Vote of confidence for John Groce a wise move for Illinois
On the same day new Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman fired interim football coach Bill Cubit, he also made another significant announcement.
He revealed that fourth-year coach John Groce will get at least one more year to turn around the floundering Illinois basketball program.
“I think it’s important today that folks understand that John Groce is going to continue to be our basketball coach,” Whitman told WDWS on Saturday morning. “He’s a first-class individual and an excellent leader. He’s a student of basketball and leadership and I feel really comfortable with the leadership he’s given our guys.”
Whitman’s patience with Groce is wise even if it will also be polarizing among Illinois’ success-starved fan base. Illinois has more to gain giving Groce one more year to fix things than it does pulling the plug on his tenure later this month.
Groce has come under fire the past few months because Illinois isn’t succeeding on the court or behaving off of it.
The Illini are 13-17 entering their final regular season game Saturday and they’ll miss the NCAA tournament for a third straight year barring an improbable Big Ten tournament run. Promising forward Darius Paul was dismissed from the team last summer after getting arrested during the program’s exhibition tour in France, while forward Leron Black is serving an indefinite suspension after he allegedly pulled a knife on a bouncer at a nightclub last month.
To say that the Illinois program isn’t where it should be four years into Groce’s tenure is reasonable. To pin all that entirely on Groce is not.
He inherited an unbalanced roster from former coach Bruce Weber and coaxed 43 wins out of it in his first two seasons. Missing on prospects like Cliff Alexander (Kansas) and Quentin Snider (Louisville) have contributed to Illinois’ issues the past two seasons but so have an unfathomable rash of injuries.
Projected starters Black, Mike Thorne and Tracy Abrams have combined to play in a total of 15 games this season, leaving Illinois hopelessly shorthanded at point guard and in the frontcourt. Four other key players have also missed shorter chunks of time with injuries too.
Illinois has a chance to make strides next season if juniors Malcolm Hill and Kendrick Nunn return, promising freshman Jalen Coleman-Lands develops and Abrams regains his explosiveness. Even more significantly, Groce appears to be making headway toward reeling in a strong 2017 recruiting class.
Illinois already has landed a commitment from Da’Monte Williams, the son of ex-Illinois point guard Frank Williams and Rivals.com’s No. 54 prospect in the Class of 2017. The Illini are also strong contenders to land five-star center Jeremiah Tilmon (No. 16) and promising guard Jordan Goodwin (No. 87).
It won’t be easy for Groce to close on those two when his name will appear on every offseason hot seat list and opposing coaches will be whispering in prospects’ ears about his job security. Nonetheless, it also wouldn’t be wise for Illinois to give up the chance at a program-changing class either.
The smarter move is the decision Whitman made. He’s showing patience. That way he doesn’t have his two most high-profile coaching positions open at the same time, he doesn’t have to dig deeper into his budget to pay for Groce’s seven-figure buyout and he doesn’t have to wonder if he severed ties with his basketball coach a year too soon.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
