It's more of a personnel/injury issue than offensive scheme.
But don't you think the coach would adjust his offense when missing the players that are key? If we have been missing a good point guard and big man for 4 years shouldn't there be some adjustment to the offense until the "key" players are available?
Sal Iacuzzo
- Yonkers, NY
Then I guess the question is why don't we have the right personnel for the system. You can point to injuries, but two of the three guys who are out are 5th years who weren't expected to be part of this team. To me that indicates Groce did a poor job constructing the roster.
This seems to be a big problem with Groce - Not adjusting his system to the players he has on the roster.
It's my opinion that while Groce is deserving of another year, he has definitely earned his place on the hot seat. I honestly think even with a healthy roster, we still would have been, at best, a middle of the pack team. Not to say that's a bad thing, but considering we were competing for B1G Championships regularly ten years ago, it's a hard pill to swallow.
If Groce doesn't finish strong in the B1G, make it to at least the round of 32 (preferably the S16), AND land some solid recruits, it's time to part ways. Anyone can get lucky and stumble into the tournament. We need to have a strong record to show recruits that we're serious about competing and that being an Illini will win you championships.
If Groce doesn't finish strong in the B1G, make it to at least the round of 32 (preferably the S16), AND land some solid recruits, it's time to part ways. Anyone can get lucky and stumble into the tournament. We need to have a strong record to show recruits that we're serious about competing and that being an Illini will win you championships.
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It's definitely a more appropriate question. Personally, I don't understand the "weren't expected to be on the team" stuff. Transfers are just like any other recruits. Some school use transfers pretty well, and not just for a year or two. We've had some bad ones, and pretty good ones, but that can be said for any 4 year recruit as well. I agree that we need more talent at the 1 and 5, but if Tracy and Thorne weren't hurt, we wouldn't even be having this discussion right now. That points to injuries being the biggest factor, IMO.
I think I would agree with you if this was a one year situation, but it seems to be a trend with Groce's teams.
-When Groce took over at Ohio, the team's 2pt fg% dropped 4.2%
-When Groce left Ohio for Illinois, Ohio's 2pt fg% rose 6.4%
-When Groce came to Illinois from Ohio, Illinois' 2pt fg% dropped 3.7%
I'm sure there is context for each of these situations, but it certainly seems like a trend.
That being said, 2pt fg % is not the end-all for a coach, but I think it certainly points to a coaching weakness that Groce has had. Hopefully, some stellar 3pt shooting and better defense/rebounding can make up for that next year.
illini80
- Forgottonia
This. If we were a good defensive team, our scoring would be adequate. When your defense is as bad as ours, you better be a great offensive team.
Groce took over after Leon Williams graduated from Ohio, who was extremely efficient. That might explain the % drop a bit. When Groce got here Illinois, we lost another efficient big in Meyers Leonard. I'm not sure about Ohio's increase in % once he left, but could have been due to players that he recruited after a NCAA appearance being upperclassmen.
It may still be an issue with Groce to a certain extent, but this offense would in no way look like how it does now if we had good bigs like Thorne playing. Having him back would be huge in Tilmon's recruiting. We showed that we can feed our bigs a ton if they can catch and have some skill on offense.
Yeah, that is a good point on Leonard, and I'm sure that has a big impact given his strong fg %. (Though adding Sam M in Groce's first year should buffer that a bit.)
Maybe another way to look at it is how individuals progressed from Weber's system to Groce's. Typically players fg% improves throughout their career, but that mostly wasn't the case in the transition with Groce.
Bertrand's fg % dropped 3.6%
DJ's dropped 2.4%
Egwu's dropped 1.4%
Tracy's dropped 1.4%
BP had a .9% gain
Tyler had a .3% gain
All that being said, Groce got much more out of the 2012-2013 team than Bruce did out of the 2011-2012 team, which just shows that 2pt fg% isn't everything. Still I think it points to an issue with Groce's offense.
Foggy Notion
- San Francisco
So we shouldn't consider guys whom you didn't expect to be on the team as actual members of the team?
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