Weber not right man for Illini job

Our college writer, Lindsey Willhite, is soliciting opinions from readers on Illinois basketball coach Bruce Weber.

As an Illinois alumnus I feel compelled to participate.

First of all, I already fired Weber after the Illini lost to UIC, again after the loss to Penn State, again after the loss to Indiana and finally after last week’s loss to Northwestern.

Those 4 losses — to teams not exactly comprising today’s Mount Rushmore of college basketball — were by a combined 9 points.

Margins that narrow are games in which a coach can make a difference.

Weber couldn’t.

Now, this criticism is about results and not about the person. Wait, come to think of it, the two intersect here.

Weber doesn’t have enough of what every big-time college basketball and football coach needs — the con-man gene.

That would be a compliment in any other job, but sometimes a coach has to trick his players into playing hard and believing they can win.

Weber doesn’t have that in him. He’s too honest with his players, the media and fans to hide his woe-is-me and woe-is-us mind-set.

Seriously, Weber doesn’t seem capable of inspiring a dog to eat a bone.

What that means, sad to say for college sports, is that Weber is too good a guy to direct a major basketball program.

A good measure of where Illinois’ program resides is this nugget: Even though Northwestern never has played an NCAA Tournament game, the Wildcats have won as many the past four years as the Illini have.

Illinois’ drought will stretch into a fifth year if it doesn’t put together a torrid finish to this currently tepid season.

Illinois’ record is 15-8. Eight conference games remain. Four are on the road at Minnesota, Michigan State, Ohio State and Purdue.

Good luck, fellas.

The Illini have been playing their way out of an NCAA bid. Even if they do qualify they’ll be first-round underdogs and likely to be one and done.

All this is outrageous for the most prominent state school in a state that produces as much quality basketball talent as this state does.

Digest this once more: Illinois has lost to UIC, Penn State, Indiana and Northwestern since late December.

Assistant coach Jerrance Howard has re-established the recruiting pipeline between Chicago and Champaign. So it is possible that even if Weber is retained, Illinois still can rise to the elite status that the program’s supporters demand.

However, the fear has to be that after not getting much out of the current senior class, Weber won’t get the most out of Jereme Richmond, D.J. Richardson, Brandon Paul and the highly regarded players soon to arrive at Illinois.

Weber’s problem is he can’t deflect blame to anyone else. College basketball isn’t like the NBA where the general manager can point at the coach, the coach can point at the GM, and the owner can point at everybody but himself.

At Illinois, Weber is the CEO in charge of recruiting, hiring assistants, developing players, making game decisions and winning championships.

As a result Weber, and only Weber, is responsible for losing to UIC, Penn State, Indiana and Northwestern. Illinois shouldn’t have lost to any of them this season, much less to all of them.

Only an NCAA Tournament bid and 2 victories — yes, a berth in the Final 16 — should save Bruce Weber’s job.

Why? Because he leads a team that lost to those four teams it shouldn’t have lost to.

mimrem@dailyherald.com