Just a little thread to keep track of Coach Underwood's career in Illinois. Started this year 6-0 all home games against mainly scrub teams. Lost to Wake Forest on the road last night. Illinois has not won a road non conference game since 2014! I don't know if he's got the talent this year to make a splash in the Big Ten (which starts conference play on Friday). Best of luck to him.

nacluth said:

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Just a little thread to keep track of Coach Underwood's career in Illinois. Started this year 6-0 all home games against mainly scrub teams. Lost to Wake Forest on the road last night. Illinois has not won a road non conference game since 2014! I don't know if he's got the talent this year to make a splash in the Big Ten (which starts conference play on Friday). Best of luck to him.

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Starts on Friday? Man that seems early for conference play.

Exactly what I thought. Of course now the Big 10 is like 20 members deep.

Just noticed that Missouri plays us and then gets Illinois next. I bet that will hurt Illinois after Mizzou gets used to our pressure defense.

Best post of the day.

Well conference play has started rough for the Illini. Two OT losses to Northwestern and Maryland. Last night against the Terps, Illinois put up 49 in the second half to force OT. Then the two teams combined put up 33 points in 5 minutes with Maryland edging them out by 1. Long season ahead, but 0-2 in a strong league is not great before Christmas.

Okstate started awful last season under BU. But they eventually there stuff together after a while

So true, but honestly OK St. still had a decent team of talent. Illinois has been on the ropes for a while, and they'll need some rebuilding. However, we know what he's done with new teams before.

nacluth said:

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So true, but honestly OK St. still had a decent team of talent. Illinois has been on the ropes for a while, and they'll need some rebuilding. However, we know what he's done with new teams before.

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Crazy to think at one point we had two future power 5 head coaches on our bench.

Just two years ago...

My fear is that it's going to be three in three more years.

nacluth said:

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Just two years ago...

My fear is that it's going to be three in three more years.

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Keller? If so, that's a good problem to have. Though I might wonder about the style of Keller's offense sometimes(hoping that's cleared up this spring), I do think he might be our Gregg Marshall who's in it for the long haul & building the program into a consistent mid-major powerhouse.

I hope that from now to forever that people call and ask to interview our HCs, because that means we're doing well.

Illinois is now sitting at 8-5. Their five losses are all against their quality opponents. All their wins have been meh. Like last year, it will probably take some time to turn the corner.

Boynton (on a side note) has done quite well in OKST even with all the controversy.

Illinois may have picked up some decent wins against Mizzou and GCU, but back to conference play, another loss. This time a good Minnesota team handled them. Michigan coming up this weekend. This team has really struggled to finish quality games despite having some great talent. They get too many more games down, they'll have a much harder time finding the tournament this year than OKST last year.

Illini squandered a great chance to pick up their first conference win against Iowa. They led by 20 in the first half, but went cold for stretches in the second. Lost in OT because they didn't score for the first 3:30 minutes of the 5 minute period. 0-5 and in the cellar of the Big 10.

The epitome of Illinois' conference play so far. 0-6 for Underwood to start Big 10 play...just like last year in Big 12 play. Seems unlikely that he'll have the same reversal this year.

nacluth said:

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The epitome of Illinois' conference play so far. 0-6 for Underwood to start Big 10 play...just like last year in Big 12 play. Seems unlikely that he'll have the same reversal this year.

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Disappointing to say the least. Hope we'll see him turn it around next year. Also, we need to get on Illinois & OKState's schedules.

Right now, I'm pretty sure we would beat Illinois. They just got shellacked by Wisconsin to keep their perfect winless streak.

Illinois has finally had two wins, but overall has struggled with any kind of offensive consistency (sound familiar?). The worst example was today against #17 Ohio St. Illinois got off to a furious start. With 10:11 left in the first half, they were up to 30-15. 15 points up scoring with a ridiculous pace that could easily see them eclipse 100...then, nothing. Nada. They didn't score a single point - no field goals, no free throws for the rest of the half. Not until a minute and a half into the second did they hit a three. 11:30 seconds of 0 points. They came back to retake the lead until at 5 minutes left, they had another 4 minute drought to lose. Oh well...BU, you're still the best.

Illinois got trounced by Penn St. today. BU's club could only manage 16 points in the second half. 2-11 in conference play. This loss seals no NCAA's for Underwood for the first time in his coaching career. Even a miracle run to finish still leaves him outside. Good luck to him in rebuilding in the offseason. Recruiting has to be a lot harder as the worst team in the Big Ten.

nacluth said:

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Illinois got trounced by Penn St. today. BU's club could only manage 16 points in the second half. 2-11 in conference play. This loss seals no NCAA's for Underwood for the first time in his coaching career. Even a miracle run to finish still leaves him outside. Good luck to him in rebuilding in the offseason. Recruiting has to be a lot harder as the worst team in the Big Ten.

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Ouch. Hope he'll turn it around though in the offseason. The Illinois, SFA, OK State, Gonzaga final four is going to be lit!

nacluth said:

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Illinois got trounced by Penn St. today. BU's club could only manage 16 points in the second half. 2-11 in conference play. This loss seals no NCAA's for Underwood for the first time in his coaching career. Even a miracle run to finish still leaves him outside. Good luck to him in rebuilding in the offseason. Recruiting has to be a lot harder as the worst team in the Big Ten.

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That's crazy to think that his 5th season as a head coach is his first non tournament. I expect him to turn it around. He really is in a dream spot at Illinois, though I would've definitely stayed at Oklahoma State. The hype for him there was just like it was here. He had that school all in after one season.

Also, where tf is our home-home.

I don't see Illinois as a dream spot and I feel like he got caught chasing a bigger check.

The Big 10 is a dumpster fire, and Illinois is way down on the pecking order behind Ohio State, Michigan State, Michigan, Purdue, and Indiana. Oklahoma State was a much better fit, and he would habe been more successful and made more money long term if he stayed in Stillwater. That said, we don't have to recruit against him anymore with him up there...

cboothe09 said:

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I don't see Illinois as a dream spot and I feel like he got caught chasing a bigger check.

The Big 10 is a dumpster fire, and Illinois is way down on the pecking order behind Ohio State, Michigan State, Michigan, Purdue, and Indiana. Oklahoma State was a much better fit, and he would habe been more successful and made more money long term if he stayed in Stillwater. That said, we don't have to recruit against him anymore with him up there...

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I think the paycheck and the lack of competition in recruiting in the Big 10 compared to the Big 12 makes Illinois potentially a better long term project. Like if he can get them to the top of that conference I think he can consistently stay at the top of it a lot more than he'd be able to in the Big 12.

Of course if he can't get it going at Illinois he may end up dropping back down to a Mid Major. 3 seasons in a bad mid major conference and 1 good season in the Big 12 can all be tarnished if he can't keep it going with the most basketball resources he's ever had.

Which means in 3 or 4 seasons when a bigger school snatches Kyle from us after our final 4 appearance, we can hope for the second coming!

He went from 1 million a year to 3+. I'd take that all day long. Plus OKState's athletic department is notoriously hard to deal with. They nearly run Gundy off every year & he's a native son who coaches better than any other coach they'll ever get.

I am starting to change my mind, but just to play devils advocate.

Yes, Oklahoma State is rough on Gundy. They LOVE basketball there. They try to operate on a budget, but they love their basketball program, and that program is the top dog on that campus. How long did they let Eddie Sutton stick around? Then they left the program to his son, then they went with a former player.
Oklahoma State is extremely loyal to their own. Underwood was their first branch away from the program in over 20 years, and they welcomed him in as one of their own. That's partially why they went with Mike, with no HC experience. He was Underwood's and part of that program.