Illinois has hired Oklahoma State’s Brad Underwood

GopherLady

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Kind of odd that Underwood would take the job. Oklahoma State had a nice bounce back season this year, Underwood was only there for one year, and I feel like Illinois isn't a substantially better job. Sounds like he wasn't getting paid much at OSU though, $1.1 million. Apparently he was a longtime assistant at Western Illinois, so maybe he liked the area. This seems like a very good hire though.
 

Gotta believe the almighty dollar and the Kansas elephant were the major factors in play here. I think it's a good hire. Not great, but they certainly could have done worse. Oklahoma State really wasn't paying him that much (5 yr, $6.3M deal) relative to other power conference coaches. I know a lot of people don't like to see coaches jump from job to job, but I think most of us would make a change for triple the salary.
 



Heard the Illini tripled his OSU salary. Pretty easy decision for him, I'm sure.
 


I dunno. They paid a lot of money for a guy who has never built a program.

I guess I understand that a little bit if you consider the massive contract. Still, the dude has a career winning percentage over 80% and he's 4 for 4 making the tournament. Had that OK State team playing their best basketball until the very end when they ran into an even hotter team in Michigan.
 



I dunno. They paid a lot of money for a guy who has never built a program.

Stephen F Austin has 4 NCAA Tournament appearances, and Brad Underwood is responsible for 3 of them. They even won a couple games. I suppose it's not high major head coaching experience, but Pitino probably had worse credentials when we hired him, and it seems like it's gonna work out for us.
 

Stephen F Austin has 4 NCAA Tournament appearances, and Brad Underwood is responsible for 3 of them. They even won a couple games. I suppose it's not high major head coaching experience, but Pitino probably had worse credentials when we hired him, and it seems like it's gonna work out for us.

Agreed, but pitino didn't make 3 mil
 

Sets the market for coaches pretty high - solid but not a splash hire by any means.
 




I think this is a really good hire for Illinois. It says something about Underwood that he was able to come in to Oklahoma State and take them to the tournament in his first year. I was not impressed with the talent on that Oklahoma State team at all. I disagree with the poster that said this might be about getting away from Kansas. The path to being the second best team in the Big 12 and a nice NCAA seed is much easier than it would be in the Big 10. Even in a down year for Indiana (injuries) and Ohio State, you still had to contend with Purdue, Michigan State, Maryland, Michigan and Wisconsin. It's a tough climb to the top half of the B1G even when a traditional power has a down year.

I don't really understand why Illinois fans would be mad, his resume is much more impressive than Groce's at the time of his hiring. I was hoping Illinois would struggle to find a coach again.
 




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