Illinois basketball hires Brad Underwood
Illinois has hired Oklahoma State’s Brad Underwood, sources told ESPN.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanESPN) March 18, 2017
Wow that seems like an incredible hire!
For Illini. Ok St was well prepared and well coached.
Scarier interpretation? He DID "Durkin" prepping for us the past week and still almost beat us, because he is a freaking idiot savant of basketball and will soon own the B1G?!?!
OTOH, Oklahoma State did lose three straight before the tourney, so maybe he Durkined then, and by the time of our game the deal with Illinois was in place.
March 18th, 2017 at 10:58 PM ^
This^ He did not just arrange that whole thing on Friday evening.
March 19th, 2017 at 12:19 AM ^
If his OK State team is any indication, Illinois will be very good offensively for the next few years.
They were also pretty darn good under Eddie Sutton
March 18th, 2017 at 10:59 PM ^
They took the Fab Five down fo the wire in 1992.
That's both a good hire and a guy who wants to let a Beilein team shoot, so seems like a win-win.
and what Ok. St. did to us, I can see why they turned to him. This does look like a great hire for Illinois.
Didn't they base what a team did to us in the NCAA tournament last time around?
Does OkSU have any athletic but unheralded commits we might want to take a look at?
to Michigan to get Groce fired. Underwood better beware those upcoming games with Michigan.
Wow I had totally forgot about that Ohio U game. I must've successfully blocked it out of my memory
WOW WHAT THAT'S A GREAT HIRE!
Supposedly was vastly underpaid at OK State. But after just one year, this has to hurt in Stillwater. Or they're still feeling the burn from our hot shooting yesterday.
That would be really quick work if they based this hire off OSU's performance against us in the Tournament.
It looks like they're tripling his salary.
So Illinois will become the new chaosteam? Surprisingly good hire for a school that usually hires mediocre MAC coaches in football/basketball.
If he can get players to play his system (and, maybe, play some defense) they can be very dangerous. Seems like a great hire by Illinois. It would be hilarious if Indiana were forced to get someone markedly less qualified.
Edit: On the one hand, lost his last four games and lost in the first round as a 10 seed. Not that impressive.
On the other, those games included unfavorable matchups against teams like Kansas and the team that buzzsawed its way through the B1G the week before, and they looked far better against Michigan than any B1G team has recently.
This was his first year at OK State. Previously, he had taken Stephen F. Austin to the tourney three straight times. Seems like a good hire.
I always preferred oSu
OSU ?
#ItalicsMatter
for them. If he can recruit, they should be a much-improved program.
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Oklahoma State doesn't have the big ten network money Illinois does and recruiting is probably easier in Chicago. Both are pretty rich in basketball tradition.
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It is surprising that T. Boone Pickens couldn't have poneyed up to keep him in Stillwater. Maybe he didn't get along with Pickens.
This is a really nice move by Illinois, and I would think that if Underwood can keep the blue chip Chicago guys in-state, he will definitely have something going in rather short order.
Your move, Indiana.
I'm hearing that this is a home run hire. I don't really agree with that. I mean, obviously OK State was the #1 offense this season and very, very good but most of that (based solely on my viewing of the Cowboys this season) seemed to be Juwan Evans flying all over the place opening up space. Can that be replicated elsewhere?
That said, experts and people far more knowledgeable than me are calling this a genius hire so who am I to disagree.
As Snarling Wolverine points out, he made the tournament three times with Stephen F Austin, which is better than what Illinois was doing in that period, and if Evans was that transformative a player, the previous coach probably could have utilized his abilities to avoid getting fired. Just spitballing there.
Also, that offense was a lot more than the team just clearing out for Evans to drive. It was built off of the ability of Evans to penetrate, but also having guys in position to rebound and other guys in position to shoot from deep. Evans is good, might get drafted in the first round, but he's not the kind of transformative athlete that carries a team on his own (and even teams with that kind of athlete, like LSU last year and Washington this year, can still be bad).
And, crucial to a school looking for a coach, they improved significantly over the course of the season.
The previous coach, Travis Ford, couldn't keep his job with Marcus Smart as a guard on the team. Also, the AD stupidly signed Ford to a ten year high dollar contract. They'll still be paying Ford I think $1 million per year until September 2019 (it would be higher if he didn't have another coaching job). They got Underwood at a bargain price for one year but probably don't have the money to match Illinois' offer.
I'm not looking forward to facing Underwood often. Too bad Cuonzo turned the Illini down, I guess. And I'm also eager to see who Indiana hires.