John Groce at Illinois
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IllinoisFan733
- Chicago
I would guess Thomas Bryant is the leader... Also Hammons has to be up there.
I'm not sure if that's true, if their minutes increase. There are so many factors that can affect their %. Some players are one dimensional and only take well set up 3s in their freshmen year. As they get more experience and improve as an offensive threat, they may get more pressure from the opposing team's top defender. They may also be asked to do more than what they usually do. Our guards, without Thorne, have been asked to overachieve to make up for our weaknesses, making them put up more shots instead of settling for just the best looks. As much as it bothers me that Hill takes some occasion bad shots, and IMO too many step back jumpers, I rather him take those over Tate or Austin shooting the ball.
As for the % dropping from Weber to Groce, whatever the cause, they went from 17-15 with Weber, to 23-13 under Groce even with losing Leonard. I wouldn't focus too much on fg % with that being the case.
Good guess::
#1--Bryant--72.2%
#2--D. Davis-62.4%
#3--Hammons-59.2
#4--MAVERICK MORGAN--59.1
#5--Carter--57.2
Nice job and lots of hard work to get there Mav.:thumb:
Illiniwek06
- N of I-80
Losing Meyers definitely hurts this analysis, and Sam M did not provide a buffer/offset. Meyers shot 58% on 9 FGA/game; Sam M shot 44% on 3 FGA/game.
I'm not too sure how meaningful these datapoints are, though I wonder how much of the drop in FG% (which really doesn't seem to be that signifcant) is due to increased usage (presumably due to losing Meyers).
IllinoisFan733
- Chicago
Yes, Mav has really stepped up his game the last few weeks.
I was thinking Deyonta Davis as well because all he does is dunk (or get dunked on...
) Diamond Stone would of been my official guess for the other guy in the Top 3. Guess Stone is in the Top 8.Tevo
- Wilmette, IL
So we'll definitely see a lot more touches for Mav from here on out, right? I mean, RIGHT? Learn how to throw an entry pass!
(I don't mean you, TC, I mean, you know, the guards...)
Hence the reason I said:
"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."
For sure, these by themselves are not all that crazy and maybe can be explained by context.
My point is that when you look at those year-to-year player stats; the difference in 2pt FG% between Ohio and Illinois before and after Groce; Illinois shot charts that others have posted in the past; the consistently low FG% for Illinois in B10 games over the last 4 years; and the general eye test on how the offense runs, I think it is fair to say that Groce's offensive system has not lead to high-% 2pt FGs.
This doesn't make him a bad coach per se, but it does point to an area that probably needs to see improvement at some point.
Well, if given a choice between Tate/Lewis and Austin's combined 10 for 47 three point shooting, I know which one I pick.
Illiniwek06
- N of I-80
Yup, agreed. :thumb:
Sal Iacuzzo
- Yonkers, NY
To me dependence on fifth years indicates that the quality of the players on the team isn't good enough. Thorne was essentially a band-aid to cover the fact that Groce hadn't landed a Big Ten caliber center. When Groce was putting together the 2015 class we weren't expecting Tracy or Thorne to be a part of the 15-16 team. If Groce had recruited better they either wouldn't have been on the team or their loss wouldn't have been as substantial.
Sal Iacuzzo
- Yonkers, NY
No, the point is the team Groce built for 2015-2016 wasn't very good. Recruiting has to be better, we can't rely on 5th years every season.
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
Spot on IMO!:thumb:
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure Thorne is a part of the team. He didn't initially recruit a Big Ten caliber player, and that was a problem. But didn't he address that weakness by recruiting a 5th year, Big Ten caliber player? If we recruited a one and done 5 star freshman, that got hurt, wouldn't we be in the same boat? If we got a big ten caliber center that didn't flourish until his junior year, would that be a two-year bandaid as opposed to a one year bandaid?
When did he build the 2015-16 team in your opinion? His first recruiting class or second?
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Tevo
- Wilmette, IL
I agree that Groce's recruiting issues led him to over-rely on the 5th years as major players or even starters, and that's not a good position to be in.
That being said, it's a luxury to be able to pull in a last-minute addition to shore up whatever position happens to be lacking. Injuries, transfers, etc -- these things happen, and being skilled at identifying and attracting immediate reinforcements could help avoid disasters. We tend to take it a bit farther than that, unfortunately.
But I still think the original point is valid when Sal indicated that consistently taking in 5th year transfers points to a larger problem and that's either too much roster turnover or too many recruiting misses. We've suffered from the later.
The question really should be why in year 4 of a coach's tenure is he still pulling in a 5th year center and point guard at the last minute. It just means he didn't recruit those positions well enough to provide any meaningful depth.
EDIT: Which is why we'll probably need a 5th year big man transfer again for next season.
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I agree with that, but I think part of that is due to the lack of patience at this level. So many good programs miss on top 100 centers. There just aren't many out there. It's one of those positions that you either take a risk and hope to develop a guy, or you take a smaller risk and get a 5th year immediate production guy. Even top 100 bigs aren't guaranteed to pan out. A lot of 3 star bigs end up doing a pretty good job by the time they are upperclassmen, but is our fanbase patient enough to deal with another Morgan? Colbert and Paul definitely hurt us but almost everyone loved the decision to get them at the time, it's just so easy to critique with hindsight. If they panned out, we wouldn't even be discussing this. It's okay to blame that on Groce but so much does really seem like terrible, terrible luck. Bad luck happens, it just happened to occur during a really bad time for Illinois. Coaching aside, this has to be some of the worst luck with injuries that I've ever seen.
The difficult part is trying to figure how much is attributed to bad luck, or the coaching. There are just so many variables to evaluate.
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This year yes but teams deal with 1 or 2 injuries per year all the time. There's nothing unusual about that. Also injuries didn't take away the ability to recruit a PG and a Center. That's directly attributable to Groce.
Agreed, that is on Groce. I just don't think we would be discussing this if Abrams and Thorne didn't get hurt this year. I don't even think we'd be talking about this if Abrams wouldn't have gotten hurt for the 2014-15 season. In hindsight we probably would have been better off right now if would have accepted a huge rebuilding project and not taking any transfers like Ekey, McLaurin, Starks, Lewis, Thorne and just tried developing 4 year guys. We wouldn't have had any success in the first 3 years at all (like not even close to bubble worthy) but we would have known what to expect and been able to see steady progress. We'd probably be seen in a more positive way like Tim Miles and Chris Collins. Just thinking outloud here. I like this discussion, I'm not trying to come off as confrontational in anyway. It's not meant to be an emotional and heated discussion.
Actually, the injuries quite possibly could have hurt us with pg recruiting. With Abrams supposed to be back this year, I think it had an influence on some of the guys we were recruiting because they wouldn't get all of the playing time.
This is true but regarding the shooting percentages, a drop in said percentages tends to happen when players are given more freedom to shoot more shots, which is exactly what happened when Groce took over. Take more shots, miss more shots. Not to mention the 1% or so drops arent too bad with in crease in volume. Bertrand, we all know was not the same player his senior year, he was just out there moving around.
Foggy Notion
- San Francisco
Why do you discount the value of last-minute adjustments? By your reasoning, Quentin Snyder would be on the team.
Sal Iacuzzo
- Yonkers, NY
The fact we need to rely on a fifth year transfer to be even remotely competitive is indicative of a failure in scouting, recruiting and development.
Sal Iacuzzo
- Yonkers, NY
The need for constant last minute adjustments is alarming. Guess what? We will need another fifth year big next season and chances are he won't be as good as Thorne. No clue what you are talking about with Snider.
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