Time for Illinois State to go a different direction

[RoyalShock]

Jank is on a bit of a different "cycle" after his hiring than most coaches. Usually a guy comes in after the previous coach ran the program into the ground or had great success with a group of mostly upperclassmen and moved on to greener ($$$) pastures. From my outsider's perspective, he was brought in to take advantage of a group of talented, fairly young players that Moser wasn't going to capitalize on . The last of those players (OE, DO) have gone. Add to that the virtually complete meltdown of his first recruiting class and you get the current ISU Redbirds. So this is hardly the typical 4th year situation.

With a good nucleus of FR and SO (Carmichael, Wilkins, Cousins, Ekey, Threloff) and a promising recruiting class, I could see ISU jumping back into the middle of the pack next year. But Jank clearly needs to do something about his scheduling.

As for his actual coaching ability, it would seem he has underachieved. When he was coaching at Hutch CC I caught a couple games and while I don't remember the details I wasn't overly impressed with the on-court product, but it did get him the HC gig at North Texas, IIRC.

So I think he gets next year to see what his young talent and new recruits can do. If the Redbirds have another disappointing season, it could be several years before they get back on track, new coach or not.

[squirrel]

I don't know what would happen if Central Illinois had two coaching searches going on at the same time.

[pafan]

Ben Weirzba would happen.

I don't know what would happen if Central Illinois had two coaching searches going on at the same time.