Based off of Illinois' performance yesterday (I was thankful that I only watched the first 16 minutes of the game), I don't think anyone can argue that Bruce Weber should keep his job. The ONLY reason that he may stay on another year is the fact that he's owed a $3.9 million buyout if new AD Mike Thomas gives Bruce a pink slip. Assuming Thomas will cut Weber loose, here's a list of 5 candidates that Thomas should consider:
1) Brad Stevens (Butler) - His resume should speak for himself: 2 consecutive championship game appearances (losing to Duke and UCONN). Stevens spurned offers from programs the last few years, only to sign a sign a 10-year, $10 million deal in 2010. He has struggled a bit this year (17-12) but he has proven that he is a COACH, who knows how to get the best out of his players. He's been able to recruit decent prospects to Indy, so he has familiar roots to the MidWest area. He's the #1 choice.
2) Scott Drew (Baylor) - After coaching one year at Valparaiso, Drew started at Baylor in 2003 and finished that year with a 8-21 record. So far during the current season, he is 22-5. He's failed to win the big game this season, but he has proved he can develop players and recruit the top prospects, including Qunicy Miller from Chicago and and 2 top 25 national recruits for next season. He may not see Champaign as enough of a step up to leave, but Thomas needs to ask.
3) Gregg Marshall (Wichita State) - Marshall has never coached at a BCS school, but his track record is quite impressive. He coached at Winthrop for 10 years, finishing first or second in the conference nine of those items. He jumped ship to Wichita State in 2007 and has finished first or second in the Missouri Valley Conference. He hasn't established himself as a great recruiter, but he's proved that he can develop players and moving into a BCS job should attract the top talent
4) Buzz Williams (Marquette) - Less than two hours north of Chicago, Buzz Williams has been successful taking over for Tom Crean. Would Williams leave a disintegrating Big East for the stability of a Big Ten job? I would think so. Illinois is a basketball school and has a rich tradition. Thomas would have to pay up, but considering he's let Zook and (hopefully) Weber go, and continually preaches the need to compete to Big 10 Titles, there's no doubt he'd open up the check book.
5) Fred Hoiberg (Iowa State) - Common sense would tell you that Hoiberg isn't ready for a big time program, having only coached for two year at Iowa State since retiring from the NBA. However, he is one of the smartest basketball minds ever to play in the NBA. He knew the fundamentals and has the ability to coach them. He's toppled some giants so far this year, and with 4-star recruit Georges Niang coming in next year, his stock will only get higher.
Wildcard) Billy Donovan (Florida) - The only way I imagine Donovan leaving Florida is throwing a butt-load of money at him and convincing him that he will always be second-fiddle in the football-centric SEC. It may cost $3-4 million a year, but you should never say never...
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Bruce Weber: Dead Coach Walking
I have supported Bruce Weber for the most part throughout the last few years when his teams have time and time again underachieved. Weber took over one of the most talented teams when Bill Self, and brought the Fighting Illini to the 2005 National Title Game. Bruce went 37-2 that season, tied for the most wins of any team in NCAA history. He won the Big Ten Title his first two years and went 28-4 in conference play. (Remember, this is with Bill Self's recruits including Deron, Luther, Dee, James, and Roger.)
Starting with the 2005-2006 season, Bruce has gone 60-56 in conference and has not won a share of the Big Ten Title in any season. He has two second place finishes (2006-2009) but has not advanced past the second round of the NCAA tournament since making the national title game. Illinois has missed the tournament completely 2 of the last 4 years, and are heading that direction this year.
Speaking of this year, the team has vastly underperformed. They won the first 10 games of the season, including wins over Maryland and Gonzaga. After losing to UNLV and Mizzou, they started the conference 4-1, including a win over then #5 OSU. Since then, Weber's team has lost 7 of 8, with the only win being an ugly victory of Michigan State.
Illinois has been in pretty much ever game. The reason why I think Bruce should be fired due to lack of execution, last of respect from his players, and the inability to develop young players.
Exhibit A was again Purdue last week. Meyers Leonard, thought to be drafted as high as #5 in next year's draft, had 2 points and attempted four shots in the first half. He was guarded by Robbie Hummel, who listed at 6'8" is a good five inches shorter than Leonard. When you have a big guy as good as Leonard, he should be touching the ball, EVERY POSSESSION. Sure, Leonard has poor body language, but I'd be pissed off too if my coaches weren't drawing up plays to get me the ball and my teammates were giving it to me.
I put most of the blame on Bruce for not making Leonard the center point of the game plan. Illinois may not get another player liked Leonard for another 30 years. The real mistake was not playing Leonard last year instead of string bean Mike Tisdale, but that's a whole nother story.
Secondly, the players don't respect Bruce. During the same Purdue game, Bruce drew up a play that would have gotten D.J. Richardson an open three at the end of the game. Instead, Brandon Paul in bounded the ball, got it back, and took a double-clutched, off-balanced, leaner of the three pointer that was lucky to draw a piece of the backboard. Leonard frequently pouts on the court. Do you know why he keeps doing that? Because Bruce won't do a damn thing about. He lets his best players get away with crap like that because he's too worried about winning every game instead of sending a message. He's coaching scared and because of that he's already lost this team.
Lastly, Bruce and his staff are horrible at developing players. McCamey, Davis and Tisdale took the league by storm during their sophomore year when the team went 24-10. Instead of continuing to develop those players, the trio took massive step backs during the next two seasons and one NCAA tournament appearance.
It took three years to get anything out of Brandon Paul, but he is still a turnover machine. D.J. Richardson is as streaky a shooter as there is (5 made 3's vs Michigan, 1 in his next two games) Leonard sat on the bench his entire freshman year, only playing double-digit minutes three times in Big Ten Play.
The last point is that Bruce's players get complacent with previous victories. Defeat #5 Ohio State? Lose the next three games. Beat #10 Michigan State? lose the next four games. He doesn't keep his teams motivated and that is a huge thing with 20-year old kids.
Based on all of this, Bruce will be fired during the off-season. A .500 record in Big 10 play doesn't cut it for a program that should CONSISTENTLY be top 15 in the country. The only legitimate state school with Chicago less than three hours should be getting the best ballers in the country every year. You want to see a sad list of players who have left Chicago for other programs? It's sick:
Shannon Brown
Shaun Livingston
Julian Wright
Bobby Frasor
Sherron Collins
Jon Scheyer
Derrick Rose
Eric Gordon (that's a whole nother issue too)
Anthony Davis
Wayne Blackshear
Ryan Boatright
Now, Jabari Parker plays his high school ball at Simeon in Chicago. He's the #2 prospect for the 2013 class. Illinois is in his top 5. There's NO REASON why these top recruits should be leaving the state. Bruce's staff should be bringing in these kids. Until they do that, or the next coach does, Illinois won't be anything more than a bubble team.
I love Illinois. The 04-05 season was one of the best runs I've ever seen a team go on. I'll always love Bruce because of it, but it's time to move on. He will catch on at another BCS school and do fine things for them, but Illinois has higher expectation for its team, and it's coach.
Starting with the 2005-2006 season, Bruce has gone 60-56 in conference and has not won a share of the Big Ten Title in any season. He has two second place finishes (2006-2009) but has not advanced past the second round of the NCAA tournament since making the national title game. Illinois has missed the tournament completely 2 of the last 4 years, and are heading that direction this year.
Speaking of this year, the team has vastly underperformed. They won the first 10 games of the season, including wins over Maryland and Gonzaga. After losing to UNLV and Mizzou, they started the conference 4-1, including a win over then #5 OSU. Since then, Weber's team has lost 7 of 8, with the only win being an ugly victory of Michigan State.
Illinois has been in pretty much ever game. The reason why I think Bruce should be fired due to lack of execution, last of respect from his players, and the inability to develop young players.
Exhibit A was again Purdue last week. Meyers Leonard, thought to be drafted as high as #5 in next year's draft, had 2 points and attempted four shots in the first half. He was guarded by Robbie Hummel, who listed at 6'8" is a good five inches shorter than Leonard. When you have a big guy as good as Leonard, he should be touching the ball, EVERY POSSESSION. Sure, Leonard has poor body language, but I'd be pissed off too if my coaches weren't drawing up plays to get me the ball and my teammates were giving it to me.
I put most of the blame on Bruce for not making Leonard the center point of the game plan. Illinois may not get another player liked Leonard for another 30 years. The real mistake was not playing Leonard last year instead of string bean Mike Tisdale, but that's a whole nother story.
Secondly, the players don't respect Bruce. During the same Purdue game, Bruce drew up a play that would have gotten D.J. Richardson an open three at the end of the game. Instead, Brandon Paul in bounded the ball, got it back, and took a double-clutched, off-balanced, leaner of the three pointer that was lucky to draw a piece of the backboard. Leonard frequently pouts on the court. Do you know why he keeps doing that? Because Bruce won't do a damn thing about. He lets his best players get away with crap like that because he's too worried about winning every game instead of sending a message. He's coaching scared and because of that he's already lost this team.
Lastly, Bruce and his staff are horrible at developing players. McCamey, Davis and Tisdale took the league by storm during their sophomore year when the team went 24-10. Instead of continuing to develop those players, the trio took massive step backs during the next two seasons and one NCAA tournament appearance.
It took three years to get anything out of Brandon Paul, but he is still a turnover machine. D.J. Richardson is as streaky a shooter as there is (5 made 3's vs Michigan, 1 in his next two games) Leonard sat on the bench his entire freshman year, only playing double-digit minutes three times in Big Ten Play.
The last point is that Bruce's players get complacent with previous victories. Defeat #5 Ohio State? Lose the next three games. Beat #10 Michigan State? lose the next four games. He doesn't keep his teams motivated and that is a huge thing with 20-year old kids.
Based on all of this, Bruce will be fired during the off-season. A .500 record in Big 10 play doesn't cut it for a program that should CONSISTENTLY be top 15 in the country. The only legitimate state school with Chicago less than three hours should be getting the best ballers in the country every year. You want to see a sad list of players who have left Chicago for other programs? It's sick:
Shannon Brown
Shaun Livingston
Julian Wright
Bobby Frasor
Sherron Collins
Jon Scheyer
Derrick Rose
Eric Gordon (that's a whole nother issue too)
Anthony Davis
Wayne Blackshear
Ryan Boatright
Now, Jabari Parker plays his high school ball at Simeon in Chicago. He's the #2 prospect for the 2013 class. Illinois is in his top 5. There's NO REASON why these top recruits should be leaving the state. Bruce's staff should be bringing in these kids. Until they do that, or the next coach does, Illinois won't be anything more than a bubble team.
I love Illinois. The 04-05 season was one of the best runs I've ever seen a team go on. I'll always love Bruce because of it, but it's time to move on. He will catch on at another BCS school and do fine things for them, but Illinois has higher expectation for its team, and it's coach.
Monday, January 16, 2012
A College Football Playoff is on the Horizon
Last week during the BCS title game, there were reports that the NCAA President and the heads of all the major conferences were meeting to discuss changes to the BCS system. This is a large change from even 2-3 years when some conference presidents did not even want to discuss the matter.
The best methodology would be a simple "plus one" scenario. The BCS standings would still be used. I still don't understand all of the secrecy behind the formulas used to determine the final numbers, but for the most part the system has been accurate.
Imagine this past year seeing LSU face Stanford in one semi-final (preferably the first Saturday in January) and Alabama playing Oklahoma State on the same day. Nine days later, the two winners would play for the BCS National Title Game on Monday night.
There are four BCS games now (Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and Sugar). The sponsors would alternate taking one of the semi-final games and a non-playoff bowl game. Some of the traditional bowl match-ups would be affected (i.e. Rose pitting Big 10 vs Pac 12, but in years where one of the teams is in the National Title that match-up doesn't happen)
The BCS could decide to add a fifth BCS sponsor so that 10 teams would be include in BCS bowl games, as in years past. Additionally, the teams ranked 5th and 6th would be guaranteed a slot in the BCS Bowl games, regardless of their conference (so Arkansas this year would not be penalized for playing in a conference that featured the #1 and #2 teams in the country)
There would be no automatic bowl qualifiers from BCS Conferences. No one wanted to see Clemson in a BCS game this season. Arkansas or K-State would have been a better choice.
The regular season would not be damaged because only the top 4 teams would be slotted into the playoffs. And it may be just my opinion, but if I were the BCS, I'd much prefer to have controversy over the #4 and #5 seeds than the #2 and #3 in the BCS (i.e. I'd rather there be controversy over the #4 seed than determining the #2 seed)
It makes too much sense not to have a playoff system in college football. Now more than ever.
The best methodology would be a simple "plus one" scenario. The BCS standings would still be used. I still don't understand all of the secrecy behind the formulas used to determine the final numbers, but for the most part the system has been accurate.
Imagine this past year seeing LSU face Stanford in one semi-final (preferably the first Saturday in January) and Alabama playing Oklahoma State on the same day. Nine days later, the two winners would play for the BCS National Title Game on Monday night.
There are four BCS games now (Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and Sugar). The sponsors would alternate taking one of the semi-final games and a non-playoff bowl game. Some of the traditional bowl match-ups would be affected (i.e. Rose pitting Big 10 vs Pac 12, but in years where one of the teams is in the National Title that match-up doesn't happen)
The BCS could decide to add a fifth BCS sponsor so that 10 teams would be include in BCS bowl games, as in years past. Additionally, the teams ranked 5th and 6th would be guaranteed a slot in the BCS Bowl games, regardless of their conference (so Arkansas this year would not be penalized for playing in a conference that featured the #1 and #2 teams in the country)
There would be no automatic bowl qualifiers from BCS Conferences. No one wanted to see Clemson in a BCS game this season. Arkansas or K-State would have been a better choice.
The regular season would not be damaged because only the top 4 teams would be slotted into the playoffs. And it may be just my opinion, but if I were the BCS, I'd much prefer to have controversy over the #4 and #5 seeds than the #2 and #3 in the BCS (i.e. I'd rather there be controversy over the #4 seed than determining the #2 seed)
It makes too much sense not to have a playoff system in college football. Now more than ever.
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