Bruce Weber has the most interesting team in the Big 12, and that’s not a great thing

The coach of a team good enough for five wins against the Big 12’s best four teams is talking about the grind and transparency that comes with playing a tough schedule.

“We’ve proven we can beat anybody,” Bruce Weber says.

The coach of a team bad enough that it has lost to Texas Tech, Texas Southern and TCU and enters postseason play needing two wins just to be eligible for the NIT is talking about injuries and missed opportunities and a lack of focus on and off the court.

“Life isn’t always cake and ice cream,” Weber says.

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In many ways, Kansas State has the most interesting team here as the Big 12 men’s basketball tournament begins Wednesday at the Sprint Center.

The Wildcats are 5-3 against the tournament’s top four seeds, and 3-7 against everyone else. They were picked fourth in the preseason poll, but are now the tournament’s No. 8 seed.

Their best player has been benched and suspended. Their top newcomer has been mostly underwhelming. And much of the rest of the team has been hurt, at one time or another.

This being college sports, Weber is the frontman and salesman, and he is surely trying to put a positive face on everything when he says the team has been “a C, C-plus” this year.

K-State has underperformed, and not just by a little bit. Weber won a share of the program’s first conference title in a generation his first year, and made it back to the NCAA Tournament in his second year.

His third season — barring a conference tournament championship, which is probably the only way K-State is making the NCAA Tournament — will be remembered for underperformance and the three-game suspension and temporary benching of star guard Marcus Foster.

In a vacuum, a one-year disappointment wouldn’t be a big deal. Nobody exceeds expectations every year. But there is a narrative with Weber, fair or not, and the downward trajectory in the conference tournament seedings from two to five to eight is an uncomfortably good fit:

Good with someone else’s players, not good with his own.

“A little bit, yeah,” Weber says when asked if that part bothers him. “As a coach, every person, you have pride. The thing that bothers me the most is I went to (Southern Illinois) and the program was in really bad shape. And my guys went to the Sweet 16, won (two) straight Missouri Valley championships, and every kid got a degree. That was with my guys. And even at Illinois, we had a pretty good nine-year run.”

The trial of Weber is ongoing, then, and has become such a part of his identity that there is a joke in some circles about it following him the rest of his life — how will his rest home compare to Bill Self’s?

But the jokes have a little more bite to them now. Weber is not in immediate danger of losing his job, as some K-State fans have suggested at points of the season, and not just because the Wildcats beat Kansas and Iowa State in their last two home games.

Weber’s administration is loyal to him, and values his priorities on academics and compliance. Also, at least indirectly, the administration shares some blame for a down season. The athletic department put Foster’s picture on the cover of the media guide, and on promotional posters for ticket renewals, which in hindsight may have put unnecessary pressure and expectations on a young man who wasn’t quite ready.

Foster was suspended for three games in the middle of the season, and when he’s played, he’s seen his minutes and production dip until recently.

In a season that will be remembered for underperformance, the major failure on Weber and his assistants was in not keeping Foster focused.

Foster is accountable for that, of course, but Weber is the one making $1.85 million so he has to answer for it, too. There is a theory that Foster had too much success too soon, that he wasn’t ready to handle the idea of balancing a potential NBA future with current responsibilities at K-State.

In hindsight, there was probably also a general lack of appreciation for the importance of Will Spradling and Shane Southwell helping put Foster in good positions last year.

Foster wasn’t as ready for that transition as he needed to be — “from inside the media guide to the cover of the media guide,” in Weber’s words — and the coaches didn’t do a good enough job making sure.

“He put a lot of pressure on himself,” Weber says. “It took a toll on him. It bothered him mentally. I kept telling him, ‘Focus on the other things. Rebounding, playing hard, defending.’ Last year, he was not only our best scorer, but guarding (Juwan) Staten and Buddy Hield and the best players in our league.

“Now, he was worried so much about scoring it hurt his all-around game. Now he realizes it, but it’s tough to rewind the clock. You can’t do that.”

By all appearances, Foster is now focused in the ways the coaches have been pushing. Barring a run to the tournament championship, K-State’s season won’t end in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2009 — Frank Martin’s second season, the year after Michael Beasley and Bill Walker went pro.

That’s primarily on Weber, of course, and fuel for anyone who wants to point out that Weber averaged 30 wins with three top 25 finishes in his first three seasons at Illinois and averaged 20 wins with no top 25 finishes in his last six years there.

Weber knows this, of course, and knows that what he hears from a supportive administration and those of us who still think he’s a good long-term fit for K-State will be much different with another disappointing season.

In no small part because of Foster’s midseason slump, Weber should have his best player back to try again in a season that will go a long way toward defining how both are remembered at K-State. They can start to build on that this week.

This story was originally published March 10, 2015 at 7:42 PM with the headline "Bruce Weber has the most interesting team in the Big 12, and that’s not a great thing."