Caught in a Web(er)

I've been having a little e-mail discussion with Westy, C-Lauff, and Greg over our favorite basketball coach, Bruce Weber. Westy is a Bruce Weber apologist, who's basic position is that Weber isn't that bad. He'll get better players soon, and when he does, he'll magically be seen as a better coach. C-Lauff contends that Bruce is an unimaginative, inflexible coach who has had mediocre results, save for one almost-magical season in 2004-05. Even as I was declaring that we were the best team in basketball back in the winter of 2004, there were some signs:

"We're a little slow to adjust when teams change defenses, and will give away possessions at times when we decide not to move on offense."

And in the winter of 2005, I wrote about some of the problems that we had, as well, while I was defending out #6 national ranking:

"Whether we end up being a top 32 team or a Final Four team will be in our offense. At times, it looks like we're still trying to figure out how to play with each other. We'll throw the ball away and look awkward in our motion. Some of the guys still don't look natural in the motion."

And in the winter of 2007, my prognosis got a little worse, as Bruce wasn't able to reload very quickly. The offense has gotten progressively worse, and we've been terrible at adjusting to zone defenses with the Weber system. I really believe that a lot of the reason was that Bruce was adamant against using the high-low back in 2004 and 2005, because he was intent on having the final Bill Self funeral.

Now, back when we were looking for a replacement for Bill Self, I was on the Thad Matta bandwagon early. I grew up in Cincy, and had friends that went to Xavier, which has been an amazingly successful program, since the mid to late 80's, where the school kept winning, as it kept sending it's coaches on to BCS schools. This started with Pete Gillen (Virginia), then the late Skip Prosser (Wake Forest), Thad Matta (Ohio St.), Sean Miller (Arizona), and will probably continue with Chris Mack. Add on that Matta was from Hoopeston, IL, and you had the right fit, in my mind, at least. But for some reason, the speculation about Matta was quickly ended by the Illinois athletic department, and we quickly hired Bruce Weber. There was some thought that Matta wasn't wanting to leave Xavier. However, a year later, he ended up taking his show up the road to The Ohio State University. So the comparisons between Matta and Weber are natural ones.

With the latest Illini disappointment this season, C-Lauff questioned whether we were still on the Weber bandwagon, and while Westy defended the loss, suggesting that losing to Michigan was just a random event against a hot team, I differed a bit. This was my e-mail reply:

Well, I was never on the Bruce bandwagon. We had a period of détente, as we finished off the Dee and Deron era. But if you recall, I was pretty adamant that Weber was a significant step down from Self (particularly after watching him actually coach the first 2 years), and that Matta would have been the better choice (mainly because my buddy Mick knows hoops and was a Xavier alum and season ticket holder). And actually my opinion is that he’s the same coach that he’s always been (adequate – probably right in the middle of the Big Ten, behind Izzo, Ryan, Tubby, Matta, and now Painter). We’re still holding out judgment on Crean.

The point that I'm making is that Weber is a solid coach. If you're in the middle of the Big Ten, that probably puts you in the top 30 coaches nationally. But not an elite coach. And in basketball, coach = program. When you have a solid coach, you'll have a solid program. Don't get me wrong, but schools like Iowa would be envious. My contention was that Weber was a step down from Bill Self. Honestly, what percentage of the folks in Champaign would have preferred Weber to Self in 2004? 0.001%? Maybe? But the more interesting comparison was with Thad Matta, who Westy has never cared much for.

Westy may be somewhat in denial over this, but the strongest evidence for my case is the rankings right now. Matta and Self just happen to coach the #1 and #2 teams. With regard to Matta vs. Weber, both come in from mid-majors, Southern Illinois and Buter/Xavier, where they had success. Bruce started with a full cupboard, coming after Self leaves for Kansas. Matta takes a team that was ineligible for the postseason, coming off of 17-15 and 14-16 seasons after which they fired their coach, and goes 20-12, and just happens to hand the Illini their first loss in that ’04-’05 season. In ’05-’06, Matta starts his run by winning the Big Ten outright (over the Illini), and loses in the 2^nd round of the NCAA’s. And let’s just say that after that, we’ve seen a clear divergence from these two coaches. And a quick side note - back in ‘03-‘04, after we lost that tough, but exciting game against Duke in the Sweet 16, it was Matta’s Xavier team that gave Duke an even tougher game in the Elite 8.

My take on it is that Weber did a nice job in 2005, when we had the perfect storm on the perimeter. But, he botched our shot in ’06 by forcing his motion offense into a team that was better suited for the high-low setup that Self ran for a number of years (Rich McBride and Chester Frazier come in for Luther and Deron, and you don’t change your offense, even a little?). That team, with Auggie and Pruitt should have been working inside-out, and having Randle work the high post area, rather than drifting on the wing. One major issue that I saw, which I didn’t hear much about elsewhere, in 2006 was Dee Brown’s inability (whether it was an individual thing, or a system thing) to make good entry passes into the post. So many times, Dee would get the ball on the wing, and Auggie/Pruitt would have won position, but the pass inside was never made. I’m of the opinion that it’s an issue with Bruce’s system, because we saw similar issues from Chester, Meachem, and McCamey. It’s as though the guards are just told to give a token look inside, before reversing the motion, and that taking an additional dribble toward the baseline (to give a better entry pass angle) would not be tolerated.

And unless you have elite dribble penetration skills, that high 3-man weave doesn’t consistently generate direct looks. You’d think that having two bigs shooting over 50% from the field (with Auggie shooting 62.4% that year), you’d consider maybe going to an inside-out offense in 2005-06? Side note 2 - I believe that this cost Dee a chance to be a first rounder in the NBA, as he ended up shooting way too many long 3’s with the shot clock winding down, which killed his FG%.

I suspect that we saw some of those issues come into play down the road, particularly when we couldn’t turn Pruitt into the NBA sort of player that he could have been. He was a bit of a head case, but he got no help at all from his guards, and was hurt the lack of flexibility in the system. But if you’re a low-post big, and you see how the Illini play, would you like your chances to get to the NBA? The result is that we end up with the skinny, pick-and-pop bigs that we’ve been seeing, and there’s no incentive to really work the low post game, because of the lack of entry passes from the guards. I mean, look at this. Pruitt gets about as many shots as the other 4 players, when he’s shooting 57.2% from the field? This is what you get with Bruce’s offense. This is great when you have an all-star ensemble. But when you have guys like Trent Meachem and Jeffrey Jordan? You get debacles like this:

SCORING GP FG-FGA FG% 3FG-FGA 3PT% FT-FTA FT% PTS PTS/G

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pruitt, Shaun....... 34 163-285 .572 0-0 .000 101-179 .564 427 12.6

Meacham, Trent...... 34 109-265 .411 74-185 .400 53-71 .746 345 10.1

Randle, Brian....... 33 117-254 .461 8-39 .205 67-112 .598 309 9.4

McCamey, Demetri.... 35 100-275 .364 50-147 .340 37-59 .627 287 8.2

Brock, Calvin....... 35 100-220 .455 17-46 .370 41-62 .661 258 7.4

Frazier, Chester.... 34 57-169 .337 25-91 .275 27-52 .519 166 4.9

Alexander, Rodney... 31 49-126 .389 11-57 .193 34-48 .708 143 4.6

Tisdale, Mike....... 35 53-110 .482 2-12 .167 19-30 .633 127 3.6

Davis, Mike......... 34 36-82 .439 0-0 .000 15-32 .469 87 2.6

Cole, Bill.......... 12 11-21 .524 3-10 .300 3-7 .429 28 2.3

Holdren, Steve...... 14 5-19 .263 3-15 .200 4-7 .571 17 1.2

Jordan, Jeff........ 26 7-24 .292 1-3 .333 11-18 .611 26 1.0

Hicks, Chris........ 10 2-9 .222 2-9 .222 1-2 .500 7 0.7

Carlwell, Brian..... 3 0-0 .000 0-0 .000 0-0 .000 0 0.0

Semrau, Richard..... 8 0-1 .000 0-0 .000 0-0 .000 0 0.0

Total............... 35 809-1860 .435 196-614 .319 413-679 .608 2227 63.6

Opponents........... 35 720-1806 .399 215-641 .335 484-672 .720 2139 61.1

A major issue that we've run into, as well, is the lack of ball handling on this team. The one season that we looked good over the past 5 was in 2008-09, when we had Dimitri McCamey and Chester Frazier together in the same backcourt. It was the only time when we had more than one ball handler in our 3-guard, motion offense. Even this year, as talented as we are, with Brandon Paul and DJ Richardson, we don't have any true ball handlers, other than D-Mac. And our lack of execution on offense has reared it's ugly head, yet again. For the 6th consecutive season.

Overall, I'm of the opinion that Illinois should consistently be one of the top 2 or 3 Big Ten basketball programs. We have a ton of talent in our backyard, and we've shown that Champaign can be a destination for kids from other parts of the country (like The Colony, TX, or Alexandria, VA, for example). We were on our way there with Lon Kruger, until the Atlanta Hawks came calling. Bill Self took us there with Kruger's guys, and was about to do it with his guys, until UNC called Roy Williams for the second time, and then Kansas came calling. Weber was able to maintain things for the next three years, but by the time he hit year 5 (the first season with all of the players being his), we had that horrific 16-19 season. There's been a bit of a bounce back since then, but right now, it feels like Illini Basketball is in the wind.

Since we lost Self and didn't get Matta, we've seen Ohio St. emerge as either the #1 or #1a team in the Big 10, with 4 league titles in the last 6 seasons. Meanwhile, Kansas has won 7 consecutive Big 12 titles. And in post-season play, Ohio St. has had a NCAA runner-up, a NIT championship, and a Sweet 16. Kansas has a NCAA championship and two Elite 8 appearances. The Illini started off well, with a Sweet 16 and a NCAA runner-up, but have struggled since then, going 1-2 in the NCAA tournament in the 5 previous seasons. Westy defended this result, suggesting that it was simply recruiting issues that had hindered the Illini, and that these issues were in the past now that Jerrance Howard was in the fold. He also wondered how Matta would do with Weber's players.

First of all, it's pretty funny to me, to realize that the Illini basketball empire hinges on Jerrance, who was the guy at the end of the bench that the fans loved. So, there's that. With regard to what Matta does in-game? That seems to be an irrelevant question - I’ve got no idea what Matta would do with our team, but I do know that there’s no way that Bruce would have gotten Sullinger, even if he didn’t have Ohio St. ties. And when Matta has to go to the well and get a great white hope, he doesn't end up with Trent Meachem, but instead Aaron Craft (who I've become a big fan of, since he was the kid that punked Bruce Pearl's barbecue) or Jon Diebler, who always kill us. Plus, Matta allows things like Mark Titus' celebrity, whereas Weber makes the players shut down their Twitter accounts once practice starts in October.

I've had my complaints about Weber, particularly regarding his lack of aggression/creativity with in-bounds plays and the team's inability to adjust to different defenses. I think that he does well on the defensive end (though this year's team is infuriating to watch on D). Do I think that the Illini should fire Weber? Not really. I'm willing to wait on the latest crop of recruits, mainly because I dig the players that we've got as sophomores right now. But we really need to either a) increase Weber's flexibility with his system, or b) start recruiting the right fits, not necessarily the "best player available." We've had issues with low-post play and ball handling for years now. I'd argue that those are the two most important elements of college basketball (you can get away with mediocre outside shooting - just look at Michigan St. all these years).

In any case, we'll see how the Illini bounce pack in the post-season. All I can say is that I'm glad that we're up to 68 teams in the dance, so we're not sweating it out... I think.

-Chairman