Bill Self takes Kansas Job

A couple of things:

Ron Guenther, the Illini AD, has done a good job picking coaches. I don't see him going after Crean because, IMO, he is a one-year wonder. I think the risk going after Few is I think he would bolt for Zona when Lute-ser retires.


Other than the possible but unlikely choice of rehiring Lon Kruger, I am not going to speculate. I have a feeling Guenther has a had short list for a long time to replace Self.

And to think of all the years many Illini fans wanted to get rid of Lou Henson, now the school can't keep any basketball coaches.

And who would have EVER thought Ron Turner who have outlasted two basketball coaches.

 

Crean is definitely the top choice for me. None of the other realistic candidates have had his success.

I have a feeling that Rob Judson will end up getting the job as a fallback candidate...he has strong ties to the university and can recruit the area but isn't really proven as a head coach.

 

Wow.. I'm so happy. I'm pretty glad Roy left now because we have our own guy at the helm, who can concievably be there for 20-25 years. He's a great recruiter, which Roy was later in his career at Kansas, but he's an even better X's and O's coach. While I liked Roy's running style of offense, it was like the St. Louis Rams years ago, when you only worry about offense, it can bite you in the ass when things aren't gelling.

Larry Brown was the exciting choice, but Self was the smart choice. Plus I'm also happy we cut our UNC ties for good.

While KAnsas fans are extremely happy we basically just went out and and got whoever we wanted. Self was actually UNC's #1 outside the family choice. We aren't too happy about his choice of bringing his entire staff with him. Between Kevin Pritchard (ABA coach, former player), Danny Manning, or Ben Miller (Only Roy assistant not taken with him), we at least want one of our coaches in there, especially after talks of having Pritchard AND Manning in there. But oh well... we're happy anyways.

As far as Villanueva (the UI recruit who only verbally commited). Kansas fans are kind of mixed about whether we want him or not. Yeah, it would be great to have the talent he brings. But it's never been like Kansas to take on players who will be one and done, like Carmelo. But then again... it's never been Roy-like to do it, but now that he's gone... who knows. Also we face the hypocrisy of complaining about Padgett possibly leaving, while we want Villanueva? Sure there's the difference of Padgett signing a Letter of Intent while CV only verbally commited, but the principle is still the same.

I dunno, I'll be happy if we get him, but I won't complain if we don't. But regardless, I haven't seen Kansas fans this excited about an upcoming season for a long time. Here's the lineup with Villanueva...

C Padgett 7'0" McD (Fresh)
F Simien 6'9" McD (Junior)
F Villanueva 6'10" McD (Fresh)
G Langford 6'4" (Junior)
G Aaron Miles 6'1" McD (Junior)

Then off the bench:

F Giddens 6'5" McD (Fresh)
F Graves 6'9" (Senior)
G/F Nash 6'6" (Senior)
G Lee 6'2" (Junior)
G Wilkes 6'4" (Fresh)
G Case 6'1" (Fresh)
G Hawkins 5'11" (Soph)

I feel bad about making McDonalds All-Americans play off the bench, but damn, that is just a shitload of depth. The starting lineup is all NBA draftees with maybe 2 coming off the bench.

Even though we lost Kirk and Nick last year, this while maybe it isn't a better proven talent team, the potential is there to blow last years team away. There won't be much lost so Kansas fans are at least expecting an Elite 8 appearance. If Carmelo leaves and Villanueva comes, I'd put Kansas as #1 pre-season. How about that, a #1 after losing two NBA first rounders and losing the best coach in the country Win%-wise. hah!

 

I take it that the Marquette coach goes to Illinois.

 

In truth, I would have been surprised had Self stayed because his ties to the Great Plains.

But from this point, KU fans can't whine about Dean and Roy being traitors when their school did the same thing and stole someone else's coach.

I am also not sold on Crean. For one, every Illinois coach during the since Harry Combes in the 60s has had more than four years of head coaching experience. Second, I don't see Crean staying for a long time, either. If the school goes that route, hire Mark Few.

One would think that Illinois would be a place where a coach would stay for many years, but only Lou Henson did so.

 

I'll take Crean over Few. He's been to the final four, did it with players that he recruited, and he can recruit Chicago and the midwest. Few's teams have been built around guys from the northwest, jucos, and transfers...he won't able to use any of those guys at Illinois. Monson built the program at Gonzaga and he hasn't had much success at Minnesota...why would Few do any better at Illinois?

I hope we can land someone who is a proven major-conference winner but who is a realistic candidate?

The two coaches leaving Illinois after a few years is just a fluke IMO...Kruger was sick of being a college coach and got an NBA offer, and Self just happened to get an offer from one of the very few programs that's ahead of Illinois.

 

After some thought JG, I think there is a great candidate out there that might be been as a risk, because he's just 35 years old, and that's Thad Matta of Xavier.

Although he hasn't recruited his "own" players, he was an assistant for four years at Butler before taking over and doing better with the talent than Barry Collier, then in the two years he's been at Xavier did better with the talent than Skip Prosser.

In his six years as an assistant, his teams won four conference championships. In his three years as a head coach, he's won three conference titles.


The clincher, though, is that he is a Cornjerker - a graduate of Hoopeston-East Lynn.

 

I'm with you there. IMO Crean is the best candidate but that's because the other choices excite me even less.

 

A cornjerker from Hoopeston-East Lynn

 

Crean has three players from the Chicago area, including Wade. He'll do fine recruiting Illinois as the Illini coach (and as an added bonus we'll stop the inroads Marquette has made there, especially if Pearl is his successor).

I can't really remember any Illini from Indiana or Michigan. There is enough in-state talent that we'll be in good shape if we can get most of the top players from Illinois and the occasional guy from elsewhere.

 

If I understand correctly, Illinois has done its best recruiting in Chicago and Peoria while Michigan State has done the same in Detroit and Flint?

 

Yeah, that would be pretty accurate. One of the top juniors in the nation, Shaun Livingston, is from Peoria and a must-get recruit for the Illini--I'm worried that we may have to start from scratch with him, especially if Wayne McClain goes to Kansas with Self.

The junior class in Illinois is extremely strong overall, which is one reason why IMO we need a new coach who can come in and recruit those guys right away. Crean has recruited the Chicago area well--he has probably his highest-rated area recruit, Dameon Mason, coming in next season.

I don't think recruiting the rest of the midwest is a huge concern for the Illini--the other states don't have as much talent as Illinois and getting the top players away from their home schools is very difficult.

 

*sigh*

I give up, no one seems to understand why Kansas fans are mad even though we've explained it a few dozen times.

 

Lucid,

I think everyone DOES understand why KU fans are mad. However, KU fans think that their school is the only one where the coach said this school was it, then accepted a job from another school, i.e., showed no class and flat out lied to them.

That notion is false.

The best example was in football in the late '60s, when Tennessee coach Doug Dickey said he wasn't going anywhere, then accepted the Florida job as the Vols were going to the bowl game.

What made this even more bizarre was when Tennessee hired Dickey as AD in the mid-80s, and has lasted to this day. Many Tenn. people still consider him classless, a liar and a traitor.

 

See, I've seen it happen in Chapel Hill. Mack Brown was in the process of leading Carolina football to one the best seasons in school history. Towards the end of the season, there were rumors flying around about whether one of the bigger football schools will hire Brown. Throughout it all, Brown repeatedly assured the press and players that he had not been contacted and that he would stay at Carolina - at the same time, he had been talking with Texas and only days after meeting with his players to reassure them that he was not going anywhere, Texas announced his hiring. That's classless and outright lying.

Roy Williams' case isn't that straightforward. Yes, he did say back in 2000 that he would not leave Kansas unless he was dismissed or he retired, and by taking the Carolina job, he did lie back in 2000.
But at the time, he was under the assumption that the Carolina job would not be available for him and he would continue to enjoy good relations with the AD, and back then, those were pretty reasonable assumptions.
Was he wrong, or at least mistaken in making these assumptions? Sure. But was he insincere? Did he mean to deceive Kansas fans and players? I doubt it.

Fast forward to 2003, the Carolina job becomes available again. Unlike Brown, Williams had the decency to say "I'm not going to talk about it, don't ask me about it" rather than issue a token denial. I thought his "I don't give a shit about Carolina" 'outburst' was calculated, meant to silence any Carolina-related questions at the post-game press conference, but it was also a pretty accurate reflection of his feelings at the time. But that's just my guess.

As far as coaching changes go and given the circumstances, Roy handled it with about as much class as possible.

 

Call Joey Meyer. Maybe he'll give up his head coach job for the Asheville Atltitude in the NBDL.

 

I cannot believe some people are serious in suggesting the Illini consider either Steve "Loser" Lavin or Bruce "phone tap" Pearl as its next coach.

 

Crean announced tonight that he's staying at Marquette with a 1.1M/year extension.

Dee Brown for player/coach? Sounds like he's been responsible for recruiting most of our players over the last two years.

 

There are a few things different though about Roy and Kansas. Kansas is a top 5 program annually. While that doesn't mean there is any arrogance that blinds us from believing a coach would ever want to leave Kansas, when a coach says he's staying because it's the best place in America to coach and it has the best fans, we have a tendency to believe him because it could very well be true. Had he left 3 years ago Kansas fans would have been hurt just like Illinois fans are now, but we all understand the decision and it made sense. He put us through a week of torture (can't imagine what he went through) and then threw a big love-fest at the stadium to announce he was staying. The intensity level from that point one was amazing. Scott Palloard ssaid the Kansas family was brought together so much more simply because of that moment. We had just had a big ego boost as well as a huge burden lifted off our shoulders... Roy finally made his decision that he was staying at Kansas for the rest of his career. End of story.... or is it?

Since that decision Roy is pissed because the AD that hired him was forced to resign because he destroyed every Kansas program except for basketball. We have to listen to Roy bitch about that. Then we have to listen to Roy bitch and bitch and bitch about Terry Allen being fired, our bad football coach of 5 years. Because of Allen's firing, Roy hates new AD Al Bohl and we have to constantly hear about how Roy just won't let it die. We put up with it because Roy was looked at, and treated as god around here. What Roy wanted, we gave him.

Present day... Doherty fired at UNC, we know Roy's name is going to come up once again, but we know Roy is going to turn it down. Why? First because he turned it down the first time and made a career choice. We all know most coaches tell recruits they're not going to go anywhere. Prior to his decision three years ago that was a big recruiting problem Kansas had, because the other coaches would tell the kids that Roy is going to leave and go back to UNC, and it worked. I'd do it cause it only made sense that he would go back. But after that day Roy said he was staying, no one had any reason to doubt his decision to stay at Kansas. All of the recruits weren't just assuming what Roy was telling them was true and that he would be around, but it was fact that Roy was staying and those kids were gauranteed 4 years under Roy.

Let's look at Wayne Simien. Here's a kid who Roy had known since 7th grade. There was no doubt this kid was going to play for Roy Williams and the Jayhawks, it was his dream. I'm sure he got a bit scared about his dream being taken away in 2000, but once he said "I'm staying" Wayne was in heaven. That's the thing, all of these kids had absolutely 100% no doubt in their minds they'd be playing under Roy for their careers.

Also last time he said he was staying for the players. Are these players any less important? That is a huge slap in the face to an extremely talented group that we have now. So that's what we want to know... how come you couldn't stay for these players?

Throughout the Final Four it was "Nick and Kirk... Nick and Kirk." Yeah, those two are extremely talented. But you are forgetting 12 other guys who helped them get here. Especially the trio of Langford, Miles, Graves who were so important to the Jayhawks success. Never once did he mention the rest of the team, it was always about Nick and Kirk. That's gotta hurt the other players as well.

At the banquet, which he shouldn't have come back for. Why we had UNC's coach up there I have no clue. But he started off his speech by saying "I came back for the players." and then went on for 5 minutes all about himself. The classiest thing he could have done was just act like nothing had ever happened. Tell us some stories about how goofy Miles was, or what it was like to spit in the Mississippi again. Tell us anything other than something about Roy, cause we don't wanna hear the same recycled garbage that we've heard over and over for the past few days. The assistants that are now UNC's assistants did exactly that, they just spoke about the players, the way it should have been done. That was another insult to the players.

When Roy got on national TV and started naming the two recruits he knew he'd have a chance with getting, and saying how there are ways to get out of a LOI and saying how much he wished he could coach them blah blah blah, I cannot believe he thought that was a good idea. He never mentioned Giddens and Case, the recruits from Oklahoma because he knew they were going to stay at KU no matter what, and they are just as talented. He only named the ones he thought he could get. If you don't think Roy and UNC are looking to grab other teams players, why have they been talking to Charlie Villanueva?

So skipshady, no, Roy didn't handle it with class. You might think that because of his "aw shucks" attitude, but that's by design. That's how Roy Williams wants Roy Williams to be seen. Roy does have a bit of an ego problem, he loves having the spotlight on him and the controversy surrounding him. Why the hell did he spend the first 15 minutes of his tenure at UNC describing why he let Kansas. Act like every other coach that has ever left a job. You are a good coach, but you aren't so special that you are allowed to do everything in an unorthodox manner. Would Bill Self be at the Illinois baquet tonight if it was now? no. Did Bill Self talk endlessly about Illinois at his KU press conference? Did Bill Self ever once mention the Illinois recruits by name or tell them on national TV how to get out of their LOI's and play next year or show the slightest interest in recruiting those kids? No. He simply said that those were Illinois' players and they will stay Illinois' players, end of story.

So sure, it hurts because we loved Roy. Did he turn his back on us? No. Is he a traitor? No. Is he any less a Jayhawk? No. He just went about this whole ordeal now, and three years ago, with a "Look at me! Look at me!" attitude, he's been trying to draw sympathy from us ever since he made his decision, and he's been saying and doing all the wrong things about Kansas University, our players, and even the state of Kansas.

Even though it was intended as an arguement to an insult when he said "People on the east coast don't realize it's not a bunch of covered wagons out there." It does no good and hurts the image. Why the hell did you even bring that up?

I don't appreciate Roy saying it's sad that Padgett and Wilkes are "stuck out there now." (how come Case and Giddens are "stuck" out here Roy?) That was a huge insult to the entire program. Stuck where? Stuck in one of the best programs in the country? Stuck where they will be treated like gods the next 4 years? Why is it sad Roy? Tell me.

I don't appreciate Roy trying to come back and draw sympathy from us fans. I don't appreciate Dean, a Kansas alum, thumbing his nose at us.

Kansas and UNC for the last 50 years have had a great link between the two. UNC always used to root for Kansas, Kansas fans always used to rooy for UNC. Now the two schools hate each other because of what Roy and Dean have done. Bravo guys, thanks.

This wasn't your ordinary coach leaving ordeal, it was far from it. Why? Because Roy made it like that because Roy wanted it like that. So don't compare it to another cae where a coach left because there's nothing to compare it to. Once Roy said he was going to think about the UNC job most Kansas fans like me just threw our hands up in the air and said... "Screw it, I don't F'ing care. If you and Dean want to do this to us again, just leave and let us find a coach who has no doubt in his mind where he wants to be."

Roy was not class, he was far from it. If you still don't understand why Kansas fans are peeved at Roy, fine, I don't care. Kansas fans aren't all whiney babies, there's a reason why we're upset and if you were closer to the situation you would understand it.

I don't care anymore. Kansas is in a better situation now. We have our own guy in there who truely wants to be there for the next 25 years. He's a young, proven coach who is going to take this program where Roy couldn't.

Once again I doubt anyone read this whole thing. But when someone wants to know why Kansas fans are upset, it's not something I can simplify down to a paragraph. There's dozens of reason why Kansas fans should be upset and another dozen reason why Roy is not the Roy he tries so hard to portray. He's a lot smarter than that, give him that much credit.

 

Lucid,

I did watch the Roy-North Carolina press conference, and at best he send mixed messages back to the KU faithful.

Frankly, I agree with you that he was being petty and showed little class. The crack about KU's basketball budget (or lack of it) was a major stinger.
He then compounded it by saying he learned as an assistant at UNC to work on a shoestring budget.

Just sad.

 

http://msn.espn.go.com/recruiting/s/2003/0422/1542325.html

Kansas recruit JR Giddens on Roy leaving...

Nice Roy, nice.