Buehrle>Wood

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 29, 2012 -> 12:54 AM) 3rd, 5th, 5th, 2nd, 4th, 4th, 3rd in their half of the MAC under the previous coach. 1 tourney appearance and first round exit. Ohio was an afterthought in the MAC. Groce is trending up big time at least in that conference. Doesnt make him a great hire, but he didnt take over even a halfway decent program, they were improving from bottom of the barrel, but thats about it. They are my alma mater's main rival FYI. Those places are actually better than what Groce has done, considering Groce has finished at best third in his division, I believe once.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 11:37 PM) I think he's probably a better option than the candidates being considered, although I don't think Groce is a bad choice. I think he may be better than Shaka and Stevens. He can recruit, and knows the Big Ten. People are too hung up on his record. If you inherit a mess, it takes a while to clean up especially at a school like Ohio where 4 star recruits aren't going to be lining up to attend no matter who the coach is. I don't think Weber forgot how to coach. If this assistant is as good of a recruiter as some claim, the Illini would have been just fine without making a change. Fwiw, Groce didn't inherit a mess. He inherited a program that won 80 games the previous four years(he's improved on that, but just saying)

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 11:19 PM) So he's a great basketball mind and a great recruiter, how come no other schools are interviewing him for a head job? I think his popularity is back up QB syndrome. Why did Weber get fired? Coaching? Recruiting? I wont comment on why he was fired, but its simply more than a blanket statement like recruiting or coaching. As for Jerrance, he's 29. That's why.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 10:49 PM) I keep hearing Howard can recruit, but can he coach? It is one thing to get the guys there, and it is another to get them to play how they should play. Someone previously said that UI has had three straight top 15 classes, but what do they have to show for it? What about what has happened down there tells anyone that this guy would be a better X's and O's/ manager of people than Webber was? Howard has a great basketball mind. He surpassed the other two assistants very quickly when it came to game prep. What happened with Illinois goes beyond that.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 10:08 PM) Scout has them 11th. There probably are other area HS coaches that you could hire at a cheaper price that would give you similar inroads. I also see zero top Chicago players in those classes (unless you count Richmond), most of those guys went elsewhere. There is always the possibility of getting someone who can actually convince the Anthony Davis and Jabari Parker's of the world to go down to Champaign. That may be why guys like Groce are looking to bring in someone instead of him. s*** camp someone out at Whitney Young each year and you can have 2-3 D1 players. I was using RSCI. Anyways, it takes some perspective. We were landing absolutely nothing before he came in. He alone has landed 3 CPL kids, which is about as many as we have had the previous 15+ years. Jerrance is going to land some top kids too. That's clear. Mind you this was his very first assistant job. Do you think Groce comes into OSU and starts landing top classes without creating prior contacts? Nope. There's a reason people love him. Even on the radio today, they had a few people on from the high school basketball scene talking how great Jerrance has been. They didn't know Groce.

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.