Quote Originally Posted by superdave View Post
Bruce Weber fired at Illinois today. They were 17-15 on the season but dropped 12 of their last 14.

I am assuming he both lost the locker room and angered alums/administration officials. Otherwise I think he's too good a coach to fire after one bad season.

Anyone following this one more closely?
Illini grad here, with my thoughts...

The bar was set exceptionally high with Bill Self's three years and Weber's subsequent success with Self's recruits. Weber has had a difficult time living up to expectations after the amazing run to the 2005 Championship Game. Weber's Big Ten record since the departure of Dee Brown & James Augustine after the 2005-06 Season was just 56-61.

Weber somehow had difficult time recruiting -- he missed on many huge in-state recruits. One miss that many will point to is Jon Scheyer. Scheyer played high school basketball for Weber's brother, Dave. The fact that Scheyer chose not to go to Illinois and won a National Title at Duke is not a good reflection on his recruiting. It was always a point of contention at Tournament Time seeing top Illinois high schoolers help Duke, Kansas State, Kansas, Memphis, Michigan State, etc. advance far into the dance each year.

Since then, Weber had stepped-up his in-state efforts only to get burned by the one-and-done Jereme Richmond (who went undrafted last year). In my opinion, Weber IS a very good coach, but the type of recruit he was "obligated" to bring to Illinois did not fit into his system. He is better suited to taking lesser talented players who will buy-in and play team offense. That is why Weber will likely wind up back at mid-major Southern Illinois where he will not have access to recruit the 4- and 5-Star recruits.

I like Weber and wish him the best, but it has been time for a change for a while now. His Illini teams frequently ran the shot clock down to nothing and forced shots. In bounds plays after a time-out were often executed poorly. Notoriously under Weber, the Illini have rated nationally in the 200's in FT attempts and -- I guess symbolically -- yesterday against Iowa, became just the 2nd team in 15 years (and 1st in the Power 6 Conferences) to shoot ZERO FT's in a conference tournament game. The whole culture of Illinois Basketball needed a shake-up.

As far as the administration goes, Illinois has a new Athletic Director named Mike Thomas. He has now hit the trifecta in his first year: He canned football coach Ron Zook after a 6-6 year where Illinois started 6-0. He canned women's basketball coach Jolette Law after 5 seasons where the Illini finished no higher than 8th in the Big Ten. And now he has canned Weber after a season where Illinois started 15-1 and finished 17-15 and live on the NIT Bubble. Thomas better be right about his firings and hirings because UofI has paid Zook a $2.6 Million buy-out, Law a $620,000 buy-out, and now Weber a $3.9 Million buyout. For a state that is quite shaky from a finance perspective, $7.12 Milllion is a lot of money to pay three people not to coach any more.

Public speculation has mentioned the obvious names as potential replacements: Brad Stevens & Shaka Smart. This board has mentioned Chris Collins. Thomas has past history with Shaka Smart: the two worked together at the University of Akron sometime between 2003 and 2005 when Smart was an assistant there and Thomas was the AD. Smart was born in Madison, WI and grew up in Wisconsin -- so he is familiar with the Midwest and Big Ten country. Also, Thomas may be under pressure to hire an African-American coach. Two Trustees voted against the hiring of Zook's replacement because there were no A-A canidates and the recently terminated women's coach Jolette Law is A-A.

I would not be surprised to see Illinois make a hard run at Shaka Smart and I would welcome it.
His style of play "Havoc" is what we don't see in the Big Ten.

Blue KevIL (formerly Illini Kevin)