The Illinois Coaching Search

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#3,551      

Second and Chalmers

S
Second and Chalmers
Calvin said:
If there's another lesson in there, can you spell out how you think that changes our search?
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The lesson is that the underlying quality of the person you hire dwarfs to the point of insignificance the "quality" of the search. And that that underlying quality is unknowable in that moment, it reveals itself over time.

Mike Thomas didn't fail because Shaka Smart and Brad Stevens said no, he failed because he chose John Groce over Chris Collins. He didn't fail because Kevin Sumlin and Larry Fedora said no, he failed because he chose Tim Beckman over Pat Narduzzi.

I also think that story stands for the proposition that veteran coaches who have had consistent success in competitive mid-major leagues who aren't "sexy" candidates are usually very underrated, but you can obviously find counterexamples to that.
 
#3,552      

Second and Chalmers

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Second and Chalmers
Obelix said:
LOL... Oregon is not elite today by any means.

The big difference with Oregon though, and their entire athletics program, is Phil Knight, arguably the most influential person in sports and the preferential treatment they receive from him and Nike.

If we had Phil Knight, I would indeed feel a lot better about Illinois' prospects in sports, no matter the selection of coaches. You can have a disaster of a search and most times than not, it will end up in a huge disaster. Altman is a good coach indeed, but the influence of Phil Knight/Nike is a huge factor.

For Oregon, Phil Knight is the "right" guy.
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Wasn't enough for Ernie Kent. Nor Mark Helfrich.
 
#3,553      

DoctorofJazz

D
DoctorofJazz
ILL in IA said:
And none of the sports really over lap. So it's one suck fest leading right into another. Guess I'm glad it happens when I'm in my 30s with young kids. I hardly have time to go to the bathroom let alone sit down and watch a full game.
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I definitely feel your pain. I had to "watch" Game 7 of the Cubs WS on the web/simulcast on my phone while watching over my newborn daughter. Her Momma was stuck at work.
 
#3,554      

Second and Chalmers

S
Second and Chalmers
Leave any NCAA issues to one side. I have a hard time hiring Scott Drew knowing that any day on Outside The Lines a story might break about awful things his players did to women that Baylor covered up which would end his career.

Scott Drew is the cleanest thing about that University.
 
#3,555      

Obelix

Obelix
Obelix
Second and Chalmers said:
Wasn't enough for Ernie Kent. Nor Mark Helfrich.
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It does not mean that every coach in Oregon will be successful. If that was the case, Oregon would just have one coach ever. Altman is indeed a good coach, as I said.

But the influence of Phil Knight in that program is HUGE. You can have a disaster of search, and still recover. And you can lose assistants/recruits, and still be able to get a huge recruiting boost/help through the influence of Phil Knight and Nike. We just do not have that luxury, nor do most schools.
 
#3,556      

gecIllini

gecIllini
Colorado
gecIllini
>>But the influence of Phil Knight in that program is HUGE. You can have a disaster of search, and still recover. And you can lose assistants/recruits, and still be able to get a huge recruiting boost/help through the influence of Phil Knight and Nike. We just do not have that luxury, nor do most schools.

But wait, aren't we a Nike school... :thumb:
 
#3,557      

UofI08

U
Chicago
UofI08
Second and Chalmers said:
Or maybe Whitman is attaching Walker to the deal because he's afraid of what this job looks like with a recruiting class that has fallen apart.

Whitman has never done this before. The blanket assumption of not just competence, but mastery is ill-considered.
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You make a good point, but I think it's safe to believe in his competency while not being blindly loyal to the point of considering him a "master."

Even the best swing and miss. It's still relatively early in the process, a lot to play out.

And what do people think Walker would say to Whitman, "hey man, I'm outta here as soon as we lose." No he's going to say he's open to staying after talking to the incoming coach.
 
#3,558      

ILLINIambassador82

I
Rockville, IN
ILLINIambassador82
TCTORNADO said:
Tail #N816FG is getting ready to depart Naples for Willard and an Easy Jet is returning to San Antonio. And of course, FSR411 came from PHX yesterday to Willard. Connect the dots, folks!!:)
12:35 pm arrival today into Willard for #N816FG
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Who are the dots again (for all those ignorant folks)? San Antonio = Monte. Phoenix = Colangelo??? Who's in Naples?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#3,560      

Obelix

Obelix
Obelix
peoriabball13 said:
IMO they are about to be elite really soon here. Also my opinion that they are a final 4 lock. I could though be blinded by their jerseys and not thinking correctly. We shall see.
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I really like Oregon, especially like Tyle Dorsey, had watched him quite a few time in HS/AAU/International and always like his style of play. But Oregon is not elite, let's not kid ourselves. They are not considered an elite basketball program.

As far as their overall Athletics program, I think the long term prospects of Oregon continuing to elevate are really good. But again, that has to do more with Phil Knight/Nike rather than their coaches or AD.
 
#3,562      

DoctorofJazz

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DoctorofJazz
sacraig said:
I had a conversation with a UCLA fan yesterday who assured me that he, too, hopes Alford leaves for Indiana.
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Alford really wasn't been that impressive at Iowa. Record at Iowa: Overall 152–106 (.589) Big Ten 61–67 (.477) Add to that he made some poor choices in terms of recruits while at and subsequently had discipline problems with said players. So yeah, IU can have him.

Looking at his short run at UCLA, he appears to be doing better record wise, but I just wonder if the first two years was mostly due to having good recruits from the prior coach. However,nothing short of a national championship will satisfy UCLA fans. I haven't seen a fan base who is stuck in the past more except maybe ND football fans.
 
#3,563      

Deleted member 8213

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Guest
Deleted member 8213
ILLINIambassador82 said:
Who are the dots again (for all those ignorant folks)?
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If you lay it out on paper it makes perfect sense:

connecting-dots-scribbles-494x355.jpg
 
#3,564      

sacraig

sacraig
The desert
sacraig
DoctorofJazz said:
Alford really wasn't been that impressive at Iowa. Record at Iowa: Overall 152–106 (.589) Big Ten 61–67 (.477) Add to that he made some poor choices in terms of recruits while at and subsequently had discipline problems with said players. So yeah, IU can have him.

Looking at his short run at UCLA, he appears to be doing better record wise, but I just wonder if the first two years was mostly due to having good recruits from the prior coach. However,nothing short of a national championship will satisfy UCLA fans. I haven't seen a fan base who is stuck in the past more except maybe ND football fans.
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To be fair, this particular fan seemed to dislike Alford as much or more for his sliminess than for his (lack of) coaching ability.
 
#3,565      

BananaShampoo

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Captain 'Paign
Phoenix, AZ
BananaShampoo
Second and Chalmers said:
Gather around kids, it's story time.

Everyone read this article. Seriously, click through and read the whole thing.



37 days! The hire didn't come until April 24!



Sound familiar?



We remember a couple of those names. Three guys transferred DURING the search!



Spoiler Alert, Kenny Payne left for Kentucky and took Jones with him. Sound familiar?



This is the money piece. This is the moral of the story. After a endless, disastrous embarrassment of a coaching search process, worse than our current worst nightmares, they came down to two guys. Two pretty similar guys all things considered. Dayton had just won the NIT (defeating us along the way, remember that?), Gregory was younger, he was the energy guy, he had the big time recruiting background, at a glance he probably profiled as the closer fit for the Oregon brand. In that moment, those are two equally fine but blah hires that just mercifully end the rolling defenestration of Oregon basketball.

But at that fork in the road, Oregon chose the right guy. The transfers, the humiliation of getting turned down by every coach in sight, the loss of Kenny Payne and a chance at a program changing recruit, none of that put a dent in Oregon's path to the elite program they are today.

Hiring Brian Gregory would have killed it. That very day.

Let that story guide you, my sons. Hire. The. Right. Guy.
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This. All of this. But dear God, please don't let this take 37 days! :eek: Still, as long as we end up with the right guy, it will be all worth it.
 
#3,568      

jmwillini

J
Tolono, IL
jmwillini
I asked this in the previous thread right before it was closed. Wasn't all of the Scott Drew is dirty stuff basically started by Bobby Knight when he was at Texas Tech?
 
#3,569      

MA Illini

M
Mass
MA Illini
Ethel said:
I'm curious as to what exactly makes Alford slimy, that doesn't apply to ever other coach in the country.
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Search Alford and Pierre Pierce at Iowa. It was controversal at the time, it would highlighted even more now with the increased PR around sexual assault (appropriately so IMHO).
 
#3,572      

Obelix

Obelix
Obelix
RichardH said:
Scott Drew is one of those guys that I could see being a possibility. Due to three things:

1.) The dumpster fire at Baylor
2.) Whitman being able to give him a big pay bump (to me he's a guy worth paying big time money)
3.) I'm not sure how attractive of a hire he is to the schools above us in the pecking order
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On the negative side, Scott Drew would be a harder sell on the integrity aspect, having had his run-ins with NCAA and violations. Whitman stressed integrity multiple times.
 
#3,574      

DoctorofJazz

D
DoctorofJazz
illinipioneer said:
Speaking as someone who grew up in Virginia, UVA has a rep of being a very elitist school. Couldn't tell you exactly why, but whenever I had to interact with groups from UVA, there is always an added tinge of arrogance. TIFWIW
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Probably for a couple of reasons:
1. There's a lot of tradition that gets inculcated into the freshman. The history, Thomas Jefferson saying that learning never stops so instead of being called freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors, UVA students are 1st through 4 Years. The main section of the campus is "The Lawn" as opposed to our "Quad" and the whole campus is referred to as "The Grounds". Some of it comes off a bit stuffy and elitist to an outsider. Especially when you get corrected about asking whether that undergrad is a freshman etc....

2. There are a lot of legacy/multigenerational students there

3. There are a lot of well to do kids there, a number of which were very entitled. I saw so many used Jeep Grand Cherokee's and Volvo's parked off campus in the off campus student housing areas. When they take spring break they actually go places. I was eating a hurried lunch at the campus Subway right after spring break one time and overhead a bunch of underHoos talking about their fabulous trip to Italy.

4. There was a UVa saying about JMU(The Virginia equivalent of ISU/NIU) where JMU stood for Just Missed UVa.

5. A fair number of UVa students had the same story that I heard at UI, "I didn't get into Harvard, yada yada yada"

6. They DRESS UP for football games. I"m not pooping you either. Though sometimes the dress is somewhat comical, as 18/19yr olds will wear a nice Orange and Blue tie with button down pressed shirt paired with shorts and flip flops.
 
#3,575      

Second and Chalmers

S
Second and Chalmers
Obelix said:
But the influence of Phil Knight in that program is HUGE. You can have a disaster of search, and still recover. And you can lose assistants/recruits, and still be able to get a huge recruiting boost/help through the influence of Phil Knight and Nike.
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Oregon doesn't and hasn't recruited THAT well, in both football and basketball. Their recruiting has been enormously boosted by Knight and Nike of course, into the area of schools that have vastly greater natural resources, but I believe they've only had one top 10 football class ever and only a couple of 5 star basketball recruits. It has only pushed them so far.

Many great coaches turned down Phil Knights money because they didn't believe the proposition that shiny facilities and fancy shoes could get a far-away school with no tradition and primary focus on football blue-blood level basketball recruiting. Those coaches were right.

Illinois basketball can recruit like Oregon basketball. But neither Illinois nor Oregon can afford sub-optimal coaching.

Brian Gregory would have failed at Oregon, or Illinois. Dana Altman has succeeded at Oregon, and would have at Illinois too. In April of 2010 those two were the same tier of candidate, well below where Oregon had its sights set, and well below where Illinois is (allegedly, according to this board) setting its sights now.

All the roster, recruiting, and PR carnage of having aimed too high and failed didn't matter. Choosing the right guy from the available options did.
 
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