Coaching Carousel (Basketball)

ptgrd23 · Feb 16, 2026

Maybe Michigan will be successful for firing for cause. I doubt KSU will be. Some recent cases. Kelly got paid - fired for losing. Moore, Petrino, Smith had affairs with employees or undergrads. Petrino did not get paid. I doubt Moore and Smith will get paid.

Brian Kelly set for $54M payout after suing LSU over contract buyout dispute resolution process

LSU told former head coach Brian Kelly that they fired him without cause, thus owing him the remaining $54 million owed on his contract.

www.foxnews.com

Sherrone Moore may be out millions in Michigan contract money after firing, arrest

Sherrone Moore is likely to miss out on nearly $17 million after being fired for cause by the University of Michigan, which determined he had an "inappropriate relationship" with a staffer.

www.foxbusiness.com

Bobby Petrino motorcycle scandal revisited as Arkansas names him interim coach

Here's a look back at Bobby Petrino's motorcycle scandal with Arkansas in 2011, as the Razorbacks named him Sam Pittman's interim successor on Sunday.

www.usatoday.com

Records show Ohio University football coach was fired for multiple violations of his contract

Brian Smith was fired as Ohio University's head football coach for multiple contract violations, records show.

www.cbsnews.com

jmwillini · Feb 16, 2026

Indy Illini Fan said:
K State is not poaching Brad … No need for those rumors to even start …

C'mon Indy, ya party pooper. This place is lots more fun with ridiculous unsubstantiated rumors.

jamarvelous31 · Feb 16, 2026

moonpies said:
I think the Underwood defenders are getting to the same level the Weber defenders were at

It's more so that the really committed Underwood detractors are particularly hard to take seriously during a season with a ap high (5th) ranked higher than any team Weber coached in the last 17 years of his career.

Given that it's 4 top 10 teams in the last 6 years and 1 the 14 before it, some folks rooting the last 20 yrs are not interested in hearing how bad the coach is.

spotter · Feb 17, 2026

https://twitter.com/x/status/2023547897061765162

RabidDawgClassic · Feb 17, 2026

Indy Illini Fan said:
How many times has Coleman been back to K State ?

There’s your answer …

You’re right on Tang lightning in a bottle … Nowell playing out of his mind and Tang dancing was the only thing he ever did …

Tang was the bag man at Baylor when they had it rolling and isn’t a good enough coach to do the whole new roster every year …

I don’t consider Coleman’s season at K-State to be canon.

AirNeazy · Feb 17, 2026

NarrowJ said:
Good coach, yes. His players loved him and played hard for him. Player development, defensive focus, and yes... even in-game coaching were strengths. Inability to obtain top talent was his major flaw as a coach. Some people didn't like that he's a goofball, and that clouds their view a bit imo.

Lol You are a victim to nostalgia if you think players loved or played super hard for Bruce especially after that 2009 season. Wet tissue paper had more charisma and could motivate people better than Bruce. Player development? Other than Mike Davis and Warren Carter and a few guys here and there, most players never lived up to their billing or hype.

People fetishize the motion offense because of how much off ball movement it has, but any coach that puts out the offense Bruce was putting on the floor....hard for me to say that in-game coaching was his strength. I will say he's always been a hell of a defensive coach tho.

AirNeazy · Feb 17, 2026

Now, BUILDING and MAINTAINING a program is what hes failed to do.

Yeah, that's literally called 'coaching' my dude, its what Coaches get paid millions to do as part of their job description.

Same logic with the Bruce lovers with nostalgia glasses, people say these were good at 'coaching' but not recruiting, motivation, maintaining a program year after year....as if those aren't literally the most important aspects of being a high level head *coach* !

NarrowJ · Feb 17, 2026

AirNeazy said:
Lol You are a victim to nostalgia if you think players loved or played super hard for Bruce especially after that 2009 season. Wet tissue paper had more charisma and could motivate people better than Bruce. Player development? Other than Mike Davis and Warren Carter and a few guys here and there, most players never lived up to their billing or hype.

People fetishize the motion offense because of how much off ball movement it has, but any coach that puts out the offense Bruce was putting on the floor....hard for me to say that in-game coaching was his strength. I will say he's always been a hell of a defensive coach tho.

He coached nearly 20 NBA players while simultaneously being a terrible recruiter so how did he pull that off if he could not develop players?

Also no clue what your comment about fetishizing motion offense has to do with anything I said.

Bruce Weber is not unlike any other coach we've had in that if you say literally anything positive about him there's always someone that will show up to hammer him back into the ground.

ChiefGritty · Feb 17, 2026

NarrowJ said:
Bruce Weber is not unlike any other coach we've had in that if you say literally anything positive about him there's always someone that will show up to hammer him back into the ground.

Yeah and the difference with Bruce is that we're right.

NarrowJ said:
He coached nearly 20 NBA players while simultaneously being a terrible recruiter so how did he pull that off if he could not develop players?

Inherited 5, got fired with 3 more.

NarrowJ · Feb 17, 2026

ChiefGritty said:
Yeah and the difference with Bruce is that we're right.

Sheesh well self-proclaimed victories are the best ones, aren't they?

ChiefGritty said:
Inherited 5, got fired with 3 more.

Inherited guys that were in no way sure fire NBA prospects

That also leaves roughly 10 more at K State that he developed into NBA players

I didn't say he was a great coach, I said he developed players... so getting fired has nothing to do with the discussion

Like I said, say one thing positive about him, and some will line up with complaints that have nothing to do with the positive thing that was said

AirNeazy · Feb 17, 2026

NarrowJ said:
He coached nearly 20 NBA players while simultaneously being a terrible recruiter so how did he pull that off if he could not develop players?

He's coached 14 players total that ever played in the NBA (I'll give you 15 if you wanna include Myke Henry).... Dee and Auggie's draft stock crashed by deciding to play another year under him. Deron would've made the league with your grandma coaching him as long as he still found a way to lose weight. Meyers made it to the NBA in spite of Weber and anyone who remembers that season knows that's the truth.

I'll give you Dean Wade and maybe Rodney McGruder but are we seriously at the point of message board discourse where we're acting like Bubbles was some kind of good developer of NBA talent? McCamey, Richmond, BP3, D Rich, Bertrand all stagnated under him, hell even Groce got more out of Weber's guys then he himself coud've and that's a fact.

AirNeazy · Feb 17, 2026

NarrowJ said:
Like I said, say one thing positive about him, and some will line up with complaints that have nothing to do with the positive thing that was said

Yeah well, the guy is almost singlehandedly responsible for the destruction of our storied program for almost an entire decade, while he spent his last year and change whining to the media, complaining about his own players that he himself recruited, and trying to blame anyone but himself. All while being handed a program that was objectively running like a well oiled juggernaut positioned to stay at the top of the B1G right as Chicago-land was exploding in top talent (of which he managed to recruit for us a whopping none of them). Was too stubborn to realize you can't recruit SIU level talent, plug it into his supposed magic 'system' and still have success at this level. Then.. when admin and the fanbase finally had enough and forced Jerrance on him to actually recruit high-major players, he STILL couldn't get those guys to succeed. Still had time to publicly wish he had players like Robbie Hummel though!

Yeah, some of us remember the Weber years very well, at lease he was a nice guy at least!

NarrowJ · Feb 17, 2026

AirNeazy said:
He's coached 14 players total that ever played in the NBA (I'll give you 15 if you wanna include Myke Henry).... Dee and Auggie's draft stock crashed by deciding to play another year under him. Deron would've made the league with your grandma coaching him as long as he still found a way to lose weight. Meyers made it to the NBA in spite of Weber and anyone who remembers that season knows that's the truth.

I'll give you Dean Wade and maybe Rodney McGruder but are we seriously at the point of message board discourse where we're acting like Bubbles was some kind of good developer of NBA talent? McCamey, Richmond, BP3, D Rich, Bertrand all stagnated under him, hell even Groce got more out of Weber's guys then he himself coud've and that's a fact.

Yes, he developed a lot of NBA talent... no need for a bunch of word salad and derogatory naming 'Bubbles' as it just proves you have an axe to grind

Let it go, man, you'll feel so much better

AirNeazy said:
Yeah well, the guy is almost singlehandedly responsible for the destruction of our storied program for almost an entire decade, while he spent his last year and change whining to the media, complaining about his own players that he himself recruited, and trying to blame anyone but himself. All while being handed a program that was objectively running like a well oiled juggernaut positioned to stay at the top of the B1G right as Chicago-land was exploding in top talent (of which he managed to recruit for us a whopping none of them). Was too stubborn to realize you can't recruit SIU level talent, plug it into his supposed magic 'system' and still have success at this level. Then.. when admin and the fanbase finally had enough and forced Jerrance on him to actually recruit high-major players, he STILL couldn't get those guys to succeed. Still had time to publicly wish he had players like Robbie Hummel though!

Yeah, some of us remember the Weber years very well, at lease he was a nice guy at least!

AirNeazy · Feb 17, 2026

NarrowJ said:
Yes, he developed a lot of NBA talent... no need for a bunch of word salad and derogatory naming 'Bubbles' as it just proves you have an axe to grind

Let it go, man, you'll feel so much better

Can't refute any of the points listed, thinks Weber developed 'a lot of NBA talent' (literal lol) and doesn't know where "Bubbles" comes from lol.

It's alright nephew, some of us were around for those dark days so you can keep caping for Bruce. Maybe you'll get some free Jarlings for your trouble

NarrowJ · Feb 17, 2026

AirNeazy said:
Can't refute any of the points listed, thinks Weber developed 'a lot of NBA talent' (literal lol) and doesn't know where "Bubbles" comes from lol.

It's alright nephew, some of us were around for those dark days so you can keep caping for Bruce. Maybe you'll get some free Jarlings for your trouble

You didn't make any points that require refuting because you just droned on about how bad of a coach he was and said nothing about if he developed NBA players or not

He developed a bunch of NBA players, which is actually irrefutable

The name calling Bubbles and nephew and talking down to me about caping for Bruce and getting free Jarlings... how does that help your argument that Bruce didn't develop players? Or are you just being an a-hole?

Chase321 · Feb 17, 2026

I didn’t read all this discussion about Bruce but I still like the guy and remember the days that BAM stood for Brice Almighty.

ChiefGritty · Feb 17, 2026

NarrowJ said:
He developed a bunch of NBA players, which is irrefutable (so you don't even need to try)

We could go all day on this, but I feel like what you ultimately wind up parsing here isn't even at Illinois, it's his 2017-18-19 teams at K-State.

Those are his teams, he recruited everybody on them, nobody more than a fringe-y Top 100 recruit, and Dean Wade and Wesley Iwundu went on to have genuine NBA careers (Xavier Sneed had a brief cup of coffee).

I think there's no question that reflects change and learning by Weber after getting fired at Illinois, he never wasted his time on recruits he couldn't get and didn't want again. Those teams played his basketball, slow, physical, better on defense than on offense, and didn't apologize for it. They went to an Elite Eight and won a Big 12 title, serious accomplishments. I think a lot of Illini fans believe that version of Weber could and should have emerged at Illinois a decade earlier, and I think Bruce himself regrets not doing so.

And yet, maybe the most talented guy on that team was Barry Brown, who Bruce had a McCamey-esque negative relationship with that didn't bring the best out of him, as had previously been the case with Marcus Foster. And that period also never saw a ranking in the meat of the season higher than 16th, nor a KenPom higher than 20th, they were never close to Final Four-type contention. And they lost a 4-13 first round game to end the era, and hadn't recruited well enough to sustain itself with the program diving into a toilet they wouldn't recover from immediately after.

I fully admit Weber did better at K-State than I thought he would, especially after losing Frank Martin's players. He managed to do some of the things he never could at Illinois, recruiting guys he wanted and yes, putting a couple in the NBA. But making the program work for him involved putting very hard limitations that lowered their ceiling considerably and made sustained success impossible, and I maintain, forcefully, that absolutely no possible world could ever exist in which Bruce Weber was a long-term success at Illinois. He simply has too many weaknesses as a head coach in college basketball to do that, he just is not good enough.

Iamgroot · Feb 17, 2026

NarrowJ said:
He is 45-47 (under .500) overall his past 3 seasons

Missing 3 tournaments in a row

Only won 20 games 1 out of 4 seasons

Just funny the overall pulse this board seems to have for other coaches versus what Brad has done here

I see he does have 16 wins vs top 25 to Brad's 15 wins vs top 25

But seriously, whoopty doo... Don't fans want to actually make the tournament?

Unsure if they were even good enough to make the NIT the last couple seasons

Tang must have an extremely poor record against unranked teams

Especially considering Brad came in a couple of years before the transfer portal and had to build up a depleted team the old fashioned way rather then just bringing in a bunch of transfers like coaches can do in the current model of college basketball today

NarrowJ · Feb 17, 2026

ChiefGritty said:
We could go all day on this, but I feel like what you ultimately wind up parsing here isn't even at Illinois, it's his 2017-18-19 teams at K-State.

Those are his teams, he recruited everybody on them, nobody more than a fringe-y Top 100 recruit, and Dean Wade and Wesley Iwundu went on to have genuine NBA careers (Xavier Sneed had a brief cup of coffee).

I think there's no question that reflects change and learning by Weber after getting fired at Illinois, he never wasted his time on recruits he couldn't get and didn't want again. Those teams played his basketball, slow, physical, better on defense than on offense, and didn't apologize for it. They went to an Elite Eight and won a Big 12 title, serious accomplishments. I think a lot of Illini fans believe that version of Weber could and should have emerged at Illinois a decade earlier, and I think Bruce himself regrets not doing so.

And yet, maybe the most talented guy on that team was Barry Brown, who Bruce had a McCamey-esque negative relationship with that didn't bring the best out of him, as had previously been the case with Marcus Foster. And that period also never saw a ranking in the meat of the season higher than 16th, nor a KenPom higher than 20th, they were never close to Final Four-type contention. And they lost a 4-13 first round game to end the era, and hadn't recruited well enough to sustain itself with the program diving into a toilet they wouldn't recover from immediately after.

I fully admit Weber did better at K-State than I thought he would, especially after losing Frank Martin's players. He managed to do some of the things he never could at Illinois, recruiting guys he wanted and yes, putting a couple in the NBA. But making the program work for him involved putting very hard limitations that lowered their ceiling considerably and made sustained success impossible, and I maintain, forcefully, that absolutely no possible world could ever exist in which Bruce Weber was a long-term success at Illinois. He simply has too many weaknesses as a head coach in college basketball to do that, he just is not good enough.

You both are arguing a point I’m not making

Bruce isn’t a great coach and he set our program back, that’s all true and I agree with you guys

As bad as we all remember him to be, he still has about 500 wins and a .622 winning percentage and some postseason success. So he had to at least be good at SOMETHING. My argument is simply that one of those somethings was player development.

I especially think it’s hard to argue against given the number of NBA players plus the whataboutism examples provided of guys like McCamey actually bolsters my argument because go take a look at how bad he was as a freshman and ended up a guy who averaged 15 and 7 and shot 45 percent from three as a senior.

What I’m not arguing: Bruce Weber was a meh head coach despite 500 wins and some postseason success

What I am arguing: One of his strengths was player development (which is proven via facts like player progression from FR to SR and NBA players produced)

OrangeBlue98 · Feb 17, 2026

It’s going to be a long wait until 9 tomorrow night, isn’t it?

ChiefGritty · Feb 17, 2026

NarrowJ said:
What I am arguing: One of his strengths was player development

And I guess what I'm saying is that BY THE STANDARDS OF a coach with 500 wins and 19 years at good high-major jobs, player development was actually a significant weakness, with a toxic and hard-to-explain tendency for the weakness to be worse the more talented the player was.

Over the course of his career players improved less than you would expect as their years in Weber's program increased. Night and day different from Matt Painter in that respect. There are a couple of counter-trend examples, but the overall trend is clear.

Where Bruce was elite was as a defensive gameplanner. He could really drill a unit together to play as a team on that end and stymie and frustrate opponents in a way that could shape-shift depending on what the other team did well. He was better at that than Brad Underwood is, for instance.

But the three best teams he ever coached, his first two here and his first at K-State, had in common a talent level Bruce never acquired on his own, and a core group of players that were ALREADY developed by someone else, especially regarding how to impose themselves at the offensive end.

Anytime he wasn't dealing with players pre-developed by somebody else, the offense entered a terminal death-spiral.

NarrowJ · Feb 17, 2026

ChiefGritty said:
And I guess what I'm saying is that BY THE STANDARDS OF a coach with 500 wins and 19 years at good high-major jobs, player development was actually a significant weakness, with a toxic and hard-to-explain tendency for the weakness to be worse the more talented the player was.

Over the course of his career players improved less than you would expect as their years in Weber's program increased. Night and day different from Matt Painter in that respect. There are a couple of counter-trend examples, but the overall trend is clear.

Where Bruce was elite was as a defensive gameplanner. He could really drill a unit together to play as a team on that end and stymie and frustrate opponents in a way that could shape-shift depending on what the other team did well. He was better at that than Brad Underwood is, for instance.

But the three best teams he ever coached, his first two here and his first at K-State, had in common a talent level Bruce never acquired on his own, and a core group of players that were ALREADY developed by someone else, especially regarding how to impose themselves at the offensive end.

Anytime he wasn't dealing with players pre-developed by somebody else, the offense entered a terminal death-spiral.

We’ve taken up too much space here already with this admittedly off topic discussion so I will agree to disagree

AirNeazy · Feb 17, 2026

NarrowJ said:
plus the whataboutism examples provided of guys like McCamey actually bolsters my argument because go take a look at how bad he was as a freshman and ended up a guy who averaged 15 and 7 and shot 45 percent from three as a senior.

NarrowJ said:
What I am arguing: One of his strengths was player development (which is proven via facts like player progression from FR to SR and NBA players produced)

If you're not just box-score watching, you'd know that McCamey definitely regressed from his Junior year to his Senior year. He went from 1st Team All B1G the previous year and potentially B1G POY Darkhorse to only making the 3rd team. That 10-11 team was supposed to be a FF contender because of the anticipated Sr year leaps from all of our top guys and they all fell flat. Meechi was literally the only player Bubbles ever had at UI that even made a 1st team All Conference (sans Self's guys) and somehow you think Weber was great at developing players lol

bleedorange and blue · Feb 17, 2026

We could go all day on this, but I feel like what you ultimately wind up parsing here isn't even at Illinois, it's his 2017-18-19 teams at K-State.

Those are his teams, he recruited everybody on them, nobody more than a fringe-y Top 100 recruit, and Dean Wade and Wesley Iwundu went on to have genuine NBA careers (Xavier Sneed had a brief cup of coffee).

I think there's no question that reflects change and learning by Weber after getting fired at Illinois, he never wasted his time on recruits he couldn't get and didn't want again. Those teams played his basketball, slow, physical, better on defense than on offense, and didn't apologize for it. They went to an Elite Eight and won a Big 12 title, serious accomplishments. I think a lot of Illini fans believe that version of Weber could and should have emerged at Illinois a decade earlier, and I think Bruce himself regrets not doing so.

And yet, maybe the most talented guy on that team was Barry Brown, who Bruce had a McCamey-esque negative relationship with that didn't bring the best out of him, as had previously been the case with Marcus Foster. And that period also never saw a ranking in the meat of the season higher than 16th, nor a KenPom higher than 20th, they were never close to Final Four-type contention. And they lost a 4-13 first round game to end the era, and hadn't recruited well enough to sustain itself with the program diving into a toilet they wouldn't recover from immediately after.

I fully admit Weber did better at K-State than I thought he would, especially after losing Frank Martin's players. He managed to do some of the things he never could at Illinois, recruiting guys he wanted and yes, putting a couple in the NBA. But making the program work for him involved putting very hard limitations that lowered their ceiling considerably and made sustained success impossible, and I maintain, forcefully, that absolutely no possible world could ever exist in which Bruce Weber was a long-term success at Illinois. He simply has too many weaknesses as a head coach in college basketball to do that, he just is not good enough.

Funny, once Bruce left i couldn't tell you anything about his k state teams. Know why? Because I didn't care. He was gone ,he had almost destroyed everything handed to him. If he was such a good coach he would have been at Purdue. Sounds like you and Bruce are buddies or is this Mrs weber?

spotter · Feb 17, 2026

https://twitter.com/x/status/2023255194637861002

Coaching Carousel (Basketball)

Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)