Hoopraker

A lesser coach may have begun feverishly scanning his contract for a sabbatical option. A less stand up coach might have pulled the Coach K bad back ruse and put his assistant coach in the doomed Pete Gaudet spot. A less durable, less talented coach would certainly not have his team at 21-9, in sole possession of third place in the Big Ten, and pointed toward another NCAA tournament. Even prior to last week’s developments, this has been a season, indeed a calendar year in Champaign-Urbana of stern and unrelenting challenges that would defeat the best of men.

Fortunately for the Illinois basketball program they have a coach who has never been one to dodge responsibility or stand down from a stiff challenge. Bruce Weber (Wisconsin-Milwaukee ‘78) has already earned a lifetime of loyalty from his university and its fan base with his performance this year and the three preceding. Whether they grant him that loyalty is another story. The next few months of his career in basketball will be his toughest yet and will put that question to test. Does the Illini nation realize, much less appreciate how good they’ve got it with Bruce Weber? Will they stand up for him when he needs them most?

Self Evidence
The fact is the slings and arrows have been zinging around Weber’s head well before this year. Since his arrival to Champaign there has been a more than insignificant sector of the fan base who have never stopped pining for their former touped recruiter-in-chief Bill Self. That Self was a transparent carpetbagger whose three year record at Illinois (78-24, two shared Big Ten titles, one regional NCAA final) is dwarfed by Weber’s (89-16, two outright Big Ten titles, Sweet Sixteen, NCAA runner-up) has little traction with this contingent. That Self has continued to turn his supreme rosters at Kansas into underachievers who couldn’t beat Bucknell and Bradley when it counted most zips over their heads. That Self’s chronic, classless overrecruitment has more kids (Padgett, Downs, Wilkes, Giles, Giddens to name a few) being used and tossed out of Lawrence than any principled program should tolerate is conveniently ignored.

No, in the face of all logic, the shrill tune emanating from this choir persists. It says Weber owes all his success to Self’s recruiting. And now as Weber overachieves with this season’s twenty plus wins despite persistent injuries and/or personal setbacks to all of his top players, they start pointing wildly to the recruits he has failed to land. According to these folks Jon Scheyer, Sherron Collins, Julian Wright, Eric Gordon, and Derrick Rose should all be wearing Illini orange.

Even someone as well keeled as Bruce Weber must grow weary of such superficial, plainly thickheaded criticism. As Bob Knight proves in many a postgame interview, it’s hard to be the smartest guy in the room. It’s hard to explain to people that Jon Scheyer dreamed in Duke Blue Devil blue since his sandbox days. That even though his high school coach was Bruce Weber’s brother, Scheyer still, miraculously, against all rationale maintained a mind of his own. It’s hard to enlighten the dim bulbs that maybe Sherron Collins and Julian Wright are much better off grabbing glossy headlines and losing the big games at Kansas. That Eric Gordon belongs with the cheater who texted him. That only a program of zero self-respect and integrity is willing to hire three unqualified men as assistant coaches just to land one recruit who is using the program for a one year NBA warmup. That Derrick Rose has handlers and a posse longer than the security line at O’Hare, an entourage that essentially negotiated his commitment to Memphis just as they will negotiate his shoe contract and NBA deal a short year from now.

Does someone need to tell them that maybe it’s a more enlightened, long viewing strategy to get team players who will stay on campus more than six months? That there comes a point in a recruiting process where a principled coach decides it’s better to let a kid go elsewhere than to cater to a posse or to cheat. That coaches and programs with pride and self-respect aren’t willing to sellout for any one individual player. That a program wants kids who want the program, not kids who want an enablement system for their self-interest.

In Programs He Trusts
Despite the chirping, knucklehead chorus, Bruce Weber has remained composed and untiringly devoted to building teams and a program at Illinois that wins, but not at all costs. In the face of all the naysaying, he grabs his clipboard and goes back to the business of teaching basketball, developing players, and yes, recruiting with an intelligence and nuance that builds balanced, coachable rosters rather than random grab bags of me first blue chippers.

Maybe Bruce Weber’s problem is that he is too old school, too much a reflection of his mentor Gene Keady with whom he spent eighteen years soaking up the idea that building a program isn’t about expedience and individual recruiting classes. That a program of lasting success is one that develops a sum greater than parts identity, finds kids who are willing to sacrifice selfish goals to carry it forward, and then maximizes the whole via teaching, work ethic, and year to year player development.

A program of this sort depends on minimal disruptions to the recruiting cycle. It is about turning raw freshman into seasoned, well taught, team oriented upperclassmen who lead championship runs. It is about the slow and steady, roster continuity, elders teaching youngsters how to play the right way.

One would hope that people have a long enough memory to recall the 2005 team as a perfect case in point. That team’s success was the result of a group of upperclassmen including several superstars who deferred gaudy individual numbers for a much more potent, equitable approach. It’s run to the title game was as dependent on the solid role play of Roger Powell, Jack Ingram, and Nick Smith as its NBA draftees.

One would hope that people appreciate the quantum developmental leaps those players made year to year, leaps that are consistent hallmarks of Weber led teams. Do they understand that even the superstars from that squad arrived in Champaign as solid, but unspectacular recruits? That the only McDonald’s All-American among them was Dee Brown? That what Weber did to get them to within five points of an national title was a masterful coaching job.

And that level of mastery has not abated. His coaching has transformed current players Warren Carter, Shaun Pruitt, and Marcus Arnold from one dimensional into skilled, efficient big men capable of taking over games. With his returnees plus instant impact players such as Demetri McCamey and Quinton Watkins, next season looks primed for yet another top conference finish and NCAA bid. And, again, what he has done with this season’s M.A.S.H. unit is arguably the best coaching he’s ever done.

The Importance of Perspective
Of course, a new and different set of slings and arrows will be aimed at Bruce Weber once the last tick has expired on his Illini this March. To the illogic criticism of his coaching will be added charges that he is running a program of inadequate control. While Weber’s 26 year association with winning basketball and propriety should carry the day, there is no guarantee. Not when there are significant elements of the fan base and media who have such a poor relationship to history and perspective.

Will they consider the fact that two out of the three players (Richard McBride, Aaron Spears, and Luther Head) who have had offcourt problems during Weber’s tenure were Bill Self recruits? Without question, it’s Weber’s watch and he has an influence on what his kids do when they leave the Assembly Hall. Given McBride’s repeat offender status, perhaps Weber should’ve dismissed him from the team this November and Jamar Smith would’ve thought longer and harder about getting behind the wheel two weeks ago. Maybe not. But, it’s a certainty that someone with the integrity of Weber is already reviewing his response to all of the aforementioned and will do even more to try to prevent recurrences.

Obviously, a coach of Weber’s caliber does his best to recruit kids with character and once he has them on campus, does his best to encourage good decision-making. But, short of pairing each kid on the roster with a cardigan sweatered, morally absolute doppelganger, a coach’s influence is finite. Even a coach with the glowing reputation and seemingly airtight or airbrushed program of Mike Krzyzewski couldn’t prevent team leader and National Player of the Year J.J. Redick from drinking and driving. Despite his glowing reputation, Bo Ryan had to dismiss two players from his 2003 recruiting class in Boo Wade and Marcetteus McGee due to sexual assault charges. Another well regarded coach, Matt Painter, is dealing this week with a public intoxication arrest of his freshman, Johnathan Uchendu.

Fortunately for the aforementioned coaches, the administrators and fans in Durham, Madison, and West Lafayette seem to understand the importance of perspective. They correctly identify the difference between a pervasive problem and isolated events. They do not mistake kids for robots. They understand that a certain freedom needs to be granted for adulthood to ripen. They know when a coach deserves the benefit of the doubt.

And it clearly doesn’t hurt that the coaches in question continue to deliver winning basketball. Winning excuses a multitude of sins. Not that Bo Ryan or Matt Painter need any absolution, but still, winning helps.
And if Weber somehow improves on his already brilliant coaching job this season and takes his team deep into March, something that is far from a stretch given his abilities and the parity of the college basketball landscape this year, he will certainly not hurt his cause.

Love Him Or Lose Him
But, there also comes a point where if the evidence of Weber’s excellence as a coach and program builder and class act isn’t appreciated, isn’t obvious to those who administer and support Illinois basketball, then the program doesn’t deserve him. As he faces the toughest offseason of his career, it will interesting to see if the Illini nation puts up a spirited defense of a head coach who has more than earned their respect and gratitude.

Or will the misinformed, myopic elements of the community sing even louder than they have already and allow the best coach the program has ever had, a coach any clear thinking athletic director would be lucky to have on his payroll, to dangle and spin?

Be careful Illini nation. It behooves you to love the one you’re with.

Posted by DJ Elsass on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at 10:18 pm.