With Mike Thomas now fired by the University of Illinois, we re-run this op-ed from March 12th. Enjoy:
Illini fans have the pitchforks out right now; as they should.
Most of that anger is currently directed towards Illinois basketball Coach John Groce, but the main target should be Athletic Director Mike Thomas instead. It’s understandable that the angst is more so for Groce, but that doesn’t include the bigger picture. The team failed to show up today for their traditional early tip-off in the Big Ten Tournament.
No one under the age of 85 likes being slotted in the 11 a.m. game, but the Illini should be used to it at this point- they’ve only been in the morning #8 vs #9 game four years straight.
The Illini got off to a 2-14 deficit against Michigan’s half a team, and things just went further downhill from there.
Spike Albrecht is the one guy left on the Wolverines (who’ve been thoroughly ravaged by injury) that you must always account for, and Groce’s team failed to even do that early on.
Albrecht is like the Big Ten’s version of former Detroit Pistons Guard Vinnie “The Microwave” Johnson- he can real hot, real fast. By the time Illinois figured that out, and cooled him off it was too late. Aubrey Dawkins continued his steady development with another fine game. Max Bielfeldt hurt the Illini again. Zak Irvin lit up the Illini. Muhammad Ali Abdur Rahkman knocked out Illinois’ tourney chances as Michigan accrued about twice as many points as Illinois by the half.
That’s enough of a game recap as you need because the game recap story format is like Illini athletics- becoming more irrelevant by the year.
It’s been 35 years since Illini basketball missed back-to-back NCAA Tournaments.
Back then the NCAA Tournament only had 48 teams so it was a lot easier to miss the big dance when you had far fewer slots available. It’s inexplicable and inexcusable of Groce to not have his team prepared better this morning; when a NCAA Tournament berth hung in the balance.
The bubble has burst with authority now and anyone who tells you otherwise is BEYOND STUPID.
It’s not the result anyone wanted, but at least you know the Illinois postseason destination now and won’t have to endure any more Illini basketball bubble watch stories this year. That song has become more over-played than Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space.”
We’ve known already for some time that John Groce was not and is not an upgrade over Bruce Weber.
Actually, the signs were there when he was first hired.
Groce was only 34-30 in the MAC when Mike Thomas brought him to Illinois. We don’t need to re-live the coaching search. Y
ou recall how candidate after candidate turned down the University of Illinois. Groce was the contingency of a contingency of contingency…etc. for Illini basketball. However, Mike Thomas was able to sell the Groce hire to Illini Nation because Groce had just finished a surprisingly good tournament run with the Ohio Bobcats. A sweet sixteen appearance at a mid-major gets you a power five conference gig these days, so if Thomas didn’t hire him, somebody somewhere eventually would have.
Early on in Groce’s tenure it looked….well, who cares, that optimism and hope is completely eroded now. Instead you must seriously ask this question now:
Is Groce really up to this job?
You already know that his football counterpart is not. It’s conventional wisdom that Tim Beckman is in well over his head, as his record and his press conference malapropisms convey.
His verbal gaffes in public make his incompetency apparent, but why should Groce be given a pass?
Groce is similar to Beckman in that the bar has been lowered (not intentionally of course, but it’s reality nonetheless) from decent to mediocre. Under both regimes, Illini fans have seen the expectations of being “decent” degenerate into “hopefully mediocre; maybe.” Just because Groce is more corporate and polished in his press conferences than Beckman is doesn’t mean that he has any more long term answers.
Besides, everyone will put up with the coachspeak platitudes when you’re winning. When you’re losing it’s just not as tolerable.
Next year will likely not be any better as the Illini lose some key seniors, including Rayvonte Rice, who was essentially the whole team in certain games this season. Rice was clearly the only guy opponents had to consistently game plan.
So now it’s time to shift the blame away from Groce and Beckman, and instead take a long hard look at the A.D. Mike Thomas. He’s overseen the decline of both sports programs while he earns close to $600,000 a year. For his work, Thomas was recently rewarded with both an extension and a raise.
Yet this is what’s happened to the Illini basketball and football programs.
Even worse, take a look at Illini football’s average attendance over the past six years.
2009: 59,545
2010 – 54,188
2011 – 49,548
2012 – 45,564
2013 – 43,787
2014 – 41,549
I think we know the real reason that the home opener was moved from Saturday to Friday night, and the Northwestern home games were moved from Champaign to Chicago. Those two moves were the right one on Thomas’ part. Let’s give him credit for that. However, attendance is still declining worse than Evan Turner’s NBA Draft stock. And when Thomas took the gig he bought out his football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball coaches all in the same year. (Who actually buys out a women’s coach?, seriously?) Thomas asked his athletic department to give him a lot of money for those three buyouts, and look what the results have been.
Yet Thomas gets rewarded with additional compensation and more established job security.
“Must be nice.”
“It’s good work if you can get it.”
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital. You can read Banks’ feature stories and op-eds in the Chicago Tribune RedEye newspaper and hear his regular guest spots on numerous sports talk radio stations all across the country.
Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)