Revisiting coaching thoughts from 2012- women's bball

[shamrockmuscles]

Not that this portion of the messageboard gets alot of posts but I thought it was interesting to think about what has happened since Matt Bollant left Green Bay for Illinois and Kevin Borseth returned.  I know at the time there was a thought that the program might take a step back because of the success that the women had during Bollant's last two years- the 65-4 run and the sweet sixteen run.  When KB went to Michigan- he inherited an absolutely awful team and program.  In five years he took it to an NCAA tournament and had an overall record of 87-73- and the success that he built there put Michigan in a place where it continues to have decent success today.  True- 87-73 isn't lighting the world on fire- but it's still pretty respectable. 

I always believed that much of the success that Bollant had was due to having Divilbiss on his staff, the addition of the Kress Center & having three of the top 7 or 8 players in program history- Kayla Tetschlag, Julie Wojta and Celeste Hoewisch- (none of which he recruited) and all of that lead to his getting the job at Illinois.

Now look where Green Bay & Illinois are at.  GB is on the cusp of winning the conference championship for the 18th straight season.  There are current & future stars on the team- and there are plenty of great players in the pipeline who have committed to the program going forward.  Now look down to Illinois.  The Divilbiss situation notwithstanding- the program at Illinois has fallen apart.  Bollant inherited a team that had a top 10 national recruiting class that former coach Jolette Law had brought in.  Bollant's overall record at Illinois is 52-70 with a big ten record of 19-48.  If you take out the first year where he had decent success (19-14 overall & a 9-7 big ten mark)- he is 33-56 and just 10-41 in Big Ten play. 

I know IL has a mess in their athletic department and just hired a new AD.  I would be very surprised if there isn't at least two Big Ten coaching roles open for women's basketball after this season.  Illinois and (if anyone actually cares in Madison)- Wisconsin. 

[FSCMocFan]

The Illinois women's basketball situation isn't even close to concluded. AFAIC the matter is a complete disgrace. Chief Illiniwek should take a revenge scalp.

[gbbrl97]

I think Bollant is gone. Illinois is going to want to sweep away anyone associated with the abusive culture rampant in any sport at U of I. Tim Beckman is gone, Divilbliss is gone, and since Bollant has not won at the U of I, he will be gone as well as their AD who did nothing to curb that culture along with the bad hires; At this rate, men's BB coach John Groce could also be gone. We are about to see the same thing happen at Tennessee as they are under a Title IX investigation. Crap like this does not fly in this day and age and big-time athletic departments who are looking for ways to expand their brand and get more $$$ for their athletic departments don't want any scandal affecting their brand.

Bollant was the lucky recipient of a solid foundation that Borseth left GB the first time. As shamrock said, he also had the Kress and despite being the taskmaster and abusive guy Divilbliss was, he was their tactical genius and got that program further than Borseth did. Bollant was a good recruiter, but Divilbliss was the "brain" so to speak. It would be interesting to see if there was any kind of abusive behavior exhibited by Divilibliss during his tenure at GB......

Good to see Borseth back and the team back on top again. Win the conference tourney and not put it in the hands of the selection committee. They should be solidly in unless they blow it in the first round of the HL tourney.

[shamrockmuscles]

Divilbiss' behavior here wasn't quite as abusive as it was at Illinois but I know for sure that there were at least four players that suffered what could be considered abuse at his hands (from conversations with either their parents or the players themselves.  With Divilbiss it depended on who you were when it came to how you were treated.  One particular bench player relayed a story to me about getting thrown out of practice one time only because she was trying to quietly explain a defensive concept to one of the freshmen at the time.  Divilbiss' being bipolar came out during the IL investigation so I''m sure that had something to do with it.

[gbbrl97]

That may explain many things. But did Divilbliss take those steps to manage his condition if it was known at GB? It's amazing they won all of those games despite the presence of Divilbliss.