This is right up there with one of the stupidest posts I've ever seen.

I can't even wrap my mind around what you're saying. So what does Groce do that makes him so magical in March in your mind? Does he hold back and not tinker as well during the regular season only to really turn up the heat in the postseason? Are his halftime speeches so poetic in March that in inspires youth to suddenly do things they didn't do all season? You make no sense.

So Groce led a team to a 1 point win against a .500 team thanks to 2 free throws in the last second in a completely insignificant game. Boy this clearly proves your point and helps push your agenda, better get on the internet and prove my opponents wrong! Then his team has one of the more epic collapses that I can remember in MAC tourney history and it is shrug oh well he didn't have a good team.

Are we supposed to not care that his Illini lost by 20 in the 1st round last year in the 8/9 seed game? What happened to the Groce magic? Their season ended with a 31 point loss the previous year, though he did get a tourney win before that. The year before that, an 18 point 1st round loss. All told he was 3-5 in the big ten tourney with no appearances in even the semifinals.

Even at Ohio, he was 2-2 in the years we did not win the MAC. In 2010 it took I think 3 missed shots in the final minute by BSU to even force overtime...an inch on any of those shots and Georgetown never happens and we instead have a first round exit, and we had a million chances to lose the MAC championship in 2012 or the sweet 16 never happens. Sure coaches matter in those moments but so do a crapload of other things like players and refs and luck.

You can say all you want about him just having that March edge but it is all garbage. The narrative could easily be DJ Cooper was an elite March player that carrier his team when it mattered most. John Groce now has a 10 year head coaching career and the only thing you give a crap about is 2 weeks 24 months apart. Give me a break.

Your crusade against coach Phillips is one thing, but holding coach Groce as the gold standard is just ignorant. At what point did you switch to rooting against Ohio and for Akron just to push your agenda?

I can't wait for the reply to Andrew's post above.

I'll give it a shot.

Let me preface this by saying I'm in Coach Phillips' corner and I hope his contract gets extended. I think he's a good coach and deserves another chance. Maybe I'm wrong but I tend to be polyannish on these types of things-I give coaches miles of rope. So long as they run a clean and above board program I am lenient. So I'm all for Coach Phillips coming back. He's a class person.

Now on to Groce. Let's not minimize what the guy did. Against the then No.1 ranked team in the country he came within a point of taking Ohio to the Elite 8. Let me repeat-within a point of the Elite 8, not the quarterfinals of the MAC Tournament.

I could care less if he was lucky. BFD. I don't care if a coach is lucky; I don't care if the other team is snowed out and we win by forfeit (if you live in Cleveland like I do and got a foot of snow like I did last night you get the reference); I don't care if the opposing team's players get injured and Ohio wins by playing the other teams' scrubs. I don't care!

So long as Ohio's teams are above board, are recruited ethically and play clean, if they get to within a hair of an Elite 8 appearance, put me down as being VERY VERY VERY HAPPY!!! Geez, I hope Coach Phillips, Coach Bolton, Solich and all of Ohio's current and future coaches are just as lucky! If they are, we will all be very happy.

I love Coach Phillps but dang let's not forget 2010 and 2012 for Heaven's sake.

P.S. Groce must have had some sort of March mojo while in Athens-a 9-2 MAC Tournament record and 3-2 Big Dance record in only 4 years is more than just luck, and if it is luck I wish Ohio (and my damn Cleveland Browns) had more of it!

One of the best posts on any topic in recent memory.

Mark - I am not trying to minimize what Groce did but I also refuse to let it be the entire story. 2012 was amazing but it was just a run in the middle of a lot of mediocrity. The bottom line is Groce was a couple bounces away from having no March success and hated by FearLeon, but instead he is revered as a God. Crusade against Saul if you want but I don't understand why we have to pair it with elevating coach Groce, who has failed miserably since he left Athens.

Agree with your take Andrew and I held NO animosity towards Groce for leaving for greener pastures, the iron might never again been hotter for him when he left.

I find it somewhat ironic though that what precipitated Groce’s fall from grace from the Illini faithful is much the same that is bringing out the pitchforks against Saul. INJURIES! and SUB-PAR recruiting! Could it be that Groce while in Champaign purposely recruited injury prone prospects, had sub-par conditioning programs, didn’t have the proper nutritional programs that would have helped to prevent said injuries in the first place? And even though having the greater Chicagoland recruiting hothead at his fingertips he for whatever reason failed miserably to cultivate and develop such a “home-field advantage. And as the Illini injuries mounted he surely could have easily overcome that with D1 ready “ athletes” just a mere few seats down the bench to keep the ship afloat and not skip a beat.

I was curious about this "we spend more than anyone in the MAC" theme, and decided to do a quick look at how much more we spend. If we do, it's not by very much at all based on what I've quickly searched out:


RECRUITING SPENDING per the Des Moines Register - Ohio not the top spending team in the MAC, though quite close:

http://db.desmoinesregister.com/college-basketball-recrui...



D1 BUDGETS as of 2015-16 according to this site. Ohio: 3,101,150; Arkon: 3,088,920.
http://www.csnbbs.com/thread-813807.html



USA TODAY total Athletic Dept spending in 2015-16, where Ohio is 6th in the MAC on the list:
http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances /



Is there another source I'm missing? Particularly one more recent than '15-16?

C'mon what? You've brought up the highest budget, and the ROI on it, for 3 months as it pertains to your feelings on Saul's situation and our basketball program in general. I thought I'd ask if someone had differnt information, particularly more current information, that I wasn't finding.

Yup. That's my point. I know we spend less as a whole athletic department because we run lean in terms of total sports and spend less on football, but we don't skimp on basketball and our record does not reflect the lavish spending we're doing versus our peers.

I was actually going to bring this up, but declined because I didn't want to hear the "no more excuses" arguments. This had to have a huge effect on the psyche. Really, like what more else can this guy go through during his time in Athens?

I'll just leave this here.

https://www.midmajormadness.com/2017/12/12/16759688/nate-...

Even with Keno's "other compensation", he is still below Saul's compensation.

Quite an exodus going on 2 from Western, 1 from Kron, 4 from BG. That's attrition.

http://verbalcommits.com/transfers/2018