Absentee viewer Caller Bob thought the game plan was great and Underwood just happened to lose to a better team.

maybe he's just a pretty good coach and nothing more.

That's exactly how I would describe Weber. I don't think the Illini have had a better coach since they ran him out.

Absentee viewer Caller Bob thought the game plan was great and Underwood just happened to lose to a better team.

In Bruce Weber's Last 5 Seasons as Illinois Coach they went 41-49 in the Big Ten.
.. You can yell about "conspiracies" from boosters all you want, but by the time Weber walked the program was rather shitty.

They lost by 25. Only an idiot thinks a different coach could have got Illinois to beat UConn

They lost by 25. Only an idiot thinks a different coach could have got Illinois to beat UConn

Probably true. But I think it's pretty obvious that the score would have been a lot closer with a different game plan.

Illinois fans might want to be careful what you wish for too. Illinois isn’t a basketball power house by any means.

I don’t agree to say UCONN isn’t a Powerhouse in today’s college basketball might make me not want to read anymore of your thoughts. You might be the only person in America who thinks that.

And I question the judgment of anyone that watched them play yesterday and still believes that they were watching a powerhouse at work. They were not particularly impressive. They only had One dude (who avg. 8 pts per game by the way) on the floor and all of the metrics suggested that. I know you have an Anti Illinois in general thing going, but they were not 25 points better than Illinois.

I don’t have a care about Illinois either way. Not a Big 10 basketball fan in general.

The State. Team is just part of it. Illinois was ranked top 10 in the country going into the game yesterday. With talent that MANY consider to be top 5. They are not a bum ass team or program. They played shitty as hell with a shitty game plan and still were only down 5 points at half to a noted "juggernaut". That pretty much should tell anyone with a functioning brain that they can play with them

By the way Doctor, you are all over Bob about watching the games and yet prior to this week you hade made all of 1 post in this thread for the entire Illinois season. Look to be a huge follower yourself.

I don’t understand your response to my post at all.

Doctor, Happy Easter and I hope you enjoy the Lord’s Day!!!

It's not a "conspiracy." It's a known fact. Weber was told who to recruit. And when those guys didn't perform, the axe fell on Weber.

I'll give you an example. Rayvonte Rice is a typical Weber player. He was right there in Champaign. But Weber couldn't recruit him because all the scholarships were taken by the bum guys who got him fired, some of whom he didn't really want in the first place. After Weber was gone Rice transferred from Drake and had a couple good seasons in Champaign.

Drake is a low-mid major. Thus no other high majors wanted him. Which means he wasn't viewed as a high major player. And I remembered the Reyvonte Rice era. It was characterized by mediocrity. Which was the essence of the Weber era as soon as he didn't have Bill Self's players to coach any longer. As a matter of fact, back then it was a running joke how much out of state coaches like Self, Calipari Coach K and others could walk into Illinois and take any player that they wanted to take from Weber. Players like Derrick Rose, Sherron Collins, Julian Wright, and Scheyer wouldn't even give him the time of day. And you fallaciously think that the key to the program was his being denied the opportunity to recruit players like Reyvonte Rice. Yeah right

With the lack of talent in today's College Basketball, the formula for winning is sound veteran players coupled with good coaching. Illinois is half down on that.

You're all over the place.

First you say this:

Then you criticize Weber for wanting to use that EXACT formula and call those sound veteran players "mediocre" because they weren't a bunch of one-and-done guys who wanted to showcase their own games for a season or maybe two at the expense of the team.

This is hardly an appropriate response.

Okay.

Especially when you consider that Kentucky won a championship with a team fill of one and does shortly afterwards too. College Basketball has changed since then. And it's obvious you cannot refute any of my points. And you can even add Anthony Davis to the mix as well. During Webers tenure he had a chance to have each of these players and signed none of them. Inexcusable if you think you're going to win

With the lack of talent in today's College Basketball, the formula for winning is sound veteran players coupled with good coaching. Illinois is half down on that.

So you don't really believe this:

It's not a "conspiracy." It's a known fact. Weber was told who to recruit. And when those guys didn't perform, the axe fell on Weber.

I'll give you an example. Rayvonte Rice is a typical Weber player. He was right there in Champaign. But Weber couldn't recruit him because all the scholarships were taken by the bum guys who got him fired, some of whom he didn't really want in the first place. After Weber was gone Rice transferred from Drake and had a couple good seasons in Champaign.