Ten Coaches on the Rise

[mathewson10]

I'm confused on how someone can say he drastically underachieved as a first year head coach. He had a worse team than jank yet had one less conference loss & 2 less overall losses. Jank left him with no depth & no point guards.

[Aargh]

I'm confused on how someone can say he drastically underachieved as a first year head coach. He had a worse team than jank yet had one less conference loss & 2 less overall losses. Jank left him with no depth & no point guards.

Picked to finish 2nd in the Valley - finished 6th, barely avoiding Thursday night. Ekey, Wilkins, Allen, Carmichael. I can remember 4 players off that team without refreshing my memory. If I check the roster, I remember more players from that team. That's not a bare cupboard.

Maybe everybody else in the world was wrong, and IlSU fans are right, but that's not generally the way things play out in the real world.

[dabirds0987]

Muller underachieved with Jank's players. Overachieved with his players. I am hopeful that he continues to overachieve with his players.

[mathewson10]

I'm confused on how someone can say he drastically underachieved as a first year head coach. He had a worse team than jank yet had one less conference loss & 2 less overall losses. Jank left him with no depth & no point guards.

Picked to finish 2nd in the Valley - finished 6th, barely avoiding Thursday night. Ekey, Wilkins, Allen, Carmichael. I can remember 4 players off that team without refreshing my memory. If I check the roster, I remember more players from that team. That's not a bare cupboard.

Maybe everybody else in the world was wrong, and IlSU fans are right, but that's not generally the way things play out in the real world.

Preseason predictions mean jack. I don't know why everyone on the message board weighs them so heavily. Every sport has predictions at the beginning of the season & most of the time those are incorrect. The prediction was based off how they won a couple games in the NIT the season before. When they had a top PG in the conference.

You may remember names but I remember how those players produced & most of then did not.

Wilkins was a foul waiting to happen & was inconsistent his entire career.

Allen was a pot head who played horrible that season & eventually got kicked off the team for drugs.

Ekey played alright his first couple years & played horrible that season. Then transferred to U of I where he didn't play well & had over inflated rebounding stats.

None of those players ever were consistent scorers.

I noticed you didn't mention a pg you remembered.... Because there wasn't one on the roster. A SF played point all season & because of this we had games where we had four or less assists & would lose just simply by being pressed. (Ex. v. Louisville)

So as I said... With this being the case, a 1st year coach did not underachieve with his one less conference loss than the previous coach that had a better & more complete team.

[Aargh]

h, but I do recall PG. IlSU fans were claiming that Kaza Keane was a better PG than Fred VanVleet. And they knew because they lived in Illinois and knew about both - and they got the better one.

[Wufan]

The two ways to evaluate Muller's first season are either he under achieved, or the fans and media game him (his team) too much credit. The inverse is true for year 2.

[mathewson10]

h, but I do recall PG. IlSU fans were claiming that Kaza Keane was a better PG than Fred VanVleet. And they knew because they lived in Illinois and knew about both - and they got the better one.

So you are evaluating a coaches performance based off of a couple fans opinions (not myself)on a message board about the last recruit available in North America that hardly played that season... Sounds legit.

[rlh04d]

Some crazy revisionist history going on here.

[mathewson10]

Some crazy revisionist history going on here.

No, that was I how I thought of that team & those players then & now. I watched them for the whole season not just home & away game & the tourney. All the players I talked about were very inconsistent. Did they have games where they showed flashes? Yes. But Allen was a prime example of inconsistency. Score 20 one game & score 0 the next. Idk maybe my definition of good is different than many of yours but I expect "Good" players to play consistently. Jackie Carmichael & Tyler Brown were the only two on that team that had any consistency. (Hence Carmichael's only 1st team all-conference selection)

[rlh04d]

Some crazy revisionist history going on here.

No, that was I how I thought of that team & those players then & now. I watched them for the whole season not just home & away game & the tourney. All the players I talked about were very inconsistent. Did they have games where they showed flashes? Yes. But Allen was a prime example of inconsistency. Score 20 one game & score 0 the next. Idk maybe my definition of good is different than many of yours but I expect "Good" players to play consistently. Jackie Carmichael & Tyler Brown were the only two on that team that had any consistency. (Hence Carmichael's only 1st team all-conference selection)

And with zero posts on here prior, during, and after that season, you are free to say anything you want about that team now. But that doesn't mean saying it isn't revisionist history has any credibility.

I know what the vast majority of Illinois State fans thought about that team going into that year, and by the expectations of your own fanbase, he severely underachieved.

And unless you can point back to where you expected anything different from the vast majority of IlSU fans, I'll just have to assume you're revising history.