I’m still having fun with Bruce Weber’s post-Purdue press conference. He challenged the media to tell you what a great job he’s doing, and I’m taking the bait. It’s really just a matter of framing it. Weber’s frame was the first 3:45 of Sunday’s game. He led Illinois to a 7-0 lead.
But that’s fleeting. For long term results, you could say Weber is now in his third decade of helping Purdue to Big Ten Championships.
Much of Weber’s rant raised the specter of subversive elements corrupting his program from without. Weber didn’t name Demetri McCamey as the mole. but that seemed to be how most people took it.
Weber predicted his words would be taken out of context, and that he’d likely be pilloried for them.
Having read Orwell — and much preferring Huxley’s tone re: our dystopian future — I take a lighthearted approach to doomsday.
(Make up your own mind. The unedited audio is here.)
Whether Weber’s sense of reality is failing, it’s no less interesting. Whatever he intended to do — clear the air, or invent a shadow controversy to obfuscate mundane on-court problems — he stirred the pot.
So it was left to Meechi to clear the air, and also to figure out what’s responsible for his recent slump.
While Coach Weber lashed out at uncles, cousins, ministers of the holy gospel, and people who work on cars; McCamey got on the phone with his high school coach Gene Pingatore, who advised Meechi about what’s actually happening with his game.
See the video, infra.
Tuesday’s availability also allowed Mike Davis to redirect the energy currently fanning internet flames about his and DJ Richardson’s postgame comments. Mike said there’s nothing divisive about the team.
As for DJ, Loren Tate got it right; he was simply repeating the company line. If you haven’t heard a single Bruce Weber sound bite this year, you’ll have missed that the company line involves “playing with energy” and/or “with a sense of urgency.”
If there is anything tangible, quantifiable or even qualifiable about “energy” or “urgency,” you might think we’d know it by now. I asked Brandon Paul what it meant to him.
That, and many other juicy or crusty nuggets: