While I completely understand many of the doubts you have about John Groce and his program, is it possible to avoid turning every thread into a battle about the program's future?
Here's the deal, Groce was pretty solid his first 2.5 years. Recruiting was good, but not great. The 2013 results were fairly close to maximizing the talent, and honestly 2014 probably was too (that was a bad basketball team, thanks Bruce). The 2015 team was an unmitigated disaster, which is made more disturbing by the fact that this was Groce's first year of "full ownership" of the program (you are somewhat at the mercy of your predecessor the first two seasons).
As such, I completely understand you have doubts. I share some of them (for example, Geno Ford should not be the lead assistant at Illinois). However, I think we'll be in position to know by spring 2016 whether last year was a pretty good indicator that Groce is not the man or whether last season was more likely an anomaly. I'm certainly not betting heavily either way at this point.
That said, between now and then is not the time to rant and rave about every marginally recruited prospect going elsewhere. We miss on Xavier Simpson, that's a whiff. We miss on CJ Walker (I'd never even heard of him honestly), probably not so much.
But right now, it's time to take a deep breath until at least November, because we probably aren't going to learn much about where things go between now and then (and our recruiting class isn't likely to be particularly big). That said, I'm happy to hear your opinions because they are at least interesting. However, maybe they could be toned down a bit because the reality is that we aren't going to know much until we get into next season.
Here's the deal, Groce was pretty solid his first 2.5 years. Recruiting was good, but not great. The 2013 results were fairly close to maximizing the talent, and honestly 2014 probably was too (that was a bad basketball team, thanks Bruce). The 2015 team was an unmitigated disaster, which is made more disturbing by the fact that this was Groce's first year of "full ownership" of the program (you are somewhat at the mercy of your predecessor the first two seasons).
As such, I completely understand you have doubts. I share some of them (for example, Geno Ford should not be the lead assistant at Illinois). However, I think we'll be in position to know by spring 2016 whether last year was a pretty good indicator that Groce is not the man or whether last season was more likely an anomaly. I'm certainly not betting heavily either way at this point.
That said, between now and then is not the time to rant and rave about every marginally recruited prospect going elsewhere. We miss on Xavier Simpson, that's a whiff. We miss on CJ Walker (I'd never even heard of him honestly), probably not so much.
But right now, it's time to take a deep breath until at least November, because we probably aren't going to learn much about where things go between now and then (and our recruiting class isn't likely to be particularly big). That said, I'm happy to hear your opinions because they are at least interesting. However, maybe they could be toned down a bit because the reality is that we aren't going to know much until we get into next season.
