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Regarding the Gordon incident-some other points. As Bob Zuppke mentioned, decommittments happen all of the time. In this specific instance, clearly IU and Sampson got Gordon to flip covertly, but THEN led Illinois along by not decommitting so Illinois could go on to Plan B. The Gordons kept telling the Illinois coaches that they were firm to Illinois....all the way until the day of the actual flip. That's what caused the excess hatred BY UI fans towards Gordon and his family. This entire saga also exploited how "out of the loop" Illinois coaches were regarding the whole AAU culture, major college recruiting, etc. During that summer, all of the people in the "know" were saying that Gordon was going to IU. Those in the basketball community outside of Illini coaches and message board contributors knew Gordon to IU was a done deal and it truly showed how tone deaf our staff was in major college basketball recruiting.All of the Weberophiles were like, "but Dad posted on IB", "but EJ posted on IB" "Illini coaches say he's committed to the Illini". The snark that Sturdy had (he was carrying Jay Price's water) towards anyone who thought that Gordon was going to IU until the actual moment of the Gordon commitment was something that I'll never forget. Weber and Groce both got played in major recruiting battles and were left at the altar. Neither knew the nuances of how to close on a major recruit or read the tea leaves when things were starting to go south in a recruitment. Neither had a back-up plan as well. These are not weaknesses of Brad Underwood...it's one of his many strengths in running a major college program.