Matt Bollant Fired

ph1970 · Mar 14, 2017

RichardKeenesHair said:
Pure speculation, but I have to think Whitman wouldn't even bother with the women's side of things unless he already has his men's hire sealed and delivered.

This was my first thought as well. Could be meaningless, but that doesn't seem likely to me. At minimum it would seem obvious he wouldn't open up both jobs without feeling very good about having the Men's job filled. But I'm not operating with the mindset of a shrewd high-level AD.

ph1970 · Mar 14, 2017

TheDukeUIUC said:
As a Michigan native, Bill Laimbeer would be an excellent pure basketball hire, but a nightmare for Josh Whitman. Bill is a known tool, it's fine when he's winning and coaching professionals getting paid, but I'm not sure how he would translate into a college female locker room.

If this is an issue then we can stop talking about Gregg Marshall right now.

Roundball Shaman · Mar 14, 2017

TheDukeUIUC said:
As a Michigan native, Bill Laimbeer would be an excellent pure basketball hire, but a nightmare for Josh Whitman. Bill is a known tool, it's fine when he's winning and coaching professionals getting paid, but I'm not sure how he would translate into a college female locker room.

Could get Laimbeer but then also must bring in Dennis Rodman so Laimbeer has a stable and good influence around him to keep things in line. Or Isiah Thomas if he wants a warm and fuzzy personality type around, too.

zpfled · Mar 14, 2017

Roundball Shaman said:
Could get Laimbeer but then also must bring in Dennis Rodman so Laimbeer has a stable and good influence around him to keep things in line. Or Isiah Thomas if he wants a warm and fuzzy personality type around, too.

Does the Dear Leader come with Dennis Rodman? I hear he's amazing at basketball, and he looks 13 so he probably has eligibility left.

Illini_1979 · Mar 14, 2017

Somehow I don't think that this thread is going to approach the 60+ (and counting) pages of the men's BB search thread.

NScale · Mar 14, 2017

ph1970 said:
This was my first thought as well. Could be meaningless, but that doesn't seem likely to me. At minimum it would seem obvious he wouldn't open up both jobs without feeling very good about having the Men's job filled. But I'm not operating with the mindset of a shrewd high-level AD.

Why wait? It's something that needed doing. And it is not as if Josh personally will be dialing the phone searching for coaches all by himself. He and his staff are perfectly capable of taking care of these open positions.

DeadPanic · Mar 14, 2017

NScale said:
Why wait? It's something that needed doing. And it is not as if Josh personally will be dialing the phone searching for coaches all by himself. He and his staff are perfectly capable of taking care of these open positions.

Exactly. Why wait? It's been almost two weeks since they were knocked out of the Big Ten Tournament. Groce was fired as soon as he got off the plane, so why wait two weeks to fire Bollant?

Second and Chalmers · Mar 14, 2017

DeadPanic said:
Exactly. Why wait? It's been almost two weeks since they were knocked out of the Big Ten Tournament. Groce was fired as soon as he got off the plane, so why wait two weeks to fire Bollant?

I take him at his word, he hadn't really gotten around to doing a thorough evaluation of that program yet.

It appears from various reports that Whitman has been very, very busy flying around the country meeting with boosters to stump up the money for this men's hire.

Ldog2013 · Mar 14, 2017

Next Coach Suggestion

I thought Bollant was an excellent hire out of UWGB. He had a better resume than the coach I'm about to recommend jennie baranczyk of drake. I believed she played at Iowa.

2012–13 Drake 11–20 5–13 9th
2013–14 Drake 17–15 9–9 5th
2014–15 Drake 20–11 15–3 2nd WNIT First Round
2015–16 Drake 23–10 14–4 T–2nd WNIT Second Round
2016–17 Drake 28–4 18–0 1st NCAA
Drake: 99–60 (.623) 60–29 (.674)

Oskee67 · Mar 14, 2017

FatGreg said:
Yep. He was 282-55 in ten years as a head coach before taking the Illinois job. Career winning percentage over .800. Turned UW Green Bay into a borderline national power. Hiring him was like what hiring Gregg Marshall would be now. Cautionary tale?

Wow... it's almost unbelievable how poorly he did here compared to his track record. I still can't figure out how Bollant lost more conference games in 5 years than total games in the previous 10.

Can Illinois attract the same-caliber coach in terms of resume moving forward? Would they even be interested seeing how poorly this case study went?

JIllini · Mar 15, 2017

I think the whole racism situation with Bollant and his assistant were what led to his failure. He had the program trending up, and then when that happened suddenly we lost all our best players as transfers. Not to mention the impact it probably had on recruiting. Losing White was the final nail in the coffin, without her I knew this season would be ugly. I agree that Bollant should have been fired along with his assistant at the time.

BananaShampoo · Mar 15, 2017

JIllini said:
I think the whole racism situation with Bollant and his assistant were what led to his failure. He had the program trending up, and then when that happened suddenly we lost all our best players as transfers. Not to mention the impact it probably had on recruiting. Losing White was the final nail in the coffin, without her I knew this season would be ugly. I agree that Bollant should have been fired along with his assistant at the time.

Yeah, he was doomed as soon as that situation broke, basically. Should have just been let go then because his program reputation was always going to be severely damaged in the eyes of recruits. And here I thought he was going to be the most likely of the coaches MT hired to be successful long term. :tsk:

kcib8130 · Mar 16, 2017

Illinithad said:
I don't follow women's basketball so I'm just asking...what about J.D. Gravina at Western Illinois? He has had success there and made the tournament (I think) this year.

Again, I have no idea if he would be considered qualified or not...I'm out of the loop with women's basketball. Gravina's wife is from my little town of 2,000 people and his mother-in-law was my English teacher years ago.

I think this is a solid candidate.

In my 10 years around WIU, I never, NEVER, thought I would see a program try to poach one of our coaches. I mean NEVER. So glad they got something going for the 'Necks.

BillyBob1 · Mar 18, 2017

Tate aid this morning they have their coach and will be announced Tuesday.

GoIllini40 · Mar 18, 2017

Ldog2013 said:
I thought Bollant was an excellent hire out of UWGB. He had a better resume than the coach I'm about to recommend jennie baranczyk of drake. I believed she played at Iowa.

2012–13 Drake 11–20 5–13 9th
2013–14 Drake 17–15 9–9 5th
2014–15 Drake 20–11 15–3 2nd WNIT First Round
2015–16 Drake 23–10 14–4 T–2nd WNIT Second Round
2016–17 Drake 28–4 18–0 1st NCAA
Drake: 99–60 (.623) 60–29 (.674)

This sounds like a likely top candidate. Pretty solid mid-major conference too as opposed to where Bollant was at.

GoIllini40 · Mar 19, 2017

Cameron Newbauer from Belmont would be a good choice

Deleted member 3875 · Mar 20, 2017

Roundball Shaman said:
Could get Laimbeer but then also must bring in Dennis Rodman so Laimbeer has a stable and good influence around him to keep things in line. Or Isiah Thomas if he wants a warm and fuzzy personality type around, too.

Illini HR folks, after conversing with NY Knicks staffers, say no thanks on Isiah.

ilphotog · Mar 20, 2017

BillyBob1 said:
Tate aid this morning they have their coach and will be announced Tuesday.

Checked today and was told they were unaware of any announcement.

Dan · Mar 22, 2017

New thread-
http://www.illinoisloyalty.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=23781

Matt Bollant Fired

ph1970

ph1970

Roundball Shaman

zpfled

Illini_1979

NScale

DeadPanic

Second and Chalmers

Ldog2013

Oskee67

JIllini

BananaShampoo

Captain 'Paign

kcib8130

BillyBob1

GoIllini40

GoIllini40

Deleted member 3875

Guest

ilphotog

The camera never lies

Dan

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