John Groce at Illinois
- Status
Hmmm.. I have a hard time keeping DJ Richardson over Malcolm and Nunn right now. DJR was awesome to have as an Illini, and I would take him back in a heartbeat on our team, but I would say that Malcolm and Nunn are more productive right now.
I'll have to agree, especially with Hill. Then again, Hill wasn't 100% Groce's recruit either.
What I was trying to get at is that the talent was better when Groce arrived than it is now. Overstated my case a little.
Last edited:
I'll have to agree, especially with Hill. Then again, Hill wasn't 100% Groce's recruit either.
What I was trying to get at is that the talent was better when Groce arrived than it is now. Overstated my case a little.
Plus he's young for his class.:thumb:
As someone who actually saw Ethan Happ a few times, 6'8" was a little generous. He seemed closer to 6'7". He had big gains in muscle mass too, similar to Finke but as we've seen with Colbert, it wasn't guaranteed and predictable.
Are those stats at the time of commitment?
Last edited:
If recruiting is his problem then he should be replaced after this season. Get a new coach in that can capitalize on the 2017 class.
I think his offense and defensive schemes are also below big 10 standards. If he can't get his personnel for his type team then he needs to adjust his schemes for the players he does have.
Sal Iacuzzo
- Yonkers, NY
I don't think you want to load up too much on one position in the same class (though Id rather load up on bigs than wings like we have been doing). Cliff was essentially a rental and an elite player at that so I think you evaluate him differently than a 4 year guy like Happ.
I agree that Groce has done a bad job scouting underrated talent in Illinois, though I'm not sure Sean O'Mara qualifies as a miss.
I saw him play too and honestly, I have to give Wisconsin props for grabbing him. To see that he was B1G material in that setting, was outstanding talent evaluation, imo.
Foggy Notion
- San Francisco
First, this comparison does not take account of all the injuries this year.
Second, Abrams is still on the team.
Third, three of the players you mentioned were seniors on that team. Groce's first recruiting class are still only juniors.
Gosh, I'd think if you fire him after a season with all the injuries, it will look really bad. That includes looking bad to any prospective replacement. Add to that, as of the moment, your asking someone to come in without knowing who his boss would be or who his boss' boss would be. I'd think a lot of coaches would take a pass.
Give me Malcolm Hill over DJ any day, and Finke over Griffey.
They will have an AD in place so the new coach will know who his boss is.
You won't look bad pointing to the 4 year track record.
More Rhetoric
I agree with you on the question of whether Illinois can get someone to come here. I am admittedly biased in that I think this job is ripe with opportunity. First, after the last 4 years, almost any coach is going to look good. Second, supposedly the new State Farm is going to blow us away, in its current form (as seen at the Michigan game), we may need an audit of the $160M, but maybe the last set of projects which are to be completed later this year will save us from the embarassment of getting not much for $160M, if it is great when finished, that will be appealing to a coach. Third, there is a lot of talent in and around the state - St. Louis, Chicago, Rockford, Springfield, Peoria have all consistently produced great talent. The biggest question mark is whether Illinois is willing to pay at market rates or are they effectively being run like the Bears and hoping to get by on the cheap.
With regard to your classification of my prior post as rhetoric, I am not sure what "rhetoric" you are citing. I am citing facts. In no rational world should Wisconsin out-perform us after they lost two first rounders, travon jackson (who was hurt for a portion of the year when Koenig replaced him), Josh Gasser and Dukan, and Bo Ryan. Yet they continue to be respectable (which anyone watching our team cannot say the same about).....
Here is some more "rhetoric", I am not a Bruce Weber fan but in his 9 years (1) Average finish in Big 10, including btw a 3rd, 5th and 5th in the three years before the last year of his tenure (which we have not come close to with JG) - BW 4th, JG 9th, (2) Average assists ranking in Big 10 - BW 3rd/4th, JG 9th/10th, (3) Average ppg - BW 5th/6th, JG 8th, and (4) Average rebounds ranking in Big 10, BW 4th, JG 10th - the 08 09 team started Trent Meacham and Chester Frazier and placed 3rd. If you honestly believe that it is justifiable after 4 years to be on a downward trend in every metric (and to have taken a severely steep decline from the Bruce Weber years)....there is no convincing you.
We have plain and simple made a bad hire. In no area do we look good other than the press conference. Our defense is porous (I did not find a great place to compare us to others but KenPom has our adj defensive rating at 145), our offense is jumbled - imo we look outclassed by the other coach almost every time - go back and look at the Iowa game, there was a stretch where they had their 3 key guys on the bench and we had our starters in, and they kept getting great look after great look and we kept looking jumbled and disorganized and kept getting bad look after bad look...this is not rhetoric...check the dvr
I agree with you on the question of whether Illinois can get someone to come here. I am admittedly biased in that I think this job is ripe with opportunity. First, after the last 4 years, almost any coach is going to look good. Second, supposedly the new State Farm is going to blow us away, in its current form (as seen at the Michigan game), we may need an audit of the $160M, but maybe the last set of projects which are to be completed later this year will save us from the embarassment of getting not much for $160M, if it is great when finished, that will be appealing to a coach. Third, there is a lot of talent in and around the state - St. Louis, Chicago, Rockford, Springfield, Peoria have all consistently produced great talent. The biggest question mark is whether Illinois is willing to pay at market rates or are they effectively being run like the Bears and hoping to get by on the cheap.
With regard to your classification of my prior post as rhetoric, I am not sure what "rhetoric" you are citing. I am citing facts. In no rational world should Wisconsin out-perform us after they lost two first rounders, travon jackson (who was hurt for a portion of the year when Koenig replaced him), Josh Gasser and Dukan, and Bo Ryan. Yet they continue to be respectable (which anyone watching our team cannot say the same about).....
Here is some more "rhetoric", I am not a Bruce Weber fan but in his 9 years (1) Average finish in Big 10, including btw a 3rd, 5th and 5th in the three years before the last year of his tenure (which we have not come close to with JG) - BW 4th, JG 9th, (2) Average assists ranking in Big 10 - BW 3rd/4th, JG 9th/10th, (3) Average ppg - BW 5th/6th, JG 8th, and (4) Average rebounds ranking in Big 10, BW 4th, JG 10th - the 08 09 team started Trent Meacham and Chester Frazier and placed 3rd. If you honestly believe that it is justifiable after 4 years to be on a downward trend in every metric (and to have taken a severely steep decline from the Bruce Weber years)....there is no convincing you.
We have plain and simple made a bad hire. In no area do we look good other than the press conference. Our defense is porous (I did not find a great place to compare us to others but KenPom has our adj defensive rating at 145), our offense is jumbled - imo we look outclassed by the other coach almost every time - go back and look at the Iowa game, there was a stretch where they had their 3 key guys on the bench and we had our starters in, and they kept getting great look after great look and we kept looking jumbled and disorganized and kept getting bad look after bad look...this is not rhetoric...check the dvr
His efficiency numbers are actually pretty strong but he's stuck behind a couple of solid bigs in Xavier's rotation. One of them being another state kid that went the prep school route. I agree though that its too early to call him a miss but what I was trying to bring up is that there's a lot of D1 talent in our state that's not getting any attention from this staff.
Sal Iacuzzo
- Yonkers, NY
Yeah I agree. If O'Mara doesn't end up being a miss, James Farr certainly was. Add James Farr and Jevon Carter and we are a top 25 team.
It's impossible to quantify a player's worth based on stats alone, but here are the (intentionally nameless, per-game-average) stats of the seven players on each team that average/d more than 15 minutes per game while playing the majority of games. Unfortunately, everyone in the top five is a guard.
Sorry urbanite...but just trying to interpret this.It's impossible to quantify a player's worth based on stats alone, but here are the (intentionally nameless, per-game-average) stats of the seven players on each team that average/d more than 15 minutes per game while playing the majority of games. Unfortunately, everyone in the top five is a guard.
14 player lines shown....Assume that means 14 players over the last 3.5 years have averaged 15 min/game and the lines represent their career totals?
Please add the players names. This chart intrigues me. I assume a Sr. year Ray Rice would exceed all 14 players efficiency numbers.
Sorry I wasn't more clear. "Each team" refers to the 2012-2013 and 2015-2016 teams. There are seven players on each of these teams that average/d at least 15 minutes per game and play/ed in the majority of games. The stats are the per-game averages for that season.
2013 players:
Abrams, Bertrand, Egwu, Griffey, McLaurin, Paul, Richardson
2016 players:
Coleman-Lands, Finke, Hill, Lewis, Morgan, Nunn, Tate
Ranked by Game Score (far right column), three of the top seven are on the 2015-2016 team. Of course, this doesn't account for defense except blocks and steals, and it's biased toward the 2015-2016 team because the conference season isn't yet over and pace is faster. Regardless, at least one player from this year's team would likely have started on the 2012-2013 team, and at least one other would have been in the main rotation if not also starting.
Last edited:
So Hill is #1, Nunn #2, Finke #6 and Coleman-Lands #8. Obviously, a healthy Thorne starts on 2012-2013 team too.
Sal Iacuzzo
- Yonkers, NY
And put Evans @ PG and we're back to the FF again. See how that works.
Of course you add one or two players to most teams and they become a whole different team. The point is there are a lot of talented players in the state that we could have made us a lot better had we identified them. I was hopeful this would be a strength of Groce after he made a great evaluation in Caris LeVert, but he hasn't repeated that since coming to UI. Crean, McCaffrey and Beilein has been great at finding under the radar guys.
Foggy Notion
- San Francisco
It would logically follow that removing one or two players from a team, like for example, oh I don't know, let's say due to injury, would also make it a whole different team. Now try the same exercise, except remove five or six players.
IllinoisFan733
- Chicago
Wrong thread to be applying sound logic.
Deleted member 556108
D
Guest
Unfortunately, this is spot on
- Status