I think a lot of people have been unfairly venting their frustration with recent events at Bruce Weber. We all want to win every game and land all the best recruits, none more than Weber himself.
Undoubtedly, our program has faced a lot of adversity, especially in the last 4 months. Every starter has been injured and/or missed time this season (just consider the number of different starting lineups we've needed). We've been victimized by an unprecedented welching of a verbal commitment from a top recruit to a conference rival. Top talent from Illinois goes elsewhere amid public accusations of cheating (unproven, yes) that meshes with every bit of smoke from the sport's corrupt underbelly.
Exacerbating the situation are the actions of our former coach who goes out of his way to contact our recruits and to negatively recruit against us. Furthermore, it is clear that from the very beginning there have been cronies of the former coach who do nothing but promote an anti-Weber agenda. [It's not "realism" or "venting." These people have obvious harmful agendas.]
How does Weber respond to adversity? He works even harder, makes adjustments, yet stays true to his core values. Weber is universally acknowledged as one of the hardest-working recruiters in all of the country (this is much different from the Ron Turner scenario). We've seen a new recruiting approach that has succeeded in raising the level of our recruiting success (see the last 3 verbal commitments). We've seen zone defense from someone who was 100% man-to-man for decades. We've seen honesty and integrity in recruiting without even a hint of trouble from the NCAA.
Weber is universally lauded as a great coach and teacher by college basketball experts. When the time came to cash in on the greatest success in the program's history, he didn't shop himself to "elite" programs to try and cash out. He reinvested some of the money that could have lined his pockets back into the program to improve our facilities and assistant coach salaries. He has remained loyal and rebuilt the notion of the Illini family.
How have we treated this man? He's being condemned based on fantasies. Fantasies. People have dreams of "eliteness," national championships, and recruiting successes that have no basis in historical reality. We nearly did the unthinkable in 2004-2005 under Weber and now he has become a victim of his own success. Bitterness from the departure of our previous coach and fear from the collapse of our football program (along with some bizarre local sports psychology) have warped our perceptions of Bruce Weber.
We are staring at the ugly prospect of a home loss to our most hated rival and a strong chance of missing the NCAA Tournament. Nobody is "merry" about this. We're pissed off. We're also staring at the even uglier prospect of running a coach out of town (by April 2008) who has done nothing to deserve such a fate. Our insane fanbase has never been fair to Bruce Weber and it reflects very poorly on us. I've met Bruce Weber and he is a good man and a great coach who does not deserve the heat he is getting from his "fans." I'm an irrationally obsessed Illini fan I consider myself part of the problem. That's why I apologize to Bruce Weber.
Good luck to Bruce and the Illini tonight against the Hoosiers.
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