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Post by ilalum92 on Nov 26, 2023 17:10:45 GMT -5
Portal is heating up! Ricks from Maryland, OH/OPP from USC. We need some OH & DS help.
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Post by pointillinois on Nov 26, 2023 17:25:51 GMT -5
Second year in a row where the Illini go out with a whimper.
Overall, very uneven season.
The past 2 years with a full Tamas-recruited roster vs. top 50: 2-19
Two years is not a trend, but overall level of recruiting not where it needs to be.
Conference is only getting more talented with new additions.
Really need to see a big jump in performance this off-season.
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Post by SayonaraTachikara on Nov 26, 2023 21:34:38 GMT -5
Hate to say this but Tamas ranting on Twitter right now is a really bad look. I get trying to stick up for your team, but trying to steal the thunder from the teams that earned their way in is not the way to do it.
Maybe figure out a way to not get swept your last two matches. Really lost a lot of respect.
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Post by ilalum92 on Nov 26, 2023 21:52:09 GMT -5
I would have been happier with an 18-12 season than 16-14. Tamas speaking on Twitter looks bad. Although there are some teams with 16-12 records, guess what, if we won a few more matches there wouldn’t be a discussion happening. Like the UFC says, never leave to the judges!
And I’ll say it again, losing to NW the last match is a bad look.
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Post by ilalum92 on Nov 26, 2023 22:48:53 GMT -5
Illini final RPI 103; adj 101; one top 50 win (Purdue), 15 of the 16 season wins were against non-NCAA tournament teams. Overall: 16-14 (RPI: 103) (AdjRPI: 101) RPI Date Opponent Score RPI 1-25 1 (Adj:1) 11/12 at Nebraska (28-1) 1-3 *NCAA tournament team 6 (Adj:5) 10/07 Wisconsin (26-3) 0-3 *NCAA tournament team 6 (Adj:5) 11/04 at Wisconsin (26-3) 0-3 *NCAA tournament team 13 (Adj:12) 10/04 at Purdue (21-8) 0-3 *NCAA tournament team 13 (Adj:12) 10/28 Purdue (21-8) 3-1 **** only win against NCAA tournament team 24 (Adj:21) 09/29 Penn State (21-8) 0-3 *NCAA tournament team RPI 26-50 38 (Adj:33) 09/14 vs. Southern California (18-12) 2-3 *NCAA tournament team 43 (Adj:40) 11/24 at Minnesota (16-12) 0-3 *NCAA tournament team RPI 51-100 60 (Adj:62) 09/01 Wichita State (21-8) 2-3 73 (Adj:71) 09/15 vs. UCF (17-12) 2-3 76 (Adj:73) 10/25 Indiana (21-12) 3-2 76 (Adj:73) 09/20 at Indiana (21-12) 1-3 78 (Adj:77) 11/25 at Northwestern (15-15) 0-3 78 (Adj:77) 11/01 Northwestern (15-15) 3-0 80 (Adj:81) 09/05 at Illinois-Chicago (21-12) 3-1 92 (Adj:91) 10/13 at Ohio State (11-18) 1-3 92 (Adj:91) 11/15 Ohio State (11-18) 3-2 94 (Adj:92) 09/24 Michigan State (17-14) 3-2 RPI 101-150 112 (Adj:109) 10/20 at Maryland (17-15) 3-2 128 (Adj:129) 09/07 at Notre Dame (11-15) 0-3 150 (Adj:148) 09/08 vs. Oklahoma (11-17) 0-3 RPI 151- 164 (Adj:163) 08/29 Valparaiso (18-14) 3-0 171 (Adj:169) 11/18 Michigan (7-22) 3-0 200 (Adj:195) 10/15 Rutgers (10-20) 3-1 200 (Adj:195) 10/22 at Rutgers (10-20) 3-2 201 (Adj:201) 09/03 Illinois State (12-19) 3-1 226 (Adj:226) 09/30 Iowa (8-24) 3-0 226 (Adj:226) 11/10 at Iowa (8-24) 3-0 272 (Adj:268) 09/12 at Bradley (9-22) 3-1 274 (Adj:274) 08/26 at Northern Illinois (8-22) 3-1 We didn’t deserve to make the tourney. All of our end of the year wins (except Purdue) we’re not good quality. Again, winning in preseason, not even having this discussion. |
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Post by liberovb10 on Nov 27, 2023 0:02:57 GMT -5
Illini final RPI 103; adj 101; one top 50 win (Purdue), 15 of the 16 season wins were against non-NCAA tournament teams. Overall: 16-14 (RPI: 103) (AdjRPI: 101) RPI Date Opponent Score RPI 1-25 1 (Adj:1) 11/12 at Nebraska (28-1) 1-3 *NCAA tournament team 6 (Adj:5) 10/07 Wisconsin (26-3) 0-3 *NCAA tournament team 6 (Adj:5) 11/04 at Wisconsin (26-3) 0-3 *NCAA tournament team 13 (Adj:12) 10/04 at Purdue (21-8) 0-3 *NCAA tournament team 13 (Adj:12) 10/28 Purdue (21-8) 3-1 **** only win against NCAA tournament team 24 (Adj:21) 09/29 Penn State (21-8) 0-3 *NCAA tournament team RPI 26-50 38 (Adj:33) 09/14 vs. Southern California (18-12) 2-3 *NCAA tournament team 43 (Adj:40) 11/24 at Minnesota (16-12) 0-3 *NCAA tournament team RPI 51-100 60 (Adj:62) 09/01 Wichita State (21-8) 2-3 73 (Adj:71) 09/15 vs. UCF (17-12) 2-3 76 (Adj:73) 10/25 Indiana (21-12) 3-2 76 (Adj:73) 09/20 at Indiana (21-12) 1-3 78 (Adj:77) 11/25 at Northwestern (15-15) 0-3 78 (Adj:77) 11/01 Northwestern (15-15) 3-0 80 (Adj:81) 09/05 at Illinois-Chicago (21-12) 3-1 92 (Adj:91) 10/13 at Ohio State (11-18) 1-3 92 (Adj:91) 11/15 Ohio State (11-18) 3-2 94 (Adj:92) 09/24 Michigan State (17-14) 3-2 RPI 101-150 112 (Adj:109) 10/20 at Maryland (17-15) 3-2 128 (Adj:129) 09/07 at Notre Dame (11-15) 0-3 150 (Adj:148) 09/08 vs. Oklahoma (11-17) 0-3 RPI 151- 164 (Adj:163) 08/29 Valparaiso (18-14) 3-0 171 (Adj:169) 11/18 Michigan (7-22) 3-0 200 (Adj:195) 10/15 Rutgers (10-20) 3-1 200 (Adj:195) 10/22 at Rutgers (10-20) 3-2 201 (Adj:201) 09/03 Illinois State (12-19) 3-1 226 (Adj:226) 09/30 Iowa (8-24) 3-0 226 (Adj:226) 11/10 at Iowa (8-24) 3-0 272 (Adj:268) 09/12 at Bradley (9-22) 3-1 274 (Adj:274) 08/26 at Northern Illinois (8-22) 3-1 This is eye opening - thank you for putting this together and digging through the RPI rankings. Agreed the Twitter rant is a bad look…wish he put up that same energy into preseason and throughout. |
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Post by bkedane on Nov 27, 2023 0:07:25 GMT -5
Illinois was nowhere near the NCAA tournament and no sensible reform to the selection criteria would change that with this year's results and level of play.
Everyone knows this except, apparently, the Illinois head coach. Even he might know it -- he might just be drunk-tweeting at this point.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2023 9:45:12 GMT -5
Let this sink in. Nancy Fahey went 7-77 in Big Ten games as our women's basketball coach. She lasted five years at Illinois. What kind of message does that send to the other coaches in Champaign? Wisconsin fired football coach Paul Chryst after going 67-26 in 8 seasons at the helm. And he was fired the day after losing to Illinois in Madison. He went 6-2 against the Illini in his career, but those two losses were enough to get him fired. Coaches at Illinois are under absolutely no pressure to win, especially if you're a Whitman hire.
On this note, even if Whitman wanted to fire Tamas, can we afford to buy him out? He still has 3 years left on his contract at 400k, which is not a small amount. The 5 year extension he gave Tamas after the 2021 season was a little too ambitious IMO.
I've been impressed with the individual progress some of our players have made over the course of the season, but overall this was a disappointing season as personally I think the minimum for this program should be making the tournament every year. The trend of the past few years of massively underperforming in the nonconference (and parts of conference) is really concerning and unless something changes I'm worried we'll have the same struggles again next season.
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Post by pointillinois on Nov 27, 2023 10:30:37 GMT -5
Illini final RPI 103; adj 101; one top 50 win (Purdue), 15 of the 16 season wins were against non-NCAA tournament teams. Looking at last year, much of the same. The PSU win was the only win against a NCAA tournament team. |
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Post by oldmanvb on Nov 27, 2023 12:52:03 GMT -5
Notwithstanding the team mailing it in after the Minnesota loss, the Illini coaching problem is a recruiting problem. Once Tamas gets them into the gym he does a good job. Roster construction has been a failure, although the optimist in me thinks Tamas’ roster construction is improving. It appears to me Tamas originally looked for 6 rotation players without a backup plan in the event the 6 rotation players did not develop. Terry made it painfully obvious a top D1 program needs to run a big part of the offense out of the back row. Tamas now appears to be recruiting passers more than he did in his first few years and we hopefully won’t have the back row issues as in the past. Tamas needs to bring in a coach who can develop passers and defenders. Sharping is not that coach.
As I said, roster construction has been a huge disappointment, although Tamas has been hit harder by long term injuries and illnesses than could reasonably be expected. It appears his next two classes are stronger than his last several classes, something probably attributable to Krista. He needs to get more aggressive recruiting transfers. It probably means encouraging at least two or three of our current scholarship players to find another program to play for.
We are not the only B1G team suffering below expectations seasons. Shondell has managed to recruit top classes without the physical facilities and support that benefit Nebraska, Wisconsin, PSU and Minnesota. What has he done to accomplish that? Minnesota is living off McCutcheon’s classes, how long will that last? Nebraska, Wisconsin and PSU prospered by stripping other schools of their best players. There is one more year of covid players, then 5th year players will be a thing of the past, and some of the transfer issues will be reduced, even though recruiting transfers will continue to be a big priority.
Even though Tamas’ teams develop during the season, for a number of years they have been miserable during the pre-season, not just this year. For a while we thought he over-scheduled, but this year demonstrated over-scheduling is not the early season problem. I don’t know what he needs to do to get the team ready from the first match, but he needs to figure it out.
Finally, Tamas and Whitman need to do something about replacing Huff, and not with a hockey rink.
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Post by gurnee50 on Nov 27, 2023 12:55:24 GMT -5
The problem is at some point you have to either extend Tamas (for recruiting purposes) or let him go. Illinois athletics brings in around $150 million a year in total revenue, so $1.2 million is not an end of the world figure. My wild uneducated guess is that Josh extends him for another year. If you look at some of our other coaches' performances the last 5 years, there are some pretty putrid results that make Tamas look like a rock star. Just don't tarnish the image of the school, finish .500 every year in the Big Ten, and you'll last a long time in the Whitman era. Josh values staying out of trouble (see Beckman, Tim).
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Post by liberovb10 on Nov 27, 2023 15:37:01 GMT -5
Notwithstanding the team mailing it in after the Minnesota loss, the Illini coaching problem is a recruiting problem. Once Tamas gets them into the gym he does a good job. Roster construction has been a failure, although the optimist in me thinks Tamas’ roster construction is improving. It appears to me Tamas originally looked for 6 rotation players without a backup plan in the event the 6 rotation players did not develop. Terry made it painfully obvious a top D1 program needs to run a big part of the offense out of the back row. Tamas now appears to be recruiting passers more than he did in his first few years and we hopefully won’t have the back row issues as in the past. Tamas needs to bring in a coach who can develop passers and defenders. Sharping is not that coach. As I said, roster construction has been a huge disappointment, although Tamas has been hit harder by long term injuries and illnesses than could reasonably be expected. It appears his next two classes are stronger than his last several classes, something probably attributable to Krista. He needs to get more aggressive recruiting transfers. It probably means encouraging at least two or three of our current scholarship players to find another program to play for. We are not the only B1G team suffering below expectations seasons. Shondell has managed to recruit top classes without the physical facilities and support that benefit Nebraska, Wisconsin, PSU and Minnesota. What has he done to accomplish that? Minnesota is living off McCutcheon’s classes, how long will that last? Nebraska, Wisconsin and PSU prospered by stripping other schools of their best players. There is one more year of covid players, then 5th year players will be a thing of the past, and some of the transfer issues will be reduced, even though recruiting transfers will continue to be a big priority. Even though Tamas’ teams develop during the season, for a number of years they have been miserable during the pre-season, not just this year. For a while we thought he over-scheduled, but this year demonstrated over-scheduling is not the early season problem. I don’t know what he needs to do to get the team ready from the first match, but he needs to figure it out. Finally, Tamas and Whitman need to do something about replacing Huff, and not with a hockey rink. thank you for putting so much thought into this post, it shows and i couldn’t agree with you more! His classes are improving - thank you Krista - and yes we’ve been plagued with the injury bug more than probably any other program in the B1G (the TDB pre-season sickness was a major monkey wrench) but with that said, our depth at crucial positions isn’t there. The reliance on players who don’t perform or contribute consistently has been frustrating (this year it was Pan and Burbage from time to time). I’m not sure if there’s a lack of off-season strength training, in-gym reps, or what - but there are more than enough facilities around campus for our team to utilize. If Huff isn’t available, go to the ARC and hit a few serve/pass reps, setter/hitter connections, anything to keep the improvements coming. I too was thinking about the outdated situation with Huff. We’ve given Huff a significant facelift, is it the long-term answer…no. But i can’t imagine that a locker room revamp/facelift costs much - why can’t we at least prioritize the space that the team is using and give them a sensible/respectable locker room area for them to utilize? That’s the head scratcher. |
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Post by pointillinois on Nov 27, 2023 16:56:32 GMT -5
Based on the Videos posted to Instagram, they appear to be using the old Football Weightroom at Memorial Stadium, which is still pretty nice.
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Post by ilalum92 on Nov 27, 2023 17:58:44 GMT -5
Notwithstanding the team mailing it in after the Minnesota loss, the Illini coaching problem is a recruiting problem. Once Tamas gets them into the gym he does a good job. Roster construction has been a failure, although the optimist in me thinks Tamas’ roster construction is improving. It appears to me Tamas originally looked for 6 rotation players without a backup plan in the event the 6 rotation players did not develop. Terry made it painfully obvious a top D1 program needs to run a big part of the offense out of the back row. Tamas now appears to be recruiting passers more than he did in his first few years and we hopefully won’t have the back row issues as in the past. Tamas needs to bring in a coach who can develop passers and defenders. Sharping is not that coach. As I said, roster construction has been a huge disappointment, although Tamas has been hit harder by long term injuries and illnesses than could reasonably be expected. It appears his next two classes are stronger than his last several classes, something probably attributable to Krista. He needs to get more aggressive recruiting transfers. It probably means encouraging at least two or three of our current scholarship players to find another program to play for. We are not the only B1G team suffering below expectations seasons. Shondell has managed to recruit top classes without the physical facilities and support that benefit Nebraska, Wisconsin, PSU and Minnesota. What has he done to accomplish that? Minnesota is living off McCutcheon’s classes, how long will that last? Nebraska, Wisconsin and PSU prospered by stripping other schools of their best players. There is one more year of covid players, then 5th year players will be a thing of the past, and some of the transfer issues will be reduced, even though recruiting transfers will continue to be a big priority. Even though Tamas’ teams develop during the season, for a number of years they have been miserable during the pre-season, not just this year. For a while we thought he over-scheduled, but this year demonstrated over-scheduling is not the early season problem. I don’t know what he needs to do to get the team ready from the first match, but he needs to figure it out. Finally, Tamas and Whitman need to do something about replacing Huff, and not with a hockey rink. thank you for putting so much thought into this post, it shows and i couldn’t agree with you more! His classes are improving - thank you Krista - and yes we’ve been plagued with the injury bug more than probably any other program in the B1G (the TDB pre-season sickness was a major monkey wrench) but with that said, our depth at crucial positions isn’t there. The reliance on players who don’t perform or contribute consistently has been frustrating (this year it was Pan and Burbage from time to time). I’m not sure if there’s a lack of off-season strength training, in-gym reps, or what - but there are more than enough facilities around campus for our team to utilize. If Huff isn’t available, go to the ARC and hit a few serve/pass reps, setter/hitter connections, anything to keep the improvements coming. I too was thinking about the outdated situation with Huff. We’ve given Huff a significant facelift, is it the long-term answer…no. But i can’t imagine that a locker room revamp/facelift costs much - why can’t we at least prioritize the space that the team is using and give them a sensible/respectable locker room area for them to utilize? That’s the head scratcher. Agree with everything! I think Burbage plays so hot and cold. One match she’s crushing it and the next hitting lollipops. I wish she would play with a stank attitude every match and hit the crap out of the ball every swing. |
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Post by inpaign on Nov 27, 2023 22:13:16 GMT -5
Hey guys! Now that the season is over I wanted to log back on and briefly comment on some of the recent posts. 1. Huff needs an upgrade...badly. But it can't take the entirety of the blame. At the end of the day, when Huff is rockin', it is one of the best home environments in the Big Ten. Our facilities are outdated, yes, but they are better than many of non-power 5 conferences. Maybe we can't get transfers from within the conference, but we should (theoretically) have better odds at transfers from smaller conferences. We just haven't seen it. 2. I want to very quickly bring up a point to consider. The injury bug that has hit us hasn't necessarily been a coincidence. There has been a tendency for our coaching staff to recruit players that have a history of injury. If you go look back at our recent players that have come and gone, you will see injuries aren't rare. Of course, not every injury has had that connection (TdB for example is extremely unfortunate), but there are quite a few that do. I don't want to get into it any further because injuries prior to college is out of our realm to speculate, but just take my word for it. 3. As put best by ilalum92, Burbage is so hot and cold. I'm very interested to see if she can step up next year and play consistently. When she's on, she can take over a match. When she's off, it can be a tough watch. Does Tamas believe she is the answer at OPP? Time will tell. 4. I was not a fan of Tamas' rant on Twitter last night. I felt it wasn't the time and it wasn't the place to express those feelings. That being said, everything he was saying was true and I firmly believe that. We did not deserve a spot in the tournament, but RPI as a metric is flawed. We all knew we were out of contention (meaning we were a long shot) weeks ago, and that just shouldn't be the case. All of the noise being created by Kansas State and their discontent about not making the tournament is completely warranted in my opinion. They should've made it, they didn't, and the committee failed to put the best-looking teams in the tournament. That is my opinion, you do not have to agree, but please respect it  5. Tamas and staff have at least another year here. I am confident this next year will be much improved. Tamas recognizes the committee using RPI and KPI to make decisions isn't going anywhere. Take my word for it, he is going to schedule appropriately next year. Whether or not he has the girls ready for game 1 is something we will have to wait for, but I'm feeling pretty good about our chances. 6. Finally (and what's most anticipated by all of us fans in the offseason): the transfer portal. The information I shared regarding a defensive player in-conference fell through, as I suggested might happen. However, I can share that we are already active in the portal. Tamas knows what needs to happen, and I'm confident he will fill the needs of the team. He's being aggressive by getting involved MUCH earlier than he did last year. Of course the offseason is long and there are a lot of moving parts, but trust the staff is working to secure the transfers we need to succeed next year. I'm going to choose not to share names, at least for now, but wanted to let you all know that the work is being put in. Hope all of this is useful insight. Appreciate you all on this board! |
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