You guys keep on posting about Lou, and I’ll keep on liking them.
Pregame: Illinois vs Arkansas, Thursday, March 16th, 3:30pm CT, TBS
- Status
in 3 years preceding flying illini, we lost by 2 as 4 seed in R2, lost R1 to Austin Peay (I remember many in the dorm not watching since .... weren't interested in watching a blowout and planning the parties for next game), then lost to Villanova by 2 in R2 as we blew a large lead with 90 or seconds to go as 6 or so different players missed front ends of 1-1 (before day of double bonus). appreciation for Henson did come later for the solidly many good seasons we had but 86-88 tourny was tough
I’ve heard this view expressed a lot. I’m not sure I agree with that. I do think he was quite good at it. I liked his unique motion offense…the long looping banana cuts and such. (I certainly respect what he was able to do at SIU…with far less talent.)
I really feel like Self is very underrated at X’s and O’s honestly. He’s such a good recruiter and roster builder that people underestimate how clever his stuff is.
I think the high-low offense is genius in its simplicity… well deceptively simple is maybe more accurate. He’s real good at indoctrinating into his system quickly…not afraid to make big adjustments either.
Kruger…I honestly don’t remember that much. Seems like it was more numbered specials/ a lot of called plays…pro set quick-hitter & iso type stuff?
Seems like he tried to exploit matchups a lot…I honestly can’t remember that much
…but remember his in game adjustments being quite good. So I’ll leave him out of it
The perception I got about Henson was that he was solid…but relied on his bench coaches. (I could be wrong) I was too young to really know know what was going on under the hood. So I’ll leave him off this too.
I say:
Self’s High/Low > Underwood’s Spread Weber’s Motion Offense
The defense PROBABLY goes in the same order IMO.
Last edited:
The 2005 time did something that was oddly unique. When they were behind, they didn't just foul intentionally, they went for the steal. This seems so obvious, but I've not noticed any other team before or since doing this. If you steal the ball and they don't call the foul, that actually gets the job done of getting the ball back. If they call the foul, that's what you were going to do anyway. I don't know if anyone else noticedthis, but I've always been curious to know if this was Self, Weber, or just that group of players. Anyone have any thoughts? I thought it was such a great strategy and the biggest reason for the historic AZ comeback.
Not only that, but Self is really good at player development. yeah, he recruits well, but he does a great job of developing the players he has.
In terms of game prep and management, Kruger was the best. Plus his teams were really well disciplined. 1998 was the best coaching job I've seen with an Illinois basketball team (with the possible exception of what Shauna Green did this year). That team was short, not very athletic, not deep, didn't have a true point guard but was smart and tough as nails. Kind of the opposite of this year's team.
In terms of Weber's motion vs BU's spread - with the right players the motion is a thing of beauty. I'll be honest, other than in brief spurts we really haven't seen the spread in action
My boys salivating over those zip ups
Light Blue….Yes, very very true!
Orange…Yes, it DEFINITELY was a thing of beauty for a while there…It was quite effective…but as you know/stated (the right personnel and proper execution is everything) …in later years it bogged down constantly and produced some of the most boring, ineffective low scoring games ever. Little did we know the worst was yet to come with Groce.
Navy Blue- We saw it a lot with Ayo and Kofi…why does no one remember that? It might not have been the finely oiled machine it was @ SFA but it was damn effective.
Illinois hasn’t won a game they were underdogs in since Texas. Let’s hope 24 hours from now this statement needs to be updated.
No pressure. Lol
Good lord will this game ever get here? I'm about to go to sleep just so when I wake up, it'll be game day.
When you look at the full history of Illinois ball you realize just how very many good years this program has had for many generations (during the regular season). But the tournament?
The lack of tournament success is almost freakish. Having oh-so-many great years and so little success in March/April. Nearly impossible to do that. But we’ve seen it. And so have our great-grandparents if not even earlier than that.
We cling to 1989 and 2005 like life rafts in stormy seas. Why? Because that is the level of success that (we feel) this program should have had — and should be having — more routinely like certain other legacy names we all know and (don't) love. You just should not be so good in the regular season and so struggling in the tournament for so many years. Bizarre.
Yes, winning Titles is hard and they just don’t hand out National Titles because you’ve been at it a long time. But still... different eras... different coaches... different players... even different styles of ball played... yet the tournament results have been freakishly similar.
And this creates a sort of generational ache that Illini Nation feels. That doesn’t help to win tournament games or gain anyone’s sympathy outside our Team Family. But to deny this ache would be to deny (a weird) reality.
I’m going to look at the Arkansas game with fresh eyes. I’m going to forget what’s happened during this regular season... the last couple years... hell, the last hundred years. I’m going to watch two good teams go at it and see who wears the smiles at the end in this great National frenzy of roundball.
We need to clear out our collective tournament cache and bitter tasting cookies and start a whole new tradition – the one with the kind of tourney success that we’ve always wanted.
Hard work... good players.. good coaches... good execution... and maybe a little luck in the tournament. And see if 'The Fates' can beat THAT...
I would definitely be in the camp of saying that Weber is the best X's and O's coach we've had in modern times. It wasn't just the motion scheme he tried running, he was on another level when it came to knowing how to break down an opponent's offense on the defensive side of the ball. He really was a strategic guru, and I'm fairly confident to say he was at worst Top 20 in the league during his coaching career. And when you think about it, he has had significantly less talented players than both Self and Underwood, though had better tourney success than either in his first 10 years of coaching. In fairness, Self has improved greatly when it comes to X's and O's over the years, but people tend to forget that for the first almost 15 years of his coaching career, people would mockingly call him "Big Game Self" because of how he'd tighten up in the final minutes of big games, and his team would just follow him and fall short. And it'd be interesting to see how Illini fans would've handled the back to back 1st round exits Self had from '05-'06 with Kansas before finally winning his National Championship. Even more interesting is that in those national championship games, Mario Chalmers hit a very low quality intensely guarded three to send the game to OT that Kansas wound up winning, while Luthor Head missed a high quality wide open three that would've tied the game and likely sent it to OT where there is no doubt in my mind we would've won (by the way, the play Weber called up during the timeout with 25 seconds to go to get Head that wide open look, is an absolute thing of beauty. Rewatch if you get the chance). Sometimes, the difference between winning and losing is just that razor thin. After Self got the monkey off his back though, he has really come into his own and no longer tightens up in clutch moments and he's become an extremely good x's and o's coach in his own right. But in their time with Illinois, I do believe Weber was our best x's and o's coach by a decent margin.
Overall, I tire greatly of the flack Weber tends to get here, as the truth is he was a damn good bench coach, he just was from the wrong era. You give him a team of highly motivated self-starters who will listen to him and do whatever he asks, he'll take that team far. He did it with SIU, Illinois, and Kansas State- it's no fluke. Problem is he struggled recruiting enough of those type of talented kids, and he would stubbornly coach players more to the level of what he saw them capable of than what they actually were and could provide. And as you mentioned, he was never the salesman for the job he needed to be. That said, he probably would've made for a phenomenal NBA bench coach or even a college coach in the 70s-80s. But as a modern coach, recruiting and keeping players motivated and buying in to your program is a big part of the job requirement, and that's the thing Bruce struggled with the most.
Overall, we've been blessed to have some really great coaches lead our program. None were perfect, they never are, but overall they were really damn good. And it's a shame when most of my 30+ years as a fan we have people so quick to throw them under the bus, and hell, in Weber's case it has been over 10years already. People need to let it go already- celebrate the positives and accomplishments, and let go of the negatives.
By the way, none of this was directed at you, OP. Just the overall nature of some of the posts I've been reading.
We got back into the lack of success in March by BU, so I went back and dug up the stats through 2022 season for the best coaches in the game at that time. (This was during last year's tourney so didn't include results for 2022).
Kentucky - Calipari (13 years as head coach)
10 tourneys in 12 years
seeds: 1(3), 2(3), 4(2), 5(1), 8(1)
4 final fours with 1 title
3 elite 8s
2 first weekend exits (including 1 in first game - last year as a 2 seed, the other as a 4 seed)
Villanova - Wright
16 appearances in 19 years
seeds: 1(4), 2(4), 3(1), 5(2), 6(1), 9(3), 12(1)
3 final fours with 2 titles
2 elite 8s
8 first weekend exits (3 in the first game)
note that despite mostly excellent seeds Wright was bounced half the time in the first weekend
MSU - Izzo
19 appearances in 19 years
seeds: 1(1), 2(3), 3(2), 4(1), 5(3), 6(1), 7(4), 9(2), 10(1), 11(1)
5 final fours
2 elite 8s
9 first weekend exits (5 in first game)
frankly Izzo probably has the best record considering his seeds
Duke - Coach K
18 appearances in 19 years
seeds: 1(7), 2(7), 3(2), 4(1), 6(1)
3 final fours w/ 2 of those ending in titles
3 elite 8s
5 first weekend exits (3 in first game)
Kansas - Self
18 appearances in 18 years (only coached 19 years at Kansas)
seeds: 1(9), 2(3), 3(3), 4(3)
3 final fours ending in 1 title
5 elite 8s
7 first weekend exits (2 in first game)
never worse than a 4 seed and bounced 7 times in the first weekend
N Carolina - Williams
17 appearances in 18 years (only 19 years at NC)
seeds: 1(8), 2(1), 3(1), 4(1), 6(2), 8(3)
5 final fours ending in 3 titles
3 elite 8s
6 first weekend exits (1 in first game)
Note that all of these guys have not only many first weekend losses, they have lost the first game a number of times (almost always when they were a better seed).
BU has won as a 12 and 14 seed, and he has lost the second game in the first weekend as a 1 and 4. Don't think his record is so bad. If he gets five top 4 seeds and doesn't make it out of the first weekend than then there might be an argument, but 2 is not really a trend especially when you consider he has had success as a double digit seed. It is hard to get to the second weekend even if you are a blueblood (only 1 of 4 tourney teams makes it).
Kentucky - Calipari (13 years as head coach)
10 tourneys in 12 years
seeds: 1(3), 2(3), 4(2), 5(1), 8(1)
4 final fours with 1 title
3 elite 8s
2 first weekend exits (including 1 in first game - last year as a 2 seed, the other as a 4 seed)
Villanova - Wright
16 appearances in 19 years
seeds: 1(4), 2(4), 3(1), 5(2), 6(1), 9(3), 12(1)
3 final fours with 2 titles
2 elite 8s
8 first weekend exits (3 in the first game)
note that despite mostly excellent seeds Wright was bounced half the time in the first weekend
MSU - Izzo
19 appearances in 19 years
seeds: 1(1), 2(3), 3(2), 4(1), 5(3), 6(1), 7(4), 9(2), 10(1), 11(1)
5 final fours
2 elite 8s
9 first weekend exits (5 in first game)
frankly Izzo probably has the best record considering his seeds
Duke - Coach K
18 appearances in 19 years
seeds: 1(7), 2(7), 3(2), 4(1), 6(1)
3 final fours w/ 2 of those ending in titles
3 elite 8s
5 first weekend exits (3 in first game)
Kansas - Self
18 appearances in 18 years (only coached 19 years at Kansas)
seeds: 1(9), 2(3), 3(3), 4(3)
3 final fours ending in 1 title
5 elite 8s
7 first weekend exits (2 in first game)
never worse than a 4 seed and bounced 7 times in the first weekend
N Carolina - Williams
17 appearances in 18 years (only 19 years at NC)
seeds: 1(8), 2(1), 3(1), 4(1), 6(2), 8(3)
5 final fours ending in 3 titles
3 elite 8s
6 first weekend exits (1 in first game)
Note that all of these guys have not only many first weekend losses, they have lost the first game a number of times (almost always when they were a better seed).
BU has won as a 12 and 14 seed, and he has lost the second game in the first weekend as a 1 and 4. Don't think his record is so bad. If he gets five top 4 seeds and doesn't make it out of the first weekend than then there might be an argument, but 2 is not really a trend especially when you consider he has had success as a double digit seed. It is hard to get to the second weekend even if you are a blueblood (only 1 of 4 tourney teams makes it).
A lot of mental midgets coming out of the woodwork . . .
Where is the freakin’ 1billion Likes button?He’s won more game in league play than anyone else the last 3 years….luck? Scheme? Playing hard? We won 20 games this year with a team that can’t shoot a lick. Luck? Naw we’re one of the unluckiest teams in college basketball. Can you tell us the scheme he employs? How many different offenses we’ve tried/ran? How many defensive adjustments we’ve made? There is some stuff I don’t agree with but I haven’t watched all the film of our practices/ games nor of the opener scouts soooo
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
What else is new??......lol.A lot of mental midgets coming out of the woodwork . . .
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Me too. I feel like Goode and RJ are both going to hit a few 3’s.
ginabackes00
CrazedUIFan
Thanks! I failed on the postUnderachievedView attachment 24137
The true Illini scenario is we would lose to Howard.Oh my God, can you imagine?Given KU fans wanting to sell their tickets, the fact that we just beat a good Arkansas team in this scenario and that the game would be on as Saturday, Des Moines would be Vegas 2.0 here, IMO.
A guy can dream! Now that I think about it, the true Illini scenario would be for our Fake Comeback to come up two points short against Arkansas after we have already seen the result come through that KU was stunned and lost, and Arkansas strolls to the Sweet Sixteen.
- Status