John Groce at Illinois

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#426      
IlliniReb
Allstar said:
There may not be a better well known option but here are better coaches. JG just isn't that good. He was a good/loyal assistant to Matta. He inherited a very good roster at OU and an OSU player transferred to get more PT. They didn't win the league but did get hot at end of year and win the conference tournament. That enabled him to move to the Illini. He wasn't very well liked as an assistant at Xavier or OSU. For him to succeed he must be able to recruit guards that are in top 4-5 in Big Ten. His offense is heavy on shots for guards without much inside emphasis.
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Haven't heard this before....please elaborate.
 
#428      
ChicagoChief
89illinigrad said:
What I don't get is why the pessimists don't think we would be a heck of lot better without all the injuries. They downplay the importance of losing Thorne and Black, or not having our leading scorer Nunn at the beginning of the year, or not having JCL on the European trip, etc..and that's without even considering Abrams.
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Because stuff like this is just ridiculous. Of course Thorne being out sucks and Nunn missing a couple games. But every team goes through odd things and need to figure it out.

I'm not on one side or the other regarding Groce really but JCL missing the Europe trip has been detrimental to the team? Gimme a break
 
#429      
89illinigrad
ChicagoChief said:
Because stuff like this is just ridiculous. Of course Thorne being out sucks and Nunn missing a couple games. But every team goes through odd things and need to figure it out.

I'm not on one side or the other regarding Groce really but JCL missing the Europe trip has been detrimental to the team? Gimme a break
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So missing extra practice and games that would have helped his development and maybe taught him how to play better defense is not detrimental to the team?
 
#430      
WesterveltVictoryCigar
ChicagoChief said:
Because stuff like this is just ridiculous. Of course Thorne being out sucks and Nunn missing a couple games. But every team goes through odd things and need to figure it out.

I'm not on one side or the other regarding Groce really but JCL missing the Europe trip has been detrimental to the team? Gimme a break
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Yeah, it's actually JCL missing most of the summer and practice time that was the detriment.
 
#431      
HoopCity
Allstar said:
There may not be a better well known option but here are better coaches. JG just isn't that good. He was a good/loyal assistant to Matta. He inherited a very good roster at OU and an OSU player transferred to get more PT. They didn't win the league but did get hot at end of year and win the conference tournament. That enabled him to move to the Illini. He wasn't very well liked as an assistant at Xavier or OSU. For him to succeed he must be able to recruit guards that are in top 4-5 in Big Ten. His offense is heavy on shots for guards without much inside emphasis.
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Were there better coaches that wanted to come to Illinois when Groce was selected for the position?

If Groce was not any good Thad would not have had him as an assistant if that was the case.

So what inside information do you have that Groce was not very well liked? I never heard that from my inside information!!

For anyone to succeed they need to recruit some 4* - 5* players, no matter what position they play as they make every one around them better.

Look around at all the teams, they all have offense that is heavy on shots for guards with inside emphasis. We have just lost out on the big men we went after with exception of Finke. Leron and Big Mike's injuries really hurt us.
 
#432      
HeartofaChampion
89illinigrad said:
I think that's what most people can agree on except for the extremists on either side.
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illini8507 said:
Problem is, they're the loudest
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+1. I think we can all agree that 1) JG most likely will return next year (not a given but very probable and fair based on the spate of injuries), 2) we'd have a much better team this year with MT, LB and TA healthy, 3) if we're a bubble team in 2017 and don't land a very good recruiting class, then JG is gone and 4) JG has not proven himself to be a great coach yet; the jury's out on whether he'll even succeed at UI.
 
#434      
IlliniOllie
dmac279 said:
That's my point, a different time frame compared to Lou, people want a winner and they want it now. It don't work that way, unless your a blue blood type program
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In addition to the other factors, Lou also took over the Illinois program 40 years ago. Before social media, before YouTube clips of every player and team were out there, before every major-conference and most minor-conference games were on TV somewhere, before message boards for us to all obsess over this. :)

IMO, even all other things being equal (which they weren't between Henson and Groce), there just isn't the shelf life today for a coach to get their feet set and be showing program success that there might have been 40 years ago.
 
#435      
freebird6
Allstar said:
There may not be a better well known option but here are better coaches. JG just isn't that good. He was a good/loyal assistant to Matta. He inherited a very good roster at OU and an OSU player transferred to get more PT. They didn't win the league but did get hot at end of year and win the conference tournament. That enabled him to move to the Illini. He wasn't very well liked as an assistant at Xavier or OSU. For him to succeed he must be able to recruit guards that are in top 4-5 in Big Ten. His offense is heavy on shots for guards without much inside emphasis.
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Kind of revisionist eh? who did not like him at X? Pretty sure Doellman, cage, Sato, Sean Miller, Burrel, Lavender, Chris mack and others would argue with your statement... we were there at team camp the day they got the tOSU job. No one had anything but good to say as Sean took the reins and they cleared out the offices. Who were the good roster pieces he inherited at Ohio?. I thought he recruited all but a few pieces of the team that beat Georgetown in his 2nd year. His offense is built around big that run the floor and heavy on skilled wings usually one of whom is a deadly accurate 3 ball shooter. Walt (who is currently on staff with the Illini) transferred from tOSU to Wright State then Ohio for accuracy sake.
 
#436      
Jreed322
freebird6 said:
Kind of revisionist eh? who did not like him at X? Pretty sure Doellman, cage, Sato, Sean Miller, Burrel, Lavender, Chris mack and others would argue with your statement... we were there at team camp the day they got the tOSU job. No one had anything but good to say as Sean took the reins and they cleared out the offices. Who were the good roster pieces he inherited at Ohio?. I thought he recruited all but a few pieces of the team that beat Georgetown in his 2nd year. His offense is built around big that run the floor and heavy on skilled wings usually one of whom is a deadly accurate 3 ball shooter. Walt (who is currently on staff with the Illini) transferred from tOSU to Wright State then Ohio for accuracy sake.
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Good post. This is what is really starting to annoy me is that now people are just making stuff up.

Can we just add HoCs post from a little up this page to the front page? Because I'm pretty sure most outside of the lunatic fringe on either side of the argument would agree completely with it.
 
#437      
lstewart53x3
The sad part about this thread is: it's only going to get worse. We're missing so many players that we just are not a good team right now. I know a lot of people want us to be a good team this year and some still, despite the injuries, expect us to be a good team this year. But we aren't.

We most likely are not going to win very many games in the B1G this year, so I fully expect this thread to get crazier and crazier as the year goes on.

I'm personally with a few of the others who say: I haven't seen anything from Groce to say, "Yep, he's the guy", but I haven't seen anything from him to say he's definitely not the guy either.

There's no possible way to make an informed decision about his career here based on this season. People can be mad that our second stringers can't beat other teams first stringers. That's fine, I guess, but not rational.

He absolutely deserves another year to show what he's got. And I for one hope we have an awesome season next year and he's here for years to come.
 
#439      
Illwinsagain
sacraig said:
So much this. Groce will get at least one more season solely on account of having to get the rest of the house in order before going on a coach hunt that has any hope of success.
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I like Groce, I agree he will likely have at least 1 more year, next year should be a tourney team. If he gets a strong 2017 class recruited, along with the pieces already in place from the 2014, 2015 and 2016 classes, I feel we will be back to the top teams of the B1G going forward. And worrying more about seed than getting in on selection Sunday. I guess I am feeling optomistic this morning.
 
#440      
Illwinsagain
Monte Carlo said:
I think last night was not just a one-game thing, but more an indication of where are program is at and heading under this coach. I like him and he says all the right things, but I have never in 40 plus years of watching Illini b-ball seen such terrible defense and then to have an offensively challenged game where you have three players on the court at the same time quite often who can't score. I just don't think he is the answer and isn't a very good coach and I am tending to agree with the alumnus who told me on New Year's Eve that Groce would be fired at the end of this season by the new AD who will want his own guy. Couple that with the fact that Groce has given us no reason to retain him, it will probably make it an easy decision for the new AD. I was seriously thinking Nebraska and Bruce Weber all over again watching last night's debacle and unfortunately there have been too many of them under Groce (final two games last season).
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I would like to see Groce succeed, as I think we all would. I would like to see a shake up of his staff. I don't know enough to know who to let go and who to hire. I am thinking an emeritus type of asst coach, Keady did for Lavin. Let Groce recruit and motivate, do the press conference.
 
#441      
Illwinsagain
LincolnIlliniFan said:
If we were to fire Groce, there's only one man they need to offer the job to, Jerrance Howard. Bring in him, add Dee as an assistant, bring in Roger Powell from Valpo and Deon Thomas from University of Chicago I believe. There's your staff. All pro Illini and would cherish the job. I would assume Jerrance has been offered multiple HC offers but is buying his time to see what happens at Illinois.

A previous poster referred to Self and Kansas and Collins and Duke. Jerrance is in that same boat for Illinois. It's his dream job and he's a hell of a recruiter. Look at who he's landed in recruiting between Illinois, SMU and Kansas. Granted, two of those schools had great head coaches at the time but he's made ties with top players and programs around the country. He's the man for the job of they decided to move on from Groce. I think Groce is a hell of a coach and hate even mentioning him getting fired but if that day has to come, Jerrance is the only person they need to call. Not only has he had success in recruiting, look at the Greg basketball minds he's coached under. Larry Brown and Bill Self? Can't gets much better coaching tree than that.
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Would need a strong assistant coach to help with running the program and the coaching part. But you are right. He would come and would be able to recruit the class of 2017.
 
#446      
Hoppy2105
I have a feeling if we fire JG we will end up seeing him go to some other low tier high major and succeed. (Probably in the Big 12)

He will have used his time at Illinois to learn and readjust his recruiting and coaching strategy and will make some bad team good.

He will also land a 5 star and several high 4 stars with a string of good luck because heaven knows he is due for good luck.

Lastly, no injuries.
 
#447      
89illinigrad
Hoppy2105 said:
I have a feeling if we fire JG we will end up seeing him go to some other low tier high major and succeed. (Probably in the Big 12)

He will have used his time at Illinois to learn and readjust his recruiting and coaching strategy and will make some bad team good.

He will also land a 5 star and several high 4 stars with a string of good luck because heaven knows he is due for good luck.

Lastly, no injuries.
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Add to that that most of those recruits will probably be from Illinois.
 
#448      
alexander58
mycitymytime said:
Why do we think Jerrance would be a good "in game" coach? Are we really willing to watch as he learns how to coach against the big ten's best coaches? I would much rather him coach at a "northwestern", like Collins, before he steps on the big stage. I like the idea - I just think we should demand a bit more. By the way, I want Groce to succeed in a major way. He is a great representative of the University. I tend to think that UofI deserves all of this because of the way the state is run! Our athletic programs are a symbol of the fiscal problems facing Illinois. We actually have more accountability than the state.
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There's a reason Howard hasn't been given a chance to be a head coach. He's been a lead recruiter at big time basketball programs, but hasn't moved up. I understand the affinity for former players, but being an alum doesn' t necessarily make you the best coaching candidate.
 
#450      
OldILLFan
Will Let the nay Sayers start ... O wait we WON .... 2 still out and Now we see how they Can play...Get the other 2 back and we can beat them all.........
 
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