Buehrle>Wood

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 10:57 PM) No offense, but I see zero top 10 classes which he apparently recruited all of. Now this is a guy people would rather have coaching instead of a guy who was recruiter of the year, delivered, as an assistant, the #1 class in the country (or #2) and has head coaching experience as well as tournament victories. I hope to hell the people calling for him to be head coach are kidding. He had the number 7 class two years ago, 13th class last year, and 15th class 3 years ago. The greater thing is that people love him, particularly in Chicago, and there is no better ambassador to sell the school. Obviously, it's baseless speculation, but I think Groce is an idiot if he does not Jerrance Howard on his staff at Illinois.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 10:51 PM) Recruited who exactly? Basically everyone. We might have sucked, but we did land three straight top 15 classes because of him.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 10:42 PM) I know nothing about that person, why is he such an asset? Homegrown coach that single handily turned around our recruiting, particularly in Chicago. Played for U of I, came here as assistant and now is one of the highest paid assistants in the country. He has great relationships with everyone around the state. In addition to being a great recruiter, he's very highly touted for his game prep. He's interim HC now and will undoubtedly get a full time job one day, but a little young for the time being.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 09:30 PM) I wonder if this drags out much longer, will Groce drop out/ Completely unreputable message board sources say the holding point is the staff that would be put together. If he wants Jerrance out, then I would be really upset. Jerrance is the best asset we have right now.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 10:09 PM) I do think Groce's pedigree is a bit lacking from what you would want at Illinois, but Thomas has proven at Cincy that he could evaluate these up and comers from mid major schools very well, and so I just have to trust him on his judgment for now. It also helps when many people that know Groce and his background love him and think he'll do great here. Thomas has only found Mic Cronin on the basketball side. Two appearances in six years isn't exactly great, but who am I kidding I would love to have a coach like him now. But you're in saying Groces pedigree is lacking. This guy doesn't have anywhere near the coaching track record Weber, Self, or Kruger did coming in. It's easy to see why we think we could get better. But since those coaches aren't coming a long, I'm all for a risky hire, someone that could hopefully restore some pride in the program and get some kids out of Chicago. Groce is both boring and doesn't have a good head coaching background. That's no good.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 09:52 PM) Its been since 2005 since you've won anything in conference. The tourney would be a start. Illinois fans live longer off of a near championship than Sox fans do after a real championship. Of course I would love to win a conference tournament. The fact that its a relative criteria for a new coach is hysterical, especially considering the conferences we are talking about.

If we are making a hire based on the hope of winning a conference tournament, then oh boy we are in even worse s*** then I thought.

Yeah, why no tv? Also, saw the Mariners owner refuses to go to these games despite living near Tokyo since he has never attended a game before and wants to keep that streak up

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 06:32 PM) Ohio trying to find money to keep Groce How do I donate?

I had no idea this game was going on and baseball had started

QUOTE (fathom @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 04:59 PM) Sounds like no announcement of a coach today either. I cannot believe some fans want Reggie Theus. His roster at New Mexico St. was full of transfers, with some due to criminal reasons. It would be funny to see Theus and Hoiberg go after the same reclamation projects. Good. Just wait until the final 4. Maybe we get lucky and someone approaches us.

Robert Smith won't blackball him because he wants a job.

I would take Jankovich over Groce.

I sat next to Rodman in Vegas last week. Go me. He didn't look broke.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 02:42 AM) In all seriousness, who's really out there? Groce is probably the best of the worst, at this point. I think you have to look more at his background as an OSU recruiter than what he's done with Ohio U. The main question you always have is how much was this guy responsible for bringing all that talent into OSU? How much of it was Matta and his reputation? It reminds me a lot of the Lickliter situation at Iowa. It turns out that Barry Collier, Matta and Stephens were much more responsible for the success of that program than Lickliter, particularly Matta and Stephens. And the assistants he brought with him to Iowa were the least experienced and unable to adapt to the B10 in order to hit the ground running. Then he lost Tyler Smith (many said the same thing would have happened anyway, had Alford stayed) to Bruce Pearl and UT, and managed to run off half the players from the Alford days. It wasn't until the last year, when it was too late, that Lickliter's staff finally started getting some "decent" guys like Ben Brust, Aaron Fuller and Cody Larson (Florida). In the end, you have to be able to protect your neighborhood, and Iowa lost too many players like LaFrentz, Collison, Hinrich, Jason Bohannon (his dad played for the Hawkeye football program)...when you have a Harrison Barnes in your state, Iowa and ISU can't lose him to a Kansas or UNC every time if they ever want to be very good basketball programs again. The funny thing is that by the time Alford really started to learn how to handle the media and coaching, had a good staff and recruiters, Alford saw the writing on the wall and bolted for UNM, where he's done much better than he ever did at Iowa. Of course, there's no way anyone in Iowa would take Al-FRAUD back, despite his recent success. But if the Board of Trustees if resisting...and there are questions about the reception he would get from the CPL coaches, then Groce is better off staying put and waiting for another opportunity. Just because one member of the BofT wants Shaka Smart or Anthony Grant or whoever doesn't mean it's going to happen. I can just imagine they will end up with someone like Johnny Dawkins from Stanford now, or Quin Snyder, haha. You are right in saying we need to recruit our own, especially in Illinois. I don't believe Groce is that guy to do that.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 11:31 PM) lol@Illinois Indeed. This is hilariously awful.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 09:56 PM) Actually, Groce turned them down. He's also coaching at a bottom feeder among bottom feeders. I see where you are coming from. He hasn't exactly accomplished a whole lot outside of tournaments (sound kind of like the opposite of a certain coach, of late?). You can point to his mediocre record, and say he won't be good. I can point to the context of that record, the current trend of the program, and his abilities as a recruiter as reasons why he might be a good coach. In the end, it is about projections, and the Peter Principle applies. Just because he wasn't the greatest MAC coach, doesn't mean he won't be a good Big Ten coach. Neither of us can really say for sure whether or not he would be a good or bad coach should he be hired. I think the reasons above are better methods for projection than just blindly looking at a conference record, but we just have to trust our AD's judgement should he be hired because he's the one we hired to make that decision. The AD, by the way, has a pretty decent track record for hiring good coaches. As for the Bill Self stuff I was talking about earlier, Self had a .505 winning percentage in his first 4 years with 1 NIT appearance. Groce has a .603 winning percentage in his first 4 years with 2 NCAA tournament appearances. I'm not trying to say that Groce is at all better than Self because the two situations are obviously not equal, but you can't write off Groce because of the first four years. And, if you want him to be more "proven" than he is now, who exactly do you want us to hire that is better? I agree we have no idea how he will do. But I see nothing that makes me think he will succeed at Illinois. He may very well prove me wrong, I just have my strong doubts. He inherited a program that had won 80 games the previous 4 years before him. He won 85 in 4 years. Improvement sure, But I'm not too impressed.

The players are now starting a campaign for Jerrance Howard

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 08:53 PM) If a guy can coach and recruit, it really doesn't matter what conference he comes from. There have been bad coaches in the Big Ten and good coaches in the MAC. This is very true. My problem is the conference is bad, and he hasn't yet managed to finish better than 3rd in it. That leads me to have doubts about his coaching.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 08:46 PM) But they didnt have an issue with hiring an Ohio-based MAC coach for football..... Because we are in a worse position for football and the MAC is at least respectable in football. It's the natural progression for mid-west mid-major football coaches. You don't make the Big Ten jump in basketball. It's been a bottom 15 (or worse) conference for awhile now.

Illini Loyalty is reporting that the 3pm presser stuff was to see who was leaking the news. Funny, if true.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 08:41 PM) Is not being on the same page as the BOT really a bad thing right now? They seem to be the fault for many of the problems the school/program is running into now. Personally, I like my AD fighting for what he thinks is the right move compared to what the BOT, who haven't run an athletic department, thinks is right. The BoT is awful, don't get me wrong. But in the end they hold the power to deny the hire or at least make us look bad. Not that we could look much worse right now.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 08:33 PM) I'm in class right now, so I can't really do the research right now, but it took Bill Self a good 4-5 years before he started winning with any regularity, with the last year being a particularly high outlier. An outlier that Groce should also roughly have next year since his entire team is coming back. Then hire him when he actually does start winning. Because, you know, he may never do that. For every Bill Self, there are ten more guys who don't win their first 5 years and ended up in obscurity.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 08:29 PM) Because the 2 big guys said no? As if he could have done something to have them say yes. They don't want U of I. The end. That's the reason its shameful. It's been filled with leaks, alumni turning on us, tons of negative press, everyone saying no to the point that a Big Ten program may hire a MAC guy, and reports that coaches don't want to work with Thomas himself. Illinois still doesn't have a coach as it now appears the AD is on a different page than the people he needs approval from. I don't think it could go much worse.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 08:23 PM) BTW, really!? Give him some time, he's dealing with the BOT on top of the program being down, not to mention the state of funding from the state. You have to give anyone that comes in a chance, than judge Thomas' decision. I'll give him a chance. But this entire process has been shameful whether or not the coach works out or not.