Illinois

[hskr4life]

Will hire Ok St. coach Brad Underwood.

[Bugeaters1]

Some big twelve flavor.

 

[throwback]

Wow - he's only been in Stillwater one year, right? I mean most people want to escape from there as quickly as possible, but still, pretty slimy. OSU must not have had much of a buyout in his contract.

 

[49r]

Wow, great hire.

[Bugeaters1]

1 minute ago, 49r said:

Wow, great hire.

Can he get it done at Illinois though?

[Cowboy Kermit]

Money talks

[Bugeaters1]

maybe a little underhanded?

 

[throwback]

Looks like he spent time as a ju co coach in Kansas and Florida and was on K-State's staff with Martin for a while and followed him to South Carolina for a year before taking SF Austin job. 

 

Was an assistant at Western Illinois for about 10 years early in his career, so maybe some Big Ten area recruiting ties from then. (He and Molinari were not there at the same time.)

[Bugeaters1]

 

[hskr4life]

Ok St fans are..... hot to say the least...

[Cazzie22]

Illinois is going to be good.  Underwood has proven he can coach.  B1G just got tougher!  

[Bugeaters1]

 

[uneblinstu]

17 minutes ago, Cazzie22 said:

Illinois is going to be good.  Underwood has proven he can coach.  B1G just got tougher!  

Eh, maybe. They'll score, but they weren't very good defensively this year and we'll see if he can recruit Chicago and to the Big Ten. With only one year at a high major school, I'm not gonna give him the "proven" tag just yet. He also appears a little flighty.

Edited March 18, 2017 by uneblinstu

[Huskerpapa]

Good hire, if he sticks around.  I believe he coached at one of the Illinois directional schools in the past and so I am assuming he knows the Chicago area.  I imagine the Okie State alumni are more than a little shocked.  Not often that a coach is one and done.

[uneblinstu]

1 minute ago, huskercwg said:

Good hire, if he sticks around.  I believe he coached at one of the Illinois directional schools in the past and so I am assuming he knows the Chicago area.  I imagine the Okie State alumni are more than a little shocked.  Not often that a coach is one and done.

Western Illinois from 92-03.

[Bugeaters1]

 

[nustudent]

Think Underwood is a good coach.   And it may end up being a good hire for Illinois.   Certainly not a wow or splash hire though

[hhcmatt]

4 hours ago, 49r said:

Wow, great hire.

 

If we had decided to axe Miles would have loved this hire. Given that he's the basketball version of Pelini and we wouldn't have beaten Illinois to the punch of this, I'm glad we didn't go this route.  This is a good hire for Illinois and they're going to get good fast.

 

 

[hhcmatt]

4 hours ago, hskr4life said:

Ok St fans are..... hot to say the least...

 

They low-balled him for $1mil per year and then were going to re-negotiate if they won. Apparently they hadn't put that on their front burner and getting paid 3 times as much seemed pretty OK to Underwood.

[uneblinstu]

It would seem pretty ok to me, too.

[Swan88]

You never know how these things work out.  Just ask Groce:  everyone thought him to be a home run hire.

I'm always troubled by the one-and-done mercenary types.  Not sure why or how.  So . . . I'm betting this is not a long term match from heaven.

[hhcmatt]

9 minutes ago, Swan88 said:

I'm always troubled by the one-and-done mercenary types.  Not sure why or how.  So . . . I'm betting this is not a long term match from heaven.

 

Very well might not work out. However, I don't necessarily think that he's a one-and-done mercenary type. He was an assistant at Western Ill for the same coach for 11 years and for KSU/SC for the Huggins/Frank Martin for 7 years.  Would you stick at Okie St if someone offered to triple your salary?

 

BTW, he's a former KSU player and assistant. How much do those guys hate themselves more than usual today?

[Huskerpapa]

From the tweets I have seen, a number of Illinois fans aren't pleased with the hire.  I am not savvy enough to grab and post them, perhaps others can do so if they deem it important.

[hhcmatt]

1 minute ago, huskercwg said:

From the tweets I have seen, a number of Illinois fans aren't pleased with the hire.  I am not savvy enough to grab and post them, perhaps others can do so if they deem it important.

 

If you thought that you were getting Fred Hoiberg/Tony Bennett level known coach you probably feel this way. Matters a lot more about what he does than what people think.  Thus far he's kept the assistant that landed them a 5 star center + the 5 star.

[49r]

So I guess all the OSU AD had to do to keep Underwood was to pay him the Big 12 average (don't know how much that is exactly but it's pry less than $3 million).  They were in negotiations with him but were not willing to meet that (in my opinion very reasonable) demand, so he started looking around.  Illinois swooped in with their big offer and it was a no brainer for him at that point.

 

Sounds like the only Illinois condition was that he keep the assistant on staff that recruited Thorne, thus keeping Thorne, and he apparently agreed.

 

Really bad move by Oklahoma State, but pretty savvy one by Illinois.  He's a good coach, only question mark is can he recruit successfully in Chicago.  That'll be the key...but apparently Mac Irvin is pleased: