It’s hard to decide to which Illinois basketball story line has been overdone more during the John Groce era:
1.) NCAA/NIT “will they or won’t they?” bubble status
2.) Illinois finishes second (or sometimes third) on a 5-star recruit
Number one is the DJ Snake “Turn down for what” of Illini basketball, with #2 being Fall Out Boy’s “Centuries.” We’ve heard both of these songs WAY more than any human being should. Don’t blame the media though.
Like Fox News Channel pretends to claim:
“We Report. You Decide.”
Illinois has spent most of the John Groce era residing squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble; meaning it’s time to realize that John Groce is not an upgrade over Bruce Weber. Could next year finally bring something different?
Groce will bring in his best rated recruiting class yet, and he’ll be in year four- that’s a full roster of all his recruiting classes brought in to run his systems. However, that highly rated rookie class will have to replace a team that’s senior heavy, as there will also be a lot of turnover next season.
Also, Illinois still won’t have a true point guard or center, and Groce is the type of coach who consistently favors playing upper classmen over freshmen, so expect next year’s team to lean heavily on the current sophomores who will be juniors next year; not the frosh. Now that the regular season of John Groce’s third year is over, in the words of 2pac, “I’m a hit you with the hot facts;” courtesy of the most devoted Illini fans in my follower base:
@Frustrated_Fan @julieleo @PaulMBanks don’t understand why it has been so hard for seemingly good program to escape mediocrity. 8 years now
— chris bland (@chrisb972) February 27, 2015
@chrisb972 @julieleo @PaulMBanks It’s sad to think that Bradley and SIU have each made it to the Sweet 16 more recently than Illinois has.
— The Frustrated Fan (@Frustrated_Fan) February 27, 2015
@PaulMBanks @chrisb972 @TeamVulture @julieleo He’s not. We’re about to be in the 8-9 game in the B1G Tournament for the 4th straight year, — The Frustrated Fan (@Frustrated_Fan) February 27, 2015
@PaulMBanks @julieleo @TeamVulture @chrisb972 The Bragg recruitment was like Police Academy 6. How many times can we recycle the same story? — The Frustrated Fan (@Frustrated_Fan) February 27, 2015
It’s sad that Twitter is where you get actual truth in sports news these days; instead of the press conference. (Twitter has also replaced sports talk radio and sports bar conversation, but that’s another topic for another time)
Illinois has become the Taylor Swift of college basketball. First and foremost, they can’t seem to find closure (in individual games, and in cementing postseason status). Secondly, all we ever hear to explain away these problems are mind-numbing cliches. There’s a lot of hard questions about the program that need to be asked:
How come Illinois has not reached the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament and/or finished the season ranked in the AP top 25 since 2006?
Illinois led the nation, not the Big ten, the nation, in total victories from 2002-06, so how come things headed downhill so rapidly?
A major national publication held a 2006 survey, and Illinois was polled the “most visible program” among 14 year old males. Why wasn’t that publicity parlayed into keeping the program at an elite level?
How come a single one-and-done (Eric Gordon), de-committing at the last possible minute led to a change of course in the program’s history?
Why did Illinois lose every 5-star recruiting battle (Jereme Richmond is the exception) since then?
How come the single trait that we love the most about March Madness (the cinderellas), doesn’t seem to apply to Illinois? (The Illini only have two NCAA Tournament “upsets” in the program’s entire history, 2004- a win as a #5 over #4 Cincinnati and 2011- they were #9 and beat #8 UNLV)
The “new normal” (apologies for the cliche) is now the NCAA/NIT bubble; versus the 1990s and 2000s, when the norm was a second round out.
By no means are we saying that John Groce is worse than Bruce Weber, we’re just saying that’s he’s no better. He may end up being an upgrade in the long run, but there is no evidence of that thus far, and there is no reason to believe that he will be. They share a striking similarity in that both peaked early, and with a roster composed mainly of their predecessor’s players. To quote Al Gore, this is an inconvenient truth.
Of course, Weber is having plenty of issues himself at Kansas St. By no means do we long for his return.
Whether Illinois gets in the dance on Selection Sunday, or whether the bubble bursts, the song remains the same. As John Groce enters year four, hopefully we’ll finally get to hear a new tune. Maybe he can field a more compelling squad that creates a fresh storyline. Since 2007, Illinois basketball has been like that Fiona Apple song where she keeps singing:
“steady. steady. steady. steady going nowhere.”
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital, eBay, Google News and CBS Interactive Inc.
You can read Banks’ feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye newspaper and listen to him on KOZN 1620 The Zone.
Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)