Writing Illini
Fansided

Illinois Basketball: Previous two coaches missed train on Illini recruiting

By Rees Woodcock

Mar 14, 2017; Dayton, OH, USA; Kansas State Wildcats head coach Bruce Weber is seen in the first half against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in the first four of the 2017 NCAA Tournament at Dayton Arena. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 14, 2017; Dayton, OH, USA; Kansas State Wildcats head coach Bruce Weber is seen in the first half against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in the first four of the 2017 NCAA Tournament at Dayton Arena. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports /
facebooktwitterreddit

The national championship run in 2005 was amazing. All Illini fans were pumped to see their team make it to the pinnacle of the sport.

Would it have been nice to see a title, sure, but that season was still a wild ride.

One big downfall of the Bruce Weber era was that he didn’t capitalize on the fact that Illinois was a great program that just went to the national championship. This should have been a recruiting tool to use in players homes.

But, Weber just rode out Bill Self’s players for the next few years.  He didn’t have a top 25 recruiting class until 2009, and that year the Illini ranked No. 22 in the nation in recruiting.

Leading up to that class of 2009, Illinois had four recruiting classes and the best player that came from those classes was No. 37 ranked Brian Carlwell. He was a four-star center that was supposed to be great but we all know what happened with that situation.

Weber started to build with the classes after that four-year dry spell, but he really missed the train of the national championship run. This program should have had top 10 classes the following years after that 2005 season, let alone a top 25 class.

In 2010, Weber had the No. 11 class in the nation as well. He followed that up with the No. 13 class in 2011. So he put together three straight top 25 classes from 2009-2011 that should have been building this program into a perennial NCAA tournament team.

Weber’s final season was a disaster and the team, with all the talent they had, let him go and moved on to John Groce.

Groce came in with the No. 20 class in the nation set up for 2013 already. He just had to convince them to stay with their commitments. He then built on that class with the No. 19 class in 2015 as well.

These two classes should have been good enough but a failure in coaching and missing on key pieces in these classes really doomed his tenure with the Illini.

Now Brad Underwood is coming into the Illinois basketball program to try and turn things around. He has some talented players on the team and the class of 2017 ranks No. 9 in the nation as well.

Next: 5 transfers that would help the Illini

So, out of the 13 classes since that national title run, the Illini have only managed to snag six top 25 classes in which only one of those was a top 10 group. That is insane to me and hopefully, things start turning around.

Home/Illinois Basketball