Long time lurker, first time poster.
I'm seeing a lot of comparisons being made between what's going on with oscar Weber right now and the rumors surrounding Frank Martin's departure, which is fair to some degree, but I feel it needs to be pointed out that the rumors of players threatening to leave under Martin were never anything more than that -- just rumors.
In the last few weeks oscar Weber has either lost or removed four active players in the same year that he's graduated two seniors (let's hope it doesn't get any worse), which means that unless Weber is somehow going to steal recruits that are already signed to other programs or convince players who are making their final choices between two or three schools at this point to all of a sudden consider coming to Manhattan, we're screwed for next season (and probably the season after).
A lot of us have waited decades to see the Wildcats turn their program around, and it's incredibly frustrating to see a coach come in like this after years of progress and wipe it all away in an instant, which is exactly what every Illinois fan said he'd do when he came here. The rumors around Martin's departure happened during a year that he took our team to the NCAA tournament. Weber is cutting the few solid players that he has during a year where he wasn't even able to get them to the NIT.
Weber might surprise us all and pull out enough wins to get an NCAA bid next year, or maybe even another Big 12 title -- I'd love for nothing more than that to happen. But as someone who learned his lesson by supporting Ron Prince for a lot longer than I ever should have, I'd ask those of you still defending Weber what it's going to take before your allegiance switches from what's best for him back to what's best for the men's basketball program?
