When John Groce decided to start freshmen Malcolm Hill and Kendrick Nunn last season the Illini basketball season turned around completely. Illinois started 13-2, then they had a brutally awful 1-10 stretch in midseason. Many media and pundits (including myself) called for John Groce to shake up the lineup and start his talented freshmen.
It took awhile but finally, Groce made the switch and the Illini beat Minnesota at the barn by 13 points. That lineup then finished a very solid 6-3 down the stretch. So why didn’t John Groce make the switch sooner?
Given the decent seeding Illinois had in the NIT, turning two or three of their bad losses would have gotten them into the NCAA Tournament. They were very close to being on the bubble. Now if ifs and buts were candy and nuts then we’d all have a merry Christmas. So what does the coach think looking back?
Turns out he said exactly what we’re all thinking. In an interview with CBS Sports, John Groce said:
It’s interesting because I look back on it and I wonder if should I have done it or if I could have done it. I would say the earliest I could have done was two to three games before I did it. I started to really sense that those guys were coming on and I felt like early on up until about two to three games before I did it, I didn’t think that they were ready. They made too many mistakes and they didn’t have the habits we needed them to have both offensively and defensively.
But you could see all of a sudden like boiling water when it reaches that point of 212 degrees it turns into steam. You saw that happening right around the time that we made the change but obviously hindsight is 20/20. People always say why didn’t you do it sooner?
My response is if I knew we were going to miss the NCAA Tournament by a game then I would have. It’s easy for me to say that now. If we’d have done it two to three games before that, could that have gotten us the one or at most two wins we needed to get in?
I don’t know. Maybe.
If Tracy Abrams’ runner against Michigan in the Big Ten Tournament goes in, do we get in? I
t’s a possibility.
You can debate it for sure.
I think if anything good came from just missing the NCAA Tournament it was that it was with a young team with nine newcomers and almost all of those guys return. I think those guys learned that the margin for error is small.
It’s one thing for a coach to say but it’s another thing to feel it when it’s one game and all of a sudden the margin is that small and now you don’t only hear it but you also feel it. They felt it. That’s made us a little bit more disciplined, a little bit more detailed, a little bit more accountable because our guys understand that feeling. I thought that was a positive that came out of it.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and very often writes The Sports Bank.net ,which is partners with Fox Sports. Read his features stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Listen to him on 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks). His work has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including The Washington Post and ESPN 2