If he was a top quartile coach he would still be at Illinois. He inherited a program with 5 future NBA'ers on it that had won 3 conference titles in the previous 6 years. After those players left he was a .500 coach in the conference with the prospect of worse on the horizon. Illinois is a top 20 basketball school historically, so to perform at a .500 level at Illinois paints you as an average P5 coach at best and more like slightly below average.
Bruce Weber resigns as Kansas State coach
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IlliniKat91
- Chicago, IL
I read through some of the responses. Reads like vintage Loyalty during a coaching search from some of the KSU fans.Reddit - Dive into anything
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The Boilermaker fan saying he wanted to manifest BU out of the Big Ten did get a chuckle from me though.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Not trying to be crass, but ... they literally scooped up our last fired coach gratefully, lol. Where the hell do they get off thinking anyone (regardless of their past ties) is leaving a job like Illinois, as reigning Big Ten champions, to go to an unstable conference?
Definitely not concerned even if it does happen, heard coach K wants to take a home state discount and unretire coach here if Brad leaves. Ghosts of Lou Henson, John Wooden, and Dean Smith rumored as ACs.
hooraybeer
- Pittsburgh, PA
i could see brad taking the KSU job some day and finishing his career there. getting us a championship, prepping CF for head coaching duties.. retiring into the sunset of Manhattan (kansas)…
I haven't really seen any thinking they can actually get him. They realize they don't have the money to offer up.
People greatly overestimate the draw of the alma mater.
MoCoMdIllini
- Montgomery County, Maryland
Bruce Almighty, I think.
Orange'n'Blue
- Lakeland Fl
Back in the 04-05 run, he was Bruce Almighty. (Like the movie). Then it became <s>.
Because of the movie Bruce Almighty
TheFameProtector
- Champaign
As much as I don't like perspiring for even one millisecond at the thought that our coach could leave for another job, it sure does feel nice/validating to be back at the point where other programs are wishing/hoping/praying that they can somehow get our coach (not to mention Kentucky and Gonzaga stealing our assistants last year).
BlindLoyalty
- FartNoiseMotivation
BAM owes a great debt to Bill Self. That must absolutely shatter him.
When BAM has an AC that can coach offense, and another AC who can manage most of the recruiting so that he has players that fit his system he does really good things. He has never been good at coaching offense and his decisions on what players to offer and when to offer them has always been his downfall. A good guy stuck in the frequently smelly sewer of big time CBB. Best of luck to him.
I'm another who has no hate for Weber. His last few years at Illinois were a struggle, and he coached an eye-bleedingly ugly game of basketball. I think it was time for him to go at the end, but overall, he won 67% of his games went to 6 NCAA tourneys in 9 years, and of course the Championship Game run. So, I don't think you can call his hire a failure.
His recruiting had even picked up significantly at the tail end of his run. His last team had 8 RSCI top 100 players and 3 future NBA'ers. It was a young team (transfer Maniscalco was the only senior) that played a !!!!! of a schedule. People take away credit for Weber's successes early in his time at Illinois because they were "Self's players," but then don't want to give Weber that same credit for Groce's only good team which was stocked entirely with "Weber's players."
His recruiting had even picked up significantly at the tail end of his run. His last team had 8 RSCI top 100 players and 3 future NBA'ers. It was a young team (transfer Maniscalco was the only senior) that played a !!!!! of a schedule. People take away credit for Weber's successes early in his time at Illinois because they were "Self's players," but then don't want to give Weber that same credit for Groce's only good team which was stocked entirely with "Weber's players."
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
We've embraced far more absurd notions than that and shouldn't laugh, and should have solidarity for another program picking up the pieces after Weber drove them into a ditch.
There but for the grace of God go we.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
The dirty secret of Illinois basketball between Dee and Kofi is that we always had the players.
GrayGhost77
- Centennial, CO
I'll show solidarity short of them trying to poach our coach. (hey, that rhymes!)
Funny, especially since he refused to offer a scholarship to Hummel who badly wanted to come to Illinois. Maybe that was his way of admitting he made a mistake.
More reasonable choices for KSU fans: Turgeon, Jankovich, Jacobson. Is Gregg Marshall employable by now?
Illinois has a higher ceiling and more money to throw at him. No blueblood in the backyard. I wouldn't leave either if I were him lol.
Sometimes it's not just about the stars in front of a recruit's name or their NBA potential when it comes to recruiting, sometimes it's simply about how well that player fits into your roster and the ability to play in the system you want to run. I think Weber's biggest issue was that kids he recruited didn't coherently fit into the roster he had each year or within a single system. I also think that he had issues developing talented but immature kids and kids with weaker work ethic. But as a pure x's and o's coach, he actually is outstanding and in my opinion one of the best in the NCAAs. It's why he's had a ton of success on teams that had talent and motivation but needed direction and a coaching philosophy but has struggled with 5 star recruits lacking the necessary work ethic.
The best example I can give to Bruce Weber is a hall-of-fame generational talent athlete who becomes a coach. That former athlete often struggles to coach up a team simply because everything came so easy and naturally to them they almost expect the players to be able to see what they see or have the same awareness and it frustrates them to no end when their players never have the same recognition that player had. Similarly Weber fought his whole life for everything he had, basketball was his life, and he put effort, hard work, and every fiber of his being into it. He had an expectation players who would come to the program would be the same, and so when players wouldn't play with the intensity, effort, or work ethic that came naturally to him he would similarly be frustrated to no end and would struggle to understand why that was. Weber's biggest issue is he isn't a motivator. He's not the guy that's going to convince you to run through a brick wall. But if you come to him with a burning desire to run through that brick wall, he'll give you all the tools and knowledge to exploit every weakness that wall has.
Weber truly was great at coaching basketball, but he simply wasn't great in motivating talented players or great in recruiting motivated players, and it's why he struggled at Illinois. But he was definitely a better than average P5 coach in his career. He simply needed to be born 30 years earlier.
The best example I can give to Bruce Weber is a hall-of-fame generational talent athlete who becomes a coach. That former athlete often struggles to coach up a team simply because everything came so easy and naturally to them they almost expect the players to be able to see what they see or have the same awareness and it frustrates them to no end when their players never have the same recognition that player had. Similarly Weber fought his whole life for everything he had, basketball was his life, and he put effort, hard work, and every fiber of his being into it. He had an expectation players who would come to the program would be the same, and so when players wouldn't play with the intensity, effort, or work ethic that came naturally to him he would similarly be frustrated to no end and would struggle to understand why that was. Weber's biggest issue is he isn't a motivator. He's not the guy that's going to convince you to run through a brick wall. But if you come to him with a burning desire to run through that brick wall, he'll give you all the tools and knowledge to exploit every weakness that wall has.
Weber truly was great at coaching basketball, but he simply wasn't great in motivating talented players or great in recruiting motivated players, and it's why he struggled at Illinois. But he was definitely a better than average P5 coach in his career. He simply needed to be born 30 years earlier.
TheFameProtector
- Champaign
It's rare that you get the whole package in a college coach: winner, great recruiter, great in-game adjustments coach, personable, good w/ fans, nice human, not a cheater, etc. You might have a winner that's a slime ball (Cal, Pearl) or an a-hole (K), or a good guy that's a not-so-good coach (Groce). I think Bruce was excellent at a couple of the above categories, solid at a few others, and pretty poor in others. I like the guy and don't hold his presser(s) near the end of his tenure here against him -- I have never been in that position (and never will), so I can't imagine how tough it's gotta be when you have that level of sweat- and blood-equity invested in a place and its people and are asked to leave, particularly when your tenure started out on the highest of highs. I also think we hold him a tad too accountable for the decades-long wilderness we found ourselves in over the 2010s. A good hire (something Mike Thomas found very difficult to make) would've been able to turn the ship around pretty quickly -- we were down but it wasn't horrendous...we'd at least made the tourney every other year -- and we might look back on Weber a bit more fondly, rather than viewing him as the person that created an unsalvageable situation for the program, which we know now was not the case.
If he wants to keep coaching, I'm sure he'll have the opportunity to do so somewhere. I'm sure it will gnaw at him to end on this type of note, but he's made tens of millions and celebrated 7 different championships at the highest levels of the sport. If I were him, I think I'd take the opportunity to ride off into the sunset.
If he wants to keep coaching, I'm sure he'll have the opportunity to do so somewhere. I'm sure it will gnaw at him to end on this type of note, but he's made tens of millions and celebrated 7 different championships at the highest levels of the sport. If I were him, I think I'd take the opportunity to ride off into the sunset.
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