MINNEAPOLIS — A little more than 48 hours passed between the time Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman emailed Chris Tamas to gauge his interest in interviewing for the open Illini volleyball job and the former Big Ten assistant landing his first head coaching job.
The path to the Final Four obviously took a bit longer, but in the grand scheme, the turnaround at Illinois under Tamas was just as quick.
The team he inherited in February 2017 had just missed the NCAA tournament with a 17-14 record and .500 mark in the Big Ten and didn't even have enough players to run six-on-six that spring during practices.