I agree with you. I'd put Weber overall at above average P5 coach, typically good for a top half of the conference finish with some spike years and tourney success, but too inconsistent, stubborn, and unable to recruit for the system he wishes to run to have continued success. Self is indeed a top tier coach, no denying that. It was good times from '03 to '06 thinking we had the better end of that deal, what followed was far less enjoyable.
Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread
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I agree with you. I'd put Weber overall at above average P5 coach, typically good for a top half of the conference finish with some spike years and tourney success, but too inconsistent, stubborn, and unable to recruit for the system he wishes to run to have continued success. Self is indeed a top tier coach, no denying that. It was good times from '03 to '06 thinking we had the better end of that deal, what followed was far less enjoyable.
It'd certainly be interesting seeing how Lon would have done with that lineup as well. I'd guess more regular season losses, but he'd have the team humming by end of season. He could definitely have gone on an extended run with that team. And honestly what he did in that '99 BTT tourney run still brings a smile to my face almost 25 years later. Similarly, Weber with that lineup would have been very interesting. I do think motion would have worked though I agree with you that turnovers definitely could've been an issue. Weber never had anything close to a Kofi type force in his career so that's a plus, and I think the leadership and player self-motivation was there too, so I would like his chances to get the team on a run. That said, Curbelo may have actually put him in an early grave with some of his on and off court decisions, lol...
In any case, I do agree with you. The Weber tenure really did give us some of the best of times and some of the worst. It was sad to see it go the way it did considering it started with so much promise. And he shouldn't get a free pass for what happened on his watch, but he also shouldn't be castigated for it. At the end of the day he simply failed to meet expectations several years too long.
lol... it's an old pre freshman year of college sn, and a nerdy one at that. It'd be pronounced AAE is magical, but prior Illini boards would call me "Magic" or "aae".
Here’s the thing. An all pro nba point guard makes any offense look amazing.
Now, did Bruce help develop Deron into that? Of course. But, he could never recruit another guy close to that talent set. Hence the rest of his career.
His personality did irk a lot of people, same as with Underwood now. And similar to Underwood he had a really bad day at the podium following a frustrating loss. But really, he wasn't a polished speaker, statesman, or salesman so he somewhat came off as a raspy nasal accountant to many, which is never all that great for branding. Plus many people just really really hated his voice, lol.
As for the x's and o's, I think there's a big difference between being able to break down an opposing defense or disrupt an opposing offense and coaching up a group of players to do the same. If you rewatch Illini sets out of timeouts where he'd draw up the plays, there'd be some really beautiful stuff going on. And his defenses were almost always nails. The biggest problem was that his motion offense was either too complicated or bad fits for the players he recruited or he was just bad at explaining it. He was a really great x's and o's coach, but the reason his offense stalled out so much is his players weren't able to run it in the manner that he was hoping they would execute. So basically similar to last year's team where players just were never doing what the coach wanted them to. Hence everything would stall out as people just stood around.
Weber was indeed deserving of being let go, and he certainly had a sizable list of failures, it's just here we are 15 years later talking about the same exact things. But as Battlestar has warned us, All this has happened before and all this will happen again.
People made fun of Weber’s voice but I don’t think it’s the reason they disliked him. He never accepted public accountability for the program, and that’s I think why people disliked him. Even his departing press conference was a deflection. Bringing his family on stage like they were human shields to avoid challenging questions about his failure of a season was so Weber. “Coach Dreamkiller” also had a habit of publicly trashing his players.
I think he has a lot in common with BU to be honest.
I think he has a lot in common with BU to be honest.
Weber’s problem was he thought he could be successful and run a clean program at the same time. I believe had he lived more in the gray area of recruiting, he could have been way more successful. Bruce played by the rules and along with some bad luck, he didn’t stand a chance. He was a good coach but it’s a dirty business sometimes.
Didn’t he do the same thing after he got axed @ K-State?
(I also remember the “hair strike for fairness” and him complaining about Self being a cheater without saying his name.)
I suppose. I agree Groce had a much weaker staff/bench altogether. But to me it’s sort of on the coach to build his staff. Just like recruiting is part of it.
You don’t have to add Adam Fletcher to Groce’s staff though; because Groce brought him in; and Underwood retained him.
Bruce Weber just couldn't convince the best players or best assistant coaches to join his program. But I always felt like he was a good in-game coach. Honestly, (I hate saying this out loud) even though I love BU for bringing the program back the way he did I've always scratched my head about some of his coaching decision during a game. For instance, after the first 10 minutes of the Loyola game I would have given anything to switch to Bruce Weber. Some AAU coach whose name escapes me said he would have won that game by a large margin if he were coaching. I wanted so badly to think that the guy was crazy. But given the talent disparity, I can't honestly say that he was. BU didn't change a thing. Is he like Indy says just too damn stubborn? I don't know but they beat us over and over and over again running the same simple play. I wanted to run out on the court like I was Bruce and scream, "make a move Brad". Not trying to beat a dead horse. I guess all coaches have their strengths and weaknesses.
Henson also didn't recruit Brian Cardinal because he felt it would create a conflict with his dad.
Think about how good those late 90s teams would have been with Cardinal too. Should had some nepotism back then.
I mean he was right about Self cheating. I do think Weber generally tried to run a clean program. None of the other schools were playing by the same rules though and the blue bloods that did get caught only ever got a slap on the wrist vs the smaller schools they could make examples of.
Serious question.
If this staff is so great, why can’t we run an out of bounds play and why did last year’s offense look like Jr high kids out on a playground?
It really will not matter who runs the point unless these things are changed.
We will get pressed and have several turnovers / ten second call sAND Brad will respond by screaming with a tantrum.
Then he will line everybody up out of bounds and have them run around trying to get open.
The man really needs to go to a clinic and get some new concepts to give a shaky ball handling group a chance...
Boy would I love to disagree with you. But I don't think I can without looking the fool. If it's true that the players just wouldn't listen to the coaches or run their plays, well that is an even bigger problem.
Well the inverse relationship is just nonsense. But yes, you can be a good coach without being a scholarship basketball player. But the vast majority were.There was a huge difference in how very good. Howard, by far the worst coach, was by far the very "goodest" player. He had a 19 year NBA career. Painter was a distant second; a rotation level B1G player. Izzo, the best coach, was the worst player -- a D-2 star.
It's like there is an inverse relationship between athletic talent and coaching skill. Note that clubhouse pros at golf courses are not the necessarily the best golfers, but are good teachers.
John Beilein was another pretty good college coach. He played his college ball at the Wheeling College powerhouse.
You can downplay it, but Tyler Underwood had more actual experience playing college basketball than Bruce Weber. As much as I dislike Weber, he was a fairly capable coach.
Tyler Underwood College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com
Tyler Underwood - Stats, Game Logs, Splits, and much morewww.sports-reference.com
In teaching how something is done there's a lot to be said for experience.
Great point, you are correct. When we have an out of bounds situation, other teams smell blood in the water and turn up the heat because they see on film how poor our sets, execution, and effort are in those situations.
This staff has proven it can recruit better players than the past two coaches and most of all physically mature players with body by Fletch. But is that because of Brad or TA, Chester, and Antigua? How many kids come here for Brad if those guys aren’t here?
Sure we have had some success (Ayo / KOFI?) due to a very mediocre Big 10 as proven by NCAA tournament results, but as years go by my confidence in Brad’s leadership dwindles.
I don't understand those who say that Weber was "likeable." Trashing his own players after losses while not accepting blame himself doesn't feel likeable to me. For another example that comes to mind, bringing his wife and kids up on stage as deflectors when he was under fire as a coach. And backhanded punches to the gut of his fanbase like this one from when his K-State team was losing. "“The negativity that surrounds K-State times is really sad to me...This is the only school I’ve been associated with that I tell our recruits to avoid our social media. I’m afraid of what they’ll see..." Good coaches with good character who are likeable to me accept responsibility for the issues with their team and take the blame for them...the opposite of Bruce Weber.
How many games did we lose after being well ahead down the stretch because we played "Weberball" at the end of games? How many here remember when Weber would let the shot clock run all the way down past when we had time to generate a halfway decent shot, causing us to throw up prayer after prayer at the basket until the other team caught up and won? The only reason "Weberball" didn't hurt us in 2005 was because Deron Williams was so freaking good that he could usually create any shot he wanted to under the conditions Weber imposed upon the end of our games. A good in-game coach would have been reflective enough to understand that his strategy at the end of games wasn't working and he would have made adjustments.
I actually like Weber and he did do a fabulous job in 05. The fact is he was out of his league in this job. If he had a staff that was given clear direction on what type of team to assemble (not just go get whatever Top 100 will play for them) and could execute he would have been much more successful.
Honestly the current staff could use someone like Weber for his Xs and Os although I don't think this roster is well suited for Weber's system
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