Years 3-7 at Illinois I think really show what he is and can be as a coach. Some may say that's not good enough and that's fine. While I don't think he's proven he's going to build a title contender in a BCS league, I don't think that he'll bury K-State either.
If the 17-15 season was an isolated anomaly, what does that make the 16-19 season?
It was a bad season, but he didn't lose his team. They still played consistent defense, they rebounded, they got to the FT line. They just shot terribly. If you do those other things usually a solid program will recover, and it did. Granted they didn't win the Big 10, but the next three seasons were still a solid basketball team.