At this point, John Groce is pretty much Tim Beckman minus the horrendous and embarrassing public speaking gaffes. This past season, Groce’s on-the-court product deteriorated to the same dark depths as the football on-the-field product under Beckman.
With yesterday’s news that junior guard Kendrick Nunn was arrested on charges of domestic battery, we’ve now seen the off-the-court issues fall to the same pathetic level as Beckman’s program off-the-field.
Sure, these are two very different situations. Having one-third of your roster get arrested (or one-fourth for very serious violent crimes) in a seven month span is very different from a coach abusing his players. However, the net result, the bottom line, the severe damage to the Illini brand is the exact same.
Tim Beckman made Illini football a loser on the field and a sick joke off of it. John Groce has made Illini basketball a loser on the court and a sick off of it. It’s clear that both of these Mike Thomas hires are/were in way over their head here. With Beckman the incompetence was more easily noticeable given that he was such an awful public speaker who consistently provided us nonsensical jabbering and laughably stupid acronyms.
When Groce talks it’s just sleep-inducing vanilla corporatespeak. Actually, it might be something worse.
“We have guys who have great character off the court,” John Groce said after a Jan. 19 blowout loss to Indiana. “I’d let them watch my kids. We have a 3.0 GPA as a team. They’re great with that stuff.”
We didn’t know it then when he said it, but it’s crystal clear now. That’s just being in denial.
If Jeremiah Tilmon wasn’t leaning towards Illinois, if Frank Williams’ son Damonte hadn’t verbally committed already, would John Groce even have a job the day after the Illini basketball season ended? It’s a fair question!
Yes, Groce cannot supervise his entire team all the time, but 25% of the roster is kicked off the team temporarily right now. There is no place where that would be even remotely close to being acceptable. Even if a Final Four team had four players arrested (three of which on very serious allegations) it’s still a deplorable disgrace.
Athletic Director Josh Whitman needs to intervene because this program badly needs an intervention. Under the John Groce regime, Illini basketball can’t go five days without embarrassing itself.
The life of an #Illini basketball fan. pic.twitter.com/7buWQMORTN
— The Tomfoolery of Professor John Frink (@Frustrated_Fan) March 17, 2016
“We have guys who have great character off the court,” Groce said after a Jan. 19 blowout loss to Indiana. “I’d let them watch my kids. We have a 3.0 GPA as a team. They’re great with that stuff.
I’ve been calling for John Groce to be removed from power for well over a year. I’ve taken a ton of abuse from Illini fans over the past year or two simply because I expressed that opinion. I picked the Illini to finish 12th in the Big Ten back in November, and sure enough they did. I was called a whole host of deplorable pejoratives for simply making that prediction.
With Illini basketball I wear many many hats- alumnus, donor, descendent of a family with a long history of alumni donors, journalist, reporter, op-ed columnist and probably most importantly, fan.
These roles, by basic definition, cannot coexist peaceably all at the same time. However, I don’t view the idea of dismissing John Groce to be very multifarious. It’s not complicated; not by a long shot. Pretty much everything I need to say about this situation has already been said by Daily Illini opinions editor Matt Silich, and SB Nation Illinois (Champaign Room) blogger Mark Primiano.
I highly suggest you click on both links above, when you’re done with this page of course, and go read what these two gentlemen have to say.
This isn’t difficult. It’s very cut and dry that John Groce needs to go. I understand that it’s quite difficult to go out and just find a new basketball program CEO right away. Especially at this stage. However, I also know, as does every single other person who’s been paying attention that the current status quo is chaos. Anything is better than anarchy.
Ideally, you want to win and win cleanly. If you can’t do that, you’ll accept winning, but winning scandalously. Of course, by winning scandalously I mean, so okay you break some of the hypocritical NCAA’s sham rules kept in place to reinforce their faux-“amateurism” model which is actually neo-indentured servitude. No one wants to win if it means the cost includes your personnel committing the heinous crimes three Illini basketball players are accused of.
Failing to achieve winning, less than squeaky cleanly, you would then accept losing, but losing without getting into any trouble. (also, it should be noted that every administrator and coach will always they’d prefer option three over option two, but you already know that reality is the opposite).
The bottom of the barrel, the worst case scenario, is losing and losing with severe off-the-court issues.
That’s the very dark place Illini basketball has fallen now under the watch of John Groce. Not everything that’s happened is his fault; not even remotely close. He’s the still the captain though, and when the ship is sinking, he must be the fall guy.
Josh Whitman, step up and do what you need to do.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram