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Originally Posted by ILLsmak
It's more like this... imagine Bruce was a writer or a recording artist and came out with a great album or best-selling book when he had a certain subject matter... or when he had a certain guy producing his tracks.
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So you're telling me that Bruce is incapable of change and adjusting himself to the resources available? The same resources he went out and got? That's pretty bad.
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5 years is a long time, but look at it this way, man... 4 years is one class. And if you add in the Seniors that came out of the fresh/soph classes we had with the great team... those guys just weren't ready to lead us.
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His job is to make them ready and to turn them into leaders and basketball players. He's an educator and if an educator cannot prepare his student then he has to be able to take blame for that.
It's one thing if the students don't want to learn, but I have not seen the players calling out Bruce as much as I have Bruce constantly deride and berate them to the public.
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You don't stop being a good coach.
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It's perfectly possible to stop being a good coach just as it's perfectly possible to stop being good at a job you were once great at. Times changes, things are different. 100% of life is being able to adjust yourself to new environments. That's the point about learning and becoming a better person. You think John Wooden can win 11 championships again with the same coaching philosophies of the 60s and 70s? No. The game is different, players are different. Sure there are some grander principles he can employ, but the minutia where the game is won and lost will take massive adjusting. He said it himself, "Change is not fatal, but failure to change is" and Bruce is toeing that fatality line.
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If people are back cutting in driving lanes, that's not bad coaching that's stupid players. If anything they should be back cutting the other player out of that side of the floor. When we have certain high IQ players on the floor at the same time, our offense runs well.
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Why do you think its solely the players fault for being dumb? Isn't that the whole point of being a coach? Especially in an educational field? The players have to learn from someone. They don't know they're making mistakes till someone with knowledge and experience is pointing it out to them and actively trying to correct them. This isn't professional sports where they should know the basic nuances of the game. This is college athletics. The role of a coach is to teach, teach, teach. And quite frankly, I don't know if Weber is teaching anymore. I don't know if he's even trying anymore. There are several games this year we have gone in with no evidence of a game plan... Bruce has looked lackadaisical and apathetic all year.
In our Final Four year, Bruce was animated. He was fierce. He was able to dissect opposing teams and neutralize their strengths and had our players dictate tempo and offense. He dug into the players defensive capabilities and made defenders out of everyone. This year? Our defense sucked. Our offense looked like a three point contest, and his best strategy was to bench McCamey, but even that ran dry.
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That loss to Michigan, blame McCamey for being scared to shoot.
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I blame McCamey as much as I blame Bruce. Bruce has broken down McCamey from a mental perspective. He's treated Demitri as if he's a misfit child and I can see his confidence dipping by the game. At the beginning of the season he was such a stud, looking like a late lottery pick. Then came the benchings. The calling him out on the defensive end. The pulling him the minute he had a turnover, took a bad shot etc. Maybe sometimes it was warranted, but as a collective whole, it was probably the dumbest thing Weber did. At first I liked that Weber didn't coddle his players, but now it just seems miscalculated when he does it as if he's forgotten how to do these things timely. Once in awhile if you call out your players, it can work. Do it repetitively to a point where it's a soap opera? You risk losing him for good.
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A system is only a system. You run the system but you are also supposed to be creative and break out of it. Not only do our guys not run the system correctly... but they don't know how to improvise either. It makes no sense to scrap a system for the players when you are only gonna have guys there for 4 years at most.
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If that's the case then coaches are barely even needed, right? Players do whatever they want right? They don't need a coach if all they're going to do is play the way they want to play right? Why put in place a system if at the end of the day, players do what they want?
It's the coach's job to make players buy into system as well as adjusting that system to cater to their talents. But Bruce has been hard headed. He's stuck on principles of the past. Teams are different now, because of the one-and-done rule, we're not facing even more talented teams than before. The three point line has been extended since Dee and Deron's days. Teams are killing us inside and there are more mismatches now than ever. We have to adjust. We have to start using zones when they are applicable. We have to use presses. We have to utilize individual offensive talents of players like McCamey and Paul. Weber still doesn't do that and it's going to hurt us in the long run.
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Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with you... I think you make some good points on this forum, but firing Bruce is not right. It's something I never thought I'd hear from anyone. Especially the 'fans.'
And we will be Final four good next year.
That's all.
-Smak
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I've stood by Bruce for a long time. I wanted him to work. He seemed like a nice guy who stood by his principles and ran a clean program. He's a basketball purist and I liked that about him.. but unfortunately it also means that he's stubborn to the point where he refuses to adjust himself to his players and to updated strategies and philosophies.. and it's finally showing.
Thank him for the great first three years he was here and let him go cause of the last 5. Wish him well and hopefully whoever they bring in next will be a better fit. Hell, I don't even care if we bring Lon Kruger back.
Re: Illinois basketball fans
