Illinois Basketball: The Illini Plans for the Future Head Coach

The Illinois basketball team fell to Penn State last night in true Illini fashion.

Illinois dashed our hopes of winning the game by half-time as they went down 20 points going into the locker room.

The Illini then came out in the second half and got the game all the way back to a three-point deficit to give us hope once again. But, the comeback was too little too late.

After the loss to the Nittany Lions, Illinois now falls to 13-9 on the season and 3-6 in the Big Ten. They needed to prove they could win on the road to have any chance at the postseason but failed to do so.

Now the future schedule holds No. 15 Wisconsin and Minnesota both in Champaign. Illinois will be lucky to get one of those two games to go their way.

They also have four more road games as well, which they have proved they can’t win on the road.

That is at least five more losses for the Illini which would put them 17-14 at best. That is another missed NCAA Tournament and the fourth in a row for John Groce.

I have heard many different variations of two opinions on what Josh Whitman should do with the Illinois basketball program.

The two main ideas are fire Groce right now and stay the course. Both have different variations on how fans want to go about doing either.

Personally, I would have to agree with the letting Groce go sentiment.

Listen, I understand the stay the course route. What is the point of firing a coach three-fourths the way through the season?

My answer to that is if your ship was hitting an iceberg do you just stay the course and hope you reach shore? No, you hope the ship doesn’t sink too quick and you prepare the lifeboats. You don’t just stand there and stay the course.

That is the mindset I take with this Illinois program. They need to let Groce go, let assistant Jamal Walker take over the team the rest of the season, and then make a list of potential coaches and send feelers out.

Letting Groce go now doesn’t have real negative effects. The two I keep hearing are recruiting and there isn’t a replacement in place.

Well, if the recruits bolt now or at the end of the season it doesn’t matter. They will assess their situation one way or another.

And as far as a replacement goes, one of the main reasons Whitman had a replacement for football was because he had connections on the football side and Lovie was out of a job.

Also, people are worried about things getting worse if they fire Groce now. That is why they want to stay the course. Just for your information, we are at rock bottom right now. There isn’t anywhere to go but up.

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Letting Groce go right now would enable potentially interested coaches to see there is an opening and they might reach out to Whitman. This goes for candidates in college and in the NBA. I think you know who I am talking about.

Having Walker take over is only beneficial as well. For all we know he might be a great coach but has been overrun by Groce all these years.

Walker is a great recruiter and I think he deserves a chance to see what he can do the final few games of this season. If he does well maybe we even have the head coach on the staff right now. It is worth a try.

And lastly, having the coaching search start sooner rather than later is a great idea. This won’t be a quick process if Whitman starts at the end of the season like it was in football. That was a completely different situation.

The process for hiring a new head coach needs to start soon so we can get someone in there right after the season concludes. Let Groce go now and start the coaching search.

This is my view on how the coaching situation should play out. Will it happen like this? Probably not because I assume, the way things are going, that Whitman will stay the course.

I will support the new coach no matter what happens in the next few months. But, I think Groce should be let go now, put Walker in his place, and start the coaching search.

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This will give the Illini the best chance to hire the best possible coach. This program is at rock bottom but I believe that it will rise once again.