Originally Posted by
Monter
You dream brother. To simply assume they will "come back" is beyond naive. The notion that I have to have a specific school he should choose over Illinois to establish my point is short-sited. He has it made at VCU now. His name, along with Few and the Butler coach, is established. Thus, they don't need to use Illinois as a stepping-stone. He is on record as saying he is happy at VCU. He has built a perennial conference contender and bracketbuster. And I'm sure VCU would float him more cash to keep him.
My point is he can afford to wait for a better opportunity. Its short-sited to say Illinois is the best job out there at this time so he has to jump. He is fighting a huge uphill battle if he takes the Illinois job. That was the entire purpose of my post. Illinois has systematic problems that a coach alone will not solve. Indiana, Michigan State, Wisconsin, even Ohio State for that matter, are the pedigree of the BIG Ten. Illinois has and always will be the ugly red-headed step child. Yes, occasionally they will put a team together and win the conference...just like Stanford occasionally wins the Pac-12. But the fact is that top-tier recruits have and will in the future always flock to those schools before Illinois. And thats just looking at the competing BIG Ten schools. Illinois loses recruits to area schools such as Marquette, Memphis and even DePaul to a lesser extent. Then factor in Duke, NC, and Kentucky. All I am saying is that Illinois is not the plum job that everyone seems to believe it is. If you are happy were you are at and you don't need the stepping stone, Illinois serves no purpose...other than personal (wife, ties, etc). You can wait for another institution that does not have the systematic problems Illinois has. That was the sole point of my above post.