NCAA Basketball: UNC, Kansas among top head coaching hires from 2003

5. Bruce Weber (Illinois)

This past season, Illinois certainly had a bit of a revival, earning a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament before being upset in the opening weekend by Loyola-Chicago. Two decades earlier, Illinois was still one of the better programs in college basketball, with much of that credit going to recently departed coaches like Lon Kruger and Bill Self. As Self left for Kansas, new blood was needed to take control of this Illini program.

That post was filled by Bruce Weber, a coach who already had plenty of experience in the Big Ten. After growing up and playing his college ball at Milwaukee, Weber spent the first two decades of his career coaching under Gene Keady, with 18 of those years coming as an assistant at Purdue. Weber got his first head coaching experience at Southern Illinois, building one of the MVC’s better programs and leading the Salukis to the Sweet Sixteen in 2002.

The highlight of Weber’s coaching career came early into his tenure at Illinois, leading the Fighting Illini to the national championship game in 2005. In nine seasons, he took the Illini to six NCAA Tournaments but never made it past the opening weekend again after that magical run. Even if the program diminished by the end of his tenure, he coached this program to one of their most memorable seasons.