Bruce Weber, Illini Rebound with Highly-Touted 2009 Recruiting Class

Despite coaching the Fighting Illini to the national championship game in St. Louis in his second season as the head basketball coach, the common feeling was that Bruce Weber did it with inherited players from former coach Bill Self. Since that 2004-05 campaign, Illinois has progressively seen the wins get harder to come by. In the years since that 37-2 finish and heartbreaking loss to North Carolina in the title game, the Fighting Illini have gone 26-7, 23-12 and then 16-19 last season when the Illini failed to make the Big Dance or the National Invitational Tournament. Now Weber is coming off what many think has been his best recruiting class as he begins his sixth season at Champaign. Bruce Weber Illinois 2009 Recruiting ClassRivals.com ranked the Illinois' early-signing period haul 10th in the nation. Scout.com rated Weber's work 13th nationally. ESPNU had other thoughts, instead ranking the group at No. 23.