It wasn’t very long ago that Maryland basketball and Illini basketball were programs on equal footing. About a decade ago the Terrapins had a legitimate rivalry with Duke; just like Illinois had a legitimate rivalry with Michigan State. Both the Illini and the Terps had established themselves as peers with their respective conference’s traditional powers.
Terrapin basketball and Illini basketball are not peers this season, as Illinois is a #3 seed in the Not Important Tournament and Maryland is a #4 seed in the real tournament. (This is all the more maddening given that Illinois won the only meeting between the two schools this year). I’ve been saying for years that Maryland is/was the ACC Illini, but then they went and joined the conference and now re-established themselves this year.
The Terps are the Jennifer Love Hewitt of college basketball: arrived in the ’80s, broke through in the ’90s, peaked in the early ’00s, did absolutely nothing for awhile, and recently made a comeback.
Jennifer Love Hewitt is no supermodel, but she is one very fine looking human being.
Illinois and Maryland haven’t often been #1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, but they’ve been #5 or #4 seeds quite a bit. Maryland and Illinois are about equal when it comes to tradition/history: roughly the same number of sweet sixteen appearances, their one special season happened at about the same time (2002 vs. 2005).
They both have a very fertile recruiting ground right in their backyard (D.C., Chicago), which if utilized properly, would make them Duke or Michigan State, but as you know, neither can consistently keep that local talent home, and instead there’s issues aplenty.
Just to add coincidence to this analogy, 2015 Illini basketball ‘s signature win, the game that kept their NCAA Tourney hopes afloat as long as possible, was a win over Maryland.
Unfortunately, Illinois is still a Melo Trimble away from being relevant.
Maryland Coach Mark Turgeon on Trimble:
“He’s terrific. There’s a reason we’re 27-6, because we have a really good point guard.”
That’s about as interesting as a Turgeon press conference will ever get.
Both teams are alike in that listening to their coach’s press conferences are excruciating experiences that I wouldn’t wish on anyone; albeit for very different reasons.
Turgeon is just awkward and terse. It’s painfully obvious that he hates talking to the media. John Groce, while eloquent and articulate, is nothing but cheesy coachspeak and corporate motivational seminar cliches over and over and over and over again.
To use Groce’s own corporatespeak catch-phrase from Senior Night, “it’s no excuses” for him next year.
Assembly Hall renovations come with a newly warmed up seat for Groce. He has to get back to the big dance next year because the Illini basketball NIT jokes are becoming cliche in themselves.
#ILLINIT
“you can’t spell Fighting Illini witout NIT”
“you need NIT to spell Illini basketball”
For most Illini basketball fans, Thursday morning when the team failed to show up versus Michigan, was the de facto end to the season. They looked, and certainly played, like they were disinterested, and Groce will have to rectify that. To use more of Groce’s shopworn mind-numbing platitudes he’ll have to “man up” now and show us all what the Illini basketball “culture and fabric” truly is.
Let’s see if he can “stay poised” and bring in his “philosophy” and beliefs of “next man up.” in 2015-16. (Yes, this is actually how Groce talks)
Unfortunately, Illinois is a Melo Trimble away from being good again and there is nothing like a Melo Trimble on the roster next season. Jalen Coleman-Lands has enormous potential, he could be a true stud.
D.J. Williams has great potential, he could be something special, but neither one of those recruits plays the point. Having a legitimate true elite point guard could solve everything. Tracy Abrams, sadly, is not that. Abrams has his merits, but he’s not a genuine “one.”
Ahmad Starks was a bust.
Jaylon Tate, for all his great qualities, can’t shoot. He’s not given the green light to shoot, and when you have someone like him on the floor (a non-scoring threat), along with Nnanna Egwu…it’s like playing with a man in the penalty box in hockey the whole time.
You can’t be short-handed and make the big dance. You can’t have 22 point halves and sub 60 point games all the time and have people take you seriously.
The loss at Purdue ended up deciding the season. Groce said afterward that Nnanna brought it, and so did Rayvonte Rice. He said no one else played really well that night.
Egwu was 1-7 from the field in that game. We know that Egwu is a defensive specialist, and not a scorer, but if shooting 1-7, for a big man no less where FG%s must be higher, is considered a great game, well, March Madness will always be a pipe dream with extremely low standards like that set in place.
For as much as Groce spent the entire season raving about how great Egwu is, he was only great at one end of the floor and a liability on the other end. When the coach’s overwhelmingly favorite player only has talent at this level…well, it’s why Illini basketball haters call it a MAC program.
They also say that the football team is MAC level. Given the free fall of Illinois athletics under Athletic Director Mike Thomas, they may have a point or two.
Bruce Weber never missed the NCAA Tournament in back to back years. If Groce misses it again next year, you have to wonder if he deserves a fifth. For as much as this op-ed focused on tradition, that’s something lost on kids these days.
Not many actually remember 2005 Illini basketball. Look at how far Illinois has fallen in just a decade. Look at DePaul (because no one else is!) The Blue Demons did something this past weekend that would have been HUGE news, if it happened 30 years ago. DePaul has to remind Chicago that it even exists these days; and they made a NCAA Tournament in 2004! Before Michael Jordan arrived they were bigger than both the Bulls and the Blackhawks. Now they’re an irrelevant punchline.
That’s how fast and how deep you can fade.
This past weekend, I heard media close to the Indiana program discuss how their fabled tradition doesn’t matter to kids today- and that’s Indiana! The Hoosiers have a tradition richer than Bill Gates, but no one cares.
In the social media age, where news cycles are in minutes and hours, not days and weeks, the concept of history doesn’t exist to college hoops recruits.
So luckily, John Groce can easily re-write his history. Before his job is history.
Look at Maryland. Turgeon got it done in his fourth year, and he had a hot seat heading into this season. It’s on Groce to emulate that.
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)