JFGsCoffeeMug
BU:1 Trash cans:0
- Chicago
Well, Meyers Leonard isn't crying on the bench yet. So, in a very real sense, "yes."
Northwestern 73, Illinois 60 Postgame
- Status
If he’s lost the team. Absolutely.
the national
- the Front Range
If you haven’t yet, listen to Mike LaTulip on the post game show last night. He nails it, point by point The guy just calls it like he sees it. The players execution, coaching. It worth a listen.
Edit: Jeremy’s podcast today also has Mike and he shared the refined version of his take. I encourage all to listen to it (especially those who are upset with Underwood).
Edit: Jeremy’s podcast today also has Mike and he shared the refined version of his take. I encourage all to listen to it (especially those who are upset with Underwood).
JFGsCoffeeMug
BU:1 Trash cans:0
- Chicago
I don't assume the players are doing what the coach is "instructing ". But you seem to assume that as long as he's instructing the right things all is fine. Great teachers and coaches know how to instruct in a way that maximizes performance. I doubt there's a single person who has not had a professor who knew his subject matter very well but couldn't explain it well to others.I think this is a really good post. I agree with over 95 % of it. I only have couple of caveats.
I.) It certainly does cut both ways…and I also, don’t know why so many fans assume that what players are doing in real time is exactly what the coach is instructing. Clue phone…players don’t do what the coach intended for a number of reasons…(teenagers, and twenty-something’s tend to be kinda flaky sometimes…I know I could be.)
I don’t wanna sound like a jerk…but
Anybody who thinks that is the way it is has never been a coach or a teacher.
This was my beef with Weber . He'd say "I told him to....." as if the mere act of him telling a player what to do is the equivalent of coaching.
Much to BU's credit he doesn't appear to adopt this excuse in the least despite some on this board doing it.
illini80
- Forgottonia
Sure. It was just a flippant response to “it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.” If he loses the team, it’s not going to get better. I don’t think that will happen, but if it does……I might take a long vacation from the message boards.
illini80
- Forgottonia
That whole sequence of events has forever scarred us as Illini fans. Mike Thomas and his storm of destruction will live forever in my nightmares.
No, I agree with that. I really think with
this particular roster…for whatever reason
he struggled to motivate and get folks on the same page; more than anything else.
To your point:
ex. NBA great Chris Mulllins couldn’t coach and a guy like Charlie Spoonhour who didn’t even play in high school made an excellent coach…Brad Stevens (DIII) the list goes on.
I know what you mean in regard to I Weber. I thought he could be rather obtuse in that way.
If this is aimed at all the time I've wasted complaining about stuff on here, I don't think that's been my point. I don't think you can take any issue with saying that Underwood is accountable for the final product on the court, and that extends to finding the right guys, making sure those guys are motivated and play hard and together, and generally getting the gameplan executed. The thing that's getting me is when folks keep acting like there's some tweak to his gameplan that can be made in order to offset motivation and execution issues, because there isn't.
Coaches are always accountable for every facet of how the team performs, and truly great ones can reach players with a wide range of attitudes, aptitudes, and personalities and get the best out of them. Still, there's always going to be part of this that rests with the willingness of the players to buy in, work hard, and work together. To go back to your analogy of a professor, there's only so much that you can do if a kid isn't willing to read the coursework or pay attention in class. And if you're at a certain level of academia, I think that the expectations that you will be the one to help that student find the motivation to put in the work starts to diminish.
Underwood's neck is on the block if his teams fail, and rightfully so. But it can be true at the same time that there are some straight-up douchebags on this team who need to hold up their end of the bargain because this is big-time basketball. And that's not happening.
If I knew how to solve team chemistry and individual motivation problems, I'd be somewhere making a lot of money to do it. I'm not sure how good anyone is at dealing with that stuff, to be honest with you. As you move up the chain from high school/AAU to college to pro those problems tend to solve themselves, because there's only so far you can go if you don't put in the work. So I'm not confident at all that they'll work it out, but regardless I think it's a lot easier to teach a kid how to watch film or learn an offense than it is to teach him how to be 6'7" with a 7' wingspan.I think this is a really good post. I agree with over 95 % of it. I only have couple of caveats.
I.) It certainly does cut both ways…and I also, don’t know why so many fans assume that what players are doing in real time is exactly what the coach is instructing. Clue phone
I don’t wanna sound like a jerk…but
Anybody who thinks that is the way it is has never been a coach or a teacher.
Obviously, BU has a solid resume. His list of achievements speaks for itself. He’s a knowledgeable X’s O’s guy and he didn’t lose that ability over night. He has a solid track record of developing players, despite what some on here say. He generally handles the media well, he appears quite good at: hiring, recruiting, delegating and building a winning culture. But there has invariably been some missteps, bad luck
and failed experiments. But that is part of the job and is to be expected. The whole
thing is a crap-shoot to a certain point.
However, if there is a violent storm in the midst of a mutiny on this ship it falls to the captain to right it…I’m not saying anything controversial there at all. It’s just the way it is.
ex. the staff AND some of us thought…Skyy Clark was gonna be Damon Stoudamire reincarnated. That hasn’t panned out just yet. In Sky’s defense, do we remember Ayo’s freshman campaign? I seem to remember him being weak at finishing around the rim/getting the ball lodged under the backboard quite frequently with no where to go…I don’t
recall him being a perfect defender early on either. Ayo had more time to develop clearly. Skyy is asked to perform like a seasoned veteran from day one.
2.) We have more fixable problems than last year..I would like to believe that these problems are more fixable than last year’s more logistical based problems. I would argue these types of emotional/bad blood/personality-clash/unchecked ego type problems might be even harder to solve or get a handle on. They’re sometimes really bad. I know how gloomy all this this sounds but I think it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.
Underwood is not perfect, and he's certainly getting some stuff wrong this year. But that doesn't relieve the players of accountability, either. I think it's fine to give them a share of the blame if they're just not doing their jobs.
I think people need to realize, we only have 2 guys that played on the team last year, 3 when Goode gets back. So what that means, is many of these guys don't know the system yet. It's certainly not natural to them. Of those returning players the oldest is a Jr. He's also never really been the man anywhere he's played, so he's not experienced leading.
Then when you factor in, you usually look to your best player (Shannon, who is new to the program) or PG (Skyy, new to the program) as your leader that makes it even more a challenge. Our next choice would be the guy who's been around the program the longest, Coleman. He's leading the team in turnovers and one of our worst shooters percentage wise. Is that a guy the rest of the team will follow just because of age? So who does the team listen to? Who gets the team back on track? Anyone?
I think that is our problem. When things go wrong, who knows what to do and what to say to fix it? Who demands the respect of the rest of the team to get them to act? Who is leading by example to show everyone how to play?
I think we are seeing just how important leadership is to a team. This team has more than enough talent to beat anyone in the nation, we've seen it. But they have no coach on the floor and it is killing us.
Well sure, anybody who coaches long enough is gonna have some teams that they struggle to motivate or get that initial
buy in. Different team, different motivational challenges. Year to year…class to class that’s the gig. That’s the reality of a classroom teacher or some random JUCO coach out there somewhere. They can’t exactly pick their students/players and a lot of ‘em would be better off working at Home Depot financially speaking…and I’m not talking smack against the BUs of the world who made the BIGTIME…good for them they earned it!! AND let’s be honest… that was Brad for a long darn time. He more than paid his dues…another reason I like him…
The fact remains…
As a teacher/coach you are expected to motivate your students/players. Most of the time if you can’t…you simply can’t teach them. (it’s more that way now than ever b4) Don’t get me wrong…I was a competent to average teacher/coach…nothing amazing. So it’s just one guys opinion.
But I knew that if I didn’t have their respect, couldn’t relate to them, and couldn’t be kinda motivational…I was DEFINITELY in trouble getting them to buy-in…thus they weren’t going to even be teachable. Even the most outstanding coaches/teachers are gonna have SOME teams that are just tougher or maybe even nearly impossible to motivate/get buy-in…it happens. And right or wrong, a teacher/coach’s job performance is assessed by such things.
But you’re right…they absolutely deserve a share of the blame. You’re not wrong.
Not only that, but they should be consequenced in some way IMO.
Last edited:
the national
- the Front Range
This was an all time low. I think I even shed a tear watching his anguish. It broke the heart.
I respectfully disagree with this. If his style isn’t your cup of tea I can appreciate that.
I can see how some would not want their
kids to be subjected to that. That’s fair.
However, there are some key differences between coaching DI hoops and the scenarios you describe:
-Those 15,000 onlookers in a massive basketball arena tend to get kinda loud. Is the screaming guy at Wal-Mart or the yelling woman in the back pew having to shout over 15k people just to be heard? Or are they just some lunatic that should be escorted away by the police; just as you suggest. Context matters; so does proximity.
-The other human humans he’s trying to communicate with are a bit distracted…and
they keep continually running away from him in the opposite direction as much as
55? 65? 75 feet away? I know that sounds
snarky as hell, but it’s true. There is an immediacy to a basketball game that you likely do not have with these other scenarios. Those teachable moments generally occur in very short bursts of time. He might not have time to go through a big long preamble about this or that. The stuff is happening out there in real time. He needs to get their attention quickly.
-Some players, but obviously not all folks are as put off by volume or even curse words as others are. I don’t feel like simple volume automatically equates to being berated either. As strange as it my seem, some of these players actually wanna be coached up like that. Some actually go to that particular coach/school for that reason.
Kofi was supposedly pissed when he wasn’t yelling at him.
I DO however, agree it might be nice if he recognized a little sooner when it was working and when it wasn’t because I think it would make him more effective overall as communicator.
* There are some out there who automatically put any fiery, intense coach that yells, in the Bobby Knight category…
and that’s just unfair and complete garbage. If it ever became toxic like that crap I’d more than be with ya
Last edited:
the national
- the Front Range
Send them all to pruman's for a retreat to get their minds right
You can do what you want. Personally, I am not going to pull out my hair and wail like a Greek widow because the team is going through a rough patch.
If any one of these guys is surprised, they would have to be pretty low wattage.
I don't think that's remotely the case. I totally agree. They may be pushing back some or ignoring it, but this is who the guy is when he feels he needs to be and I don't think anyone familiar with college basketball wouldn't know it. And as others have said, it's gotten results before, including with transfers - what's different this year
the national
- the Front Range
lack of teamwork
lack of ball screens
coach disrespecting players by making fart sounds
lack of toughness
no point guard
low IQ
to much free-lancing
Hawkins need to shoot more
Hawkins need to shoot less
bad spacing
turn over coaching to Frazier
recruit players from Orange Krush
play the French guy
BU going apoplectic
BU mollycoddling
poor chemistry
lack of leadership
players doing their own thing
I thing there is only one solution.
lack of ball screens
coach disrespecting players by making fart sounds
lack of toughness
no point guard
low IQ
to much free-lancing
Hawkins need to shoot more
Hawkins need to shoot less
bad spacing
turn over coaching to Frazier
recruit players from Orange Krush
play the French guy
BU going apoplectic
BU mollycoddling
poor chemistry
lack of leadership
players doing their own thing
I thing there is only one solution.
CleaverName
- Chicago but not there anymore
Context and proximity do matter, the problem with the two situations you described is that he's also going nuclear an inch away from the player's faces and a second later the assistant coaches are talking to the players normally so it sure doesn't look like it was necessary to scream like a banshee to be heard
Something tells me fans may raise eyebrows at the next batch of players we pull from the portal. They won't be as shiny as TSJ and MM, but check other critical boxes fans tend to overlook.
We may have brought this type of reaction to this season on ourselves with to high of expectations. A lot of pre-season talk of final four and national title without most any of us having any true knowledge of what’s going on at practice or behind the scenes. Maybe we should tone down our orange shades and have more realistic expectations in the future to minimize these embarrassing forum meltdowns. It’s worked great for our football and WBB forums.
I pretty much agree with this response. Our freshmen are playing like virtually all the freshmen the Illini have had over the years. Playing a freshman with 4 experienced starters works much better. It is what it is and will take time to fix.
Goillinikobd
- Southeastern US
This where I have a quibble with what many are saying to explain our lack of offense
”So what that means, is many of these guys don't know the system yet.”
Our offense is a 180 degree departure from last year when we had Kofi, so it is equally new to all the players, the coaches and Illini fans.
- Status