This data is pretty interesting, but not really that surprising in most cases. No one should be shocked by the coaches at the top, as most should have seen it coming. I tend to think that ones that we Illini fans should pay attention to are Bennett, Marshall, Beilein and Altman. Looking at the programs they took over, the previous 5 year average was pretty similar (82, 65, 82, and 64 respectively), and the success they achieved at their schools would be something we would all sign up for. Let’s look at the Kenpom ratings collectively.

As you can see, in pretty much all these cases, none of them achieved overnight success. Only Beilein was able to sneak out a tournament appearance in the first 2 years as a 10 seed. Even more interesting was that no coach was able to crack the top 25 in Kenpom or get a 6 seed or better until year 5! Not surprising for most coaches in a rebuild, but definitely somewhat perplexing for this collection of coaches.

Now, you can look at the first two years rankings, and see that Underwood is somewhat lagging here, with the exception being Marshall at WSU. To this point we probably could have seen more progress rankings wise, but his results wouldn’t look that far out of the norm among these coaches. This doesn’t necessarily mean that he should be included in this group yet as he hasn’t earned it with this rebuild, just more confirmation that things aren’t conclusive yet.

To demonstrate where we are at here is a list of where Underwood is in year two using similar metrics as we used above. I put him in this group with others currently in year 2 as well as Underwood’s 1 year at OKST just for fun. You can see that he is at the bottom of the short list here at Illinois. Really hard to gain to much from these numbers because of the short sample size and we are only 1/3 of the way through the second season.

So what should we expect to moving forward? Well, if everything moves orderly I think we should see a big leap next year, at least top 40 as that is really what is needed to have a shot at the tournament. I also think we should hopefully see a lower ranking at the end of the season than we do right now, 107 at the time of this snapshot. Then, hopefully year 4 is the breakout year and we are in the top 20. So if the first four years go 102 , 85, 40, and 20, we should feel pretty good about the direction.

Another aspect I wanted to explore was the youth of the teams Underwood has had compared to these peers. I compiled some data below using the experience and minutes continuity from Kenpom. They are essentially just the average school year of the players on the roster as well and the percent of minutes returning from last year. The numbers on the right side of the cell indicate the ranking out of 353 Division 1 teams, lower is more advantageous. Not as huge of correlation as you expect, but it certainly counts for something, and Underwood’s 1st teams have been at a disadvantage.

Aside from assessing the current Illinois coach, can we talk about the data surrounding the other two? John Groce should never have been hired. Looking at the data. he wasn’t able to elevate Ohio to a significant level, 117.5 vs 120.5 previously. Not to mention Ohio was positively trending when he was hired. His tenure at Illinois turned out as to be expected, with a 150% increase in the Kenpom rating over his tenure.

The bigger story is just how bad Bruce tanked the Illinois program. He took over a top ten program, 7.5 Kenpom average over previous 4 years, and left it roughly a 600% increase with a 45.4 average in his last 5 years with a +6.42 trend! Not to mention the wealth of talent on the roster, that should have propelled the program to at least maintain the course. While his numbers look particularly worse because Illinois was ranked so low on Kenpom, it does put it into perspective. His results at KState haven’t been much better, even considering the Elite 8 trip last year.

Other tidbits.

I thought Holtmann was just an OK hire as he took over a solid program at Butler, but the data shows just how much he elevated a good Butler program in only 3 short years.

Kevin Keatts is also really impressive with what he was able to do at UNCW and how things are rolling so far at NC State. Will be interesting to watch moving forward. A lot of his numbers are gaudy because UNCW was in such a terrible state, but also speaks to his ability to turn the ship around.

Beard and Musselman are both really impressive so far and would be at the top of my list if I were an AD at a major program.

Shaka hasn’t worked out too well at Texas to this point and his numbers at VCU were impressive but not earth shattering. Not positive he could have got the job done here.

Buzz Williams, Rick Barnes, and Bruce Pearl (YUCK) all are rolling, and will only be more impressive if they just maintain current success in the next couple years to provide more data points.

Our friend Cuonzo hasn’t put up great numbers at any stop using these metrics. A lot of that is because he only stays 3 years at any stop

In conclusion, and as a theme that Illinois fans don’t want to hear, we need to be patient. Everything that is happening so far looks like it could be in the norm for a successful rebuild, but we really won’t know until next year, or possibly the year after. Hopefully we can look at some of these results of other coaches and have a little bit better idea moving forward on what to look for.