Just some ramblings this morning for conversation. Why do people focus so much on "well can he recruit?". I say what exactly is expected? I looked at his current class and it looks pretty similar to Franks last two classes. And Bruce is doing better with those players. So if he continues the type of success he had with similar players is that not good enough? Everyone points to Bill Self as such a great recruiter. Bill Self would not be getting those types of four and five star players at KState either. Kansas is a big draw in itself because of their dominance and tradition.

What exactly is expected from Weber recruiting realistically?

Hopefully top 150 players like McG, Nino, Ad, and Gip. I am not sure where Southwell and Omari were ranked out of HS, we also need to keep getting the under ranked players like Angel and the ones like Irving that we can develope.

ksustephens wrote: Just some ramblings this morning for conversation. Why do people focus so much on "well can he recruit?". I say what exactly is expected? I looked at his current class and it looks pretty similar to Franks last two classes. And Bruce is doing better with those players. So if he continues the type of success he had with similar players is that not good enough? Everyone points to Bill Self as such a great recruiter. Bill Self would not be getting those types of four and five star players at KState either. Kansas is a big draw in itself because of their dominance and tradition.

What exactly is expected from Weber recruiting realistically?

Only time will tell, but the "Weber can't recruit" thing is a myth according to the rankings.  It is easier to recruit at UI than at KSU, but Weber had top 20 classes in 2009, 2010, and 2011, which were his last three at UI.  Even with Meyers Leonard turning pro as a soph, Coach Groce inherited 6 consensus (RSCI) top 100 recruits from Weber at UI.  Even the 2007 class including McCamey, Tisdale, and Davis had some players who did well although only McCamey was a consensus four-star.

The fair question is what went wrong at UI, and there are lots of opinions on that.  If you go by the facts, we know that Weber can win with the right players.  Some only apply that to the 2005 team of Self recruits, but Weber made the Sweet Sixteen at SIU with his own recruits (he had to rebuild that program, btw), and Lowery made another Sweet Sixteen at SIU with some Weber players as well. 

Weber placed second in the Big Ten to MSU in 2009, but Chet Frazier broke his hand and could not play in the BTT or NCAAs, and he was the MVP on a team that lived off its defense.  In 2011 Weber's UI team made the NCAA Round of 32 by beating Lon Kruger's UNLV squad convincingly before losing to Bill  Self's KU one-seed team (with five-star Jereme Richmond benched for conduct issues).  The point is that it's not like 2004 through 2007 when he won 80% of his games were the only good years Weber has had in his 14 plus year career.  He has a decent chance of getting to 340 career wins in his 15th season (I think he needs seven more wins), and you don't do that if you can't coach or recruit.

The tough question is why a guy who obviously can coach on the court and who was getting pretty good recruits had a run from 2008 through 2012 where he had two bad seasons and the others decent but not great seasons.  My personal opinion is that it wasn't the quality of the players he recruited, but the mix of players he recruited that caused the problem.  Specifically, I think he got too concerned with getting four-star and five-star players (of which he got a bunch in 2009-2011) instead of getting the right players for his system.  He is better off with multiple guys with good point guard skills to have a lot of success with his system, and we had virtually no depth at the point after 2009.

If you look at Weber's recruits right now playing for Groce, they have wins over Butler, Gonzaga, Ohio State, Indiana, and Minnesota among others.  UI will likely make the NCAA tourney at this point, so Weber left some talent at UI in spite of the collapse at the end of 2012.  I watched a fair amount of your game against Baylor, and it was classic Weber with the right players for his system.  It wasn't under the best of circumstances at either school, but my guess is that both KSU and UI will be happy with their new coaching staffs over the coming years.

Good luck against WVU.  I don't mean to put the whammy on you, but this could easily be a trap game since you guys beat them at their place already.  It's hard to convince 18-22 year-olds that this is a whole new game, and the last game doesn't mean squat.

Stay in first place!

Thank you for your very informative post IstillLikeHarv

A big reason for the questioning of Bruce's ability to recruit stems from his time at Illinois. His greatest success came early in his tenure there, with players that he didn't recruit. His success tailed off from there.

Another big reason is that he didn't dominate the Chicago recruiting scene, and this didn't set well with some of the bigtime Illini boosters. It's unknown why he didn't have prolific success there, but it's rumored that recruiting in Chicago is filthy sleazy and Weber would not take part in sleazy recruiting games. Thus, he didn't consistently land the top talents such as Eric Gordon and Derrick Rose.

ninglu86 wrote: Thank you for your very informative post IstillLikeHarv

same here.  wondering out loud if Bruce might have had a 'Snyder moment' and recognized that he can do better with a 'certain type' of player as opposed to chasing 'the highest prep rankings'...

a team never turns down a Michael Beasley...but it's the other kids on the floor that'll determine how far in the season/post-season a team goes.

EMAW1 wrote:

ninglu86 wrote: Thank you for your very informative post IstillLikeHarv

same here.  wondering out loud if Bruce might have had a 'Snyder moment' and recognized that he can do better with a 'certain type' of player as opposed to chasing 'the highest prep rankings'...

a team never turns down a Michael Beasley...but it's the other kids on the floor that'll determine how far in the season/post-season a team goes.

Big Ten teams tend to measure things by star rankings (which is a bit silly when you look at Trey Burke and Aaron Craft, for example), but there is not a team in the Big Ten that wouldn't be better with McGruder and Angel on their roster, and neither one was a consensus (RSCI) top 100 recruit.  Only time will tell, but personally I am impressed with the group you have coming in.  Added to what you already have, even losing McGruder will leave you in pretty good shape.

ksustephens wrote: Just some ramblings this morning for conversation. Why do people focus so much on "well can he recruit?". I say what exactly is expected? I looked at his current class and it looks pretty similar to Franks last two classes. And Bruce is doing better with those players. So if he continues the type of success he had with similar players is that not good enough? Everyone points to Bill Self as such a great recruiter. Bill Self would not be getting those types of four and five star players at KState either. Kansas is a big draw in itself because of their dominance and tradition.

What exactly is expected from Weber recruiting realistically?

I expect to finish in the top 4 of the Big XII every year, and occasionally compete for the championship.  I expect to go to the NCAA tourney at least 80% of the time.  I expect to make it to the second weekend of the tourney at least once every 4-5 years. 

A conference championship would be great.  A Final Four would be better.  And a national championship would be ecstasy.  But I don't EXPECT those things to happen at K-State under Weber, or any other coach at this point.  I HOPE for them, but I don't EXPECT them.

So... as it pertains to recruiting every year, I don't care if Weber signs 4-5 players in the Top 25, or 4-5 players in the Top 150, or 4-5 JUCO players, or 4-5 European players, or 4-5 players that none of us are even able to Google.  If he can pull off the expectations in the first paragraph of this post, then he'll be recruiting/developing talent "well enough" & I'll be satisfied.

IstillLikeHarv wrote:

ksustephens wrote: Just some ramblings this morning for conversation. Why do people focus so much on "well can he recruit?". I say what exactly is expected? I looked at his current class and it looks pretty similar to Franks last two classes. And Bruce is doing better with those players. So if he continues the type of success he had with similar players is that not good enough? Everyone points to Bill Self as such a great recruiter. Bill Self would not be getting those types of four and five star players at KState either. Kansas is a big draw in itself because of their dominance and tradition.

What exactly is expected from Weber recruiting realistically?

Only time will tell, but the "Weber can't recruit" thing is a myth according to the rankings.  It is easier to recruit at UI than at KSU, but Weber had top 20 classes in 2009, 2010, and 2011, which were his last three at UI.  Even with Meyers Leonard turning pro as a soph, Coach Groce inherited 6 consensus (RSCI) top 100 recruits from Weber at UI.  Even the 2007 class including McCamey, Tisdale, and Davis had some players who did well although only McCamey was a consensus four-star.

The fair question is what went wrong at UI, and there are lots of opinions on that.  If you go by the facts, we know that Weber can win with the right players.  Some only apply that to the 2005 team of Self recruits, but Weber made the Sweet Sixteen at SIU with his own recruits (he had to rebuild that program, btw), and Lowery made another Sweet Sixteen at SIU with some Weber players as well. 

Weber placed second in the Big Ten to MSU in 2009, but Chet Frazier broke his hand and could not play in the BTT or NCAAs, and he was the MVP on a team that lived off its defense.  In 2011 Weber's UI team made the NCAA Round of 32 by beating Lon Kruger's UNLV squad convincingly before losing to Bill  Self's KU one-seed team (with five-star Jereme Richmond benched for conduct issues).  The point is that it's not like 2004 through 2007 when he won 80% of his games were the only good years Weber has had in his 14 plus year career.  He has a decent chance of getting to 340 career wins in his 15th season (I think he needs seven more wins), and you don't do that if you can't coach or recruit.

The tough question is why a guy who obviously can coach on the court and who was getting pretty good recruits had a run from 2008 through 2012 where he had two bad seasons and the others decent but not great seasons.  My personal opinion is that it wasn't the quality of the players he recruited, but the mix of players he recruited that caused the problem.  Specifically, I think he got too concerned with getting four-star and five-star players (of which he got a bunch in 2009-2011) instead of getting the right players for his system.  He is better off with multiple guys with good point guard skills to have a lot of success with his system, and we had virtually no depth at the point after 2009.

If you look at Weber's recruits right now playing for Groce, they have wins over Butler, Gonzaga, Ohio State, Indiana, and Minnesota among others.  UI will likely make the NCAA tourney at this point, so Weber left some talent at UI in spite of the collapse at the end of 2012.  I watched a fair amount of your game against Baylor, and it was classic Weber with the right players for his system.  It wasn't under the best of circumstances at either school, but my guess is that both KSU and UI will be happy with their new coaching staffs over the coming years.

Good luck against WVU.  I don't mean to put the whammy on you, but this could easily be a trap game since you guys beat them at their place already.  It's hard to convince 18-22 year-olds that this is a whole new game, and the last game doesn't mean squat.

Stay in first place!

I think you've summed this thing up just about as good as it can be done.

Thanks for the post.

This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but for both basketball and football I think recruiting 'rankings' is the most overrated concept in college sports.  You have to get the right kids for you.  All the evaluation published gets is wrong as often as they get it right.

Oh yeah, that should make you feel better.  You've got a coach who can't even tell what players are good for his system, according to Harv.

Personally, I think weber is purely a systems coach with very poor actual Xs and Os ability.  Terrible at in-game adjustments--as evidenced by 9 years of second half versus 1st half performances, and completely unable to coach 'em up.  And to top it all off, he's a coach who has trouble relating to certain players and getting them to play for him (again according to Harv). 

Like all coaches, good and bad, he will have the occasional right mix, but left to his own devices, he'll have much more of the latter.

You guys are underselling Martin.  He went out an constructed a roster that has a good PG, and can bang or finesse.  Weber will construct one-dimensional rosters, as he always did at Illinois.  That's a certainty.

It has aways been a challenge to to recruit to Manhattan, going back to Jack Hartman.

With the Hugs/Martin era, we started bringing in some pretty good players again.

Beasley, Walker, Pullen, Clemente, McGruder, Rodriquez, Southwell, Curtis Kelley and Judge.

We haven't seen that type of talent.....forever.

Since we have a new coach, that question remains, can Weber bring in decent talent to Manhattan.  We have always known he is a good Xs and Os guy.

Year one, and has Weber brought in a difference maker?   I don't see him yet.

Not to say he won't, but that will be Weber's biggest challenge, IMO.

Aside from last year, Coach Weber always had the Illinois teams competing on the defensive side of the ball. (Last year the team mentally broke.... literally)  Offensively, his teams clearly struggled.

But, he was snake-bit I always felt.... just a string of bad luck.   For example, his best recruiting class was the 2010 class.... it had one 5 star recruit and (2) 4 star recruits, who were actually rated as 5 stars at times in high school.  (They were high 4 star rated kids)   The class was a basic bust.... of those 3 players and potential total of 12 years of good basketball you can get out of them, they basically gave 1 1/2 years grand total..... Meyers didn't really play his freshmen year, his sophomore year they can't get him the ball. (No point guard on roster) and then he goes Pro..... Richmond was a total head case and spent his only year in CU creating a reality soap opera and Head was a bust and has transferred out.   If these 3 players had panned out and were still at Illinois, they'd be the odds on favorite to win the national title this year and Coach Weber would still be there.

More bad luck.....Eric Gordon reverses course at the last possible moment, Chester injures himself a week before the NCAA tournament starts, his JC recruits were busts, his star guard and potentail All-American(Jamar Smith) takes a cruise in a blizzard after a bottle of Tequilla and almost kills his team-mate, hence basically taking two players out of the system.   And a handful of recruits who just didn't develop.   Last years team was hampered by the fact all PG prospects said no to him, so he was left with a 5th year transfer from a mid-major, who spent his lone year at Illinois hobbled on one foot and would have been marginal athletically to begin with, hence, a year with basically no PG. (Which we still have this problem.... and it hurts us)

I always thought Coach Weber needed a break.... somebody just throw him a bone I thought.  Its tough in the Big10, not because the athletes are overwhelming, they're not any different than any other power conferences athletes.... but the coaching is deep and talented and if you have a weakness, its exposed.   He just couldn't compete against the Ryan's, Izzo's, Painters, Matta's & Beileins of the conference with the bad luck he was running into.

He's got a new fresh start (He needed it and the best thing that could have happened for both Illinois and him was a fresh start)  No more demons and no more Matt Painter.  (He was literally owned by Purdue)  

He can coach, he always could....he now needs to prove that he can develop his own recruits, versus receiving somebody elses already developed recruits.   KSU might just be the perfect match for him.  I'm rooting for him.  He's like the coach that got bullied for years.... now you want to see him just catch a few breaks.

Ill Todd:  it remains to be seen how much the Illinois experience will shape Bruce at KState and moving forward.  the nature of many fans is to be optimistic.

'other Ill' posters on here clearly have it 'bad' for Bruce...I don't dismiss their 'experience' but to suggest that he can't/won't have learned from any job he's ever had and can't/won't grow or change seems to paint a picture of someone interested only in complaining.

See it here all the time.

Regardless of what you may read from the few..... Coach Weber is well regarded by the majority at Illinois for a lot of reasons.   (He and his family were very much involved within the community)

The truth is, he can coach, he always could... but things got away from him in recent years at Illinois, its hard to put your finger on any one thing that did it, and then all of the sudden you see a clear rash of just pure bum luck..... those 3 recruits in 2010 were great recruits, the type that Kentucky or Duke would go after.   And yet, he got nothing out of it at all.... thats just bad luck.   This Richmond kid really, really hurt the university by simply not being their. 

Fresh start = Fresh luck (At least I hope)

EMAW1 wrote: Ill Todd:  it remains to be seen how much the Illinois experience will shape Bruce at KState and moving forward.  the nature of many fans is to be optimistic.

'other Ill' posters on here clearly have it 'bad' for Bruce...I don't dismiss their 'experience' but to suggest that he can't/won't have learned from any job he's ever had and can't/won't grow or change seems to paint a picture of someone interested only in complaining.

See it here all the time.

It all boils down to expectations. If you expect KSU to compete for first place every single year he'll have to recruit some 4 star guys and maybe the eventual 5 star guy. If you expect him to develop lower ranked guys yet still compete he'll have a pretty difficult job unless KSU fans are ok with a 3-4 type cycle. He's going to have to beat KU as well.

Weber is a decent recruiter.  In my opinion a better recruiter than FM was.  Delonte Hill gave Frank the perception of being a great recruiter, but once Hill left, Frank was no longer pulling in 4 and 5 star players.  In fact I thought his tantrums were actually hurting recruiting. 

We are in good hands with Weber.  He will get us some great players.  He only has a bad rapp in recruiting because he was unable to land some of the top-notch 5 star guys (D. Rose) from Chicago.  It didn't sit well with Illini fan's that they were not getting the McDonald's All Americans in their own back yard.  But we are used to that here.  He will land us some good gets by K-State standards.  Illini fans were expecting to get 5 star after 5 star.  They fell like they have the same pull as a Duke, N.C., Kentucky, etc.  As long as K-State fans are realistic in their expectations of what kind of kids are interested in coming here, I think you will be pleased.  Foster and Thomas are good gets.  Just don't get caught up in star rankings.

So you are blaming your suckiness this year on Weber? In your biased eyes he will never be a good coach. So let's blame your bottom of big ten and unranked record because he didn't leave any good players for you but then use the excuse that Weber is winning with Frank Martins three star players. You do realize that IlInois has had higher ranked recruiting classes that Groce inherited right? Weber inherited one four star player on his roster.
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--- FeartheIllini wrote:

Jeez, Todd has me laughing hard.  weber had 9 years of recruiting.  He couldn't win with lower stars, he couldn't win with higher stars.  He wouldn't--not couldn't--recruit PGs.  He didn't even recruit Pullen--who as you know can't stand weber because of it.  We are seeing a massively different DJ and Tyler Griffey this year under Groce, because he has forced them to expand their games.  DJ was know as a slasher coming into our program.  weber turned him into a one-dimensional jumpshooter.  He's now showing his complete game, after 3 years of one-dimensionality under weber.

Throw him a bone?  Omg.  Our AD kept extending and giving him raises in the face of not just mediocrity, but among the worst 5 year rolling periods in our history.  118 periods, and weber comes in bottom 10%.  

Some of you guys may want someone to blow sunshine up your butts about weber.  Some of you may want to be forewarned.

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Every single detail I wrote is 100% accurate..... cannot even be debated.   That is all called bad luck.... who knew Jamar would take that drive in the blizzard after drinking Tequilla all night ? (After being told by the Coaching staff for everybody to just stay in that night due to the blizzard)...... My description of the 2010 class is 100% spot-on, as is Chesters un-timely injury as is Eric Gordon's last minute switcharoo with his committment leaving Coach Weber high and dry.

These are all things that seriously hurt him and his career at Illinois.... this cannot even be debated, it is household information.   I call it bum luck.  Just a serious of unfortunate incidents.... and imagine if none of these things happened.   My goodness, the storyline of Coach Weber and Illinois could have very well been much different. 

The change was needed and necessary.... best for all parties.   He'll do well at KSU is my best guess, and in fact, based upon their success this year, it looks good so far. 

FeartheIllini wrote: Jeez, Todd has me laughing hard.  weber had 9 years of recruiting.  He couldn't win with lower stars, he couldn't win with higher stars.  He wouldn't--not couldn't--recruit PGs.  He didn't even recruit Pullen--who as you know can't stand weber because of it.  We are seeing a massively different DJ and Tyler Griffey this year under Groce, because he has forced them to expand their games.  DJ was know as a slasher coming into our program.  weber turned him into a one-dimensional jumpshooter.  He's now showing his complete game, after 3 years of one-dimensionality under weber.

Throw him a bone?  Omg.  Our AD kept extending and giving him raises in the face of not just mediocrity, but among the worst 5 year rolling periods in our history.  118 periods, and weber comes in bottom 10%.  

Some of you guys may want someone to blow sunshine up your butts about weber.  Some of you may want to be forewarned.

FeartheIllini wrote: Oh yeah, that should make you feel better.  You've got a coach who can't even tell what players are good for his system, according to Harv.

Personally, I think weber is purely a systems coach with very poor actual Xs and Os ability.  Terrible at in-game adjustments--as evidenced by 9 years of second half versus 1st half performances, and completely unable to coach 'em up.  And to top it all off, he's a coach who has trouble relating to certain players and getting them to play for him (again according to Harv). 

Like all coaches, good and bad, he will have the occasional right mix, but left to his own devices, he'll have much more of the latter.

You guys are underselling Martin.  He went out an constructed a roster that has a good PG, and can bang or finesse.  Weber will construct one-dimensional rosters, as he always did at Illinois.  That's a certainty.

Nice try, get lost.