Illinois' Inability to Acquire Shaka Smart Sends Program to New Low

Shaka Smart would have jump-started the Illinois basketball program, but he refused Athletic Director Mike Thomas' $2.5 million a year offer to stay at VCU.

Now the program is left to scramble to find alternatives for their head coaching position. 

Illinois is feeling the pressure big time because not only are they looking for a new coach to restore some legitimacy to the program, they are also one of only three Big Ten schools to have never had a minority coach.

The school is feeling pressure from the community, the conference and in recruiting to increase diversity.

It's not as though Smart isn't a brilliant young coach. At 34 years old, he's already lead VCU into the NCAA tournament two consecutive years, including a Final Four appearance in 2011. Add to his success his multi-racial ethnicity, and he would have been the perfect man to succeed Bruce Weber.

Acknowledgement of the latter could've been the reason he said no thanks to Thomas. 

As Smart rebuffed Illinois, it now appears that hiring a minority is tops on the program's list, even though Thomas won't outwardly admit it.

This could be a difficult find, because who wants to be that guy?

If a coach feels that a major reason for his hiring is the color of his skin, and the program's need to show diversity, it could be a turn-off.

This stigma makes the job a bit undesirable, and it could have cost them a shot at, in my opinion, the brightest young coach in the country in Smart.

The Illini need to find a candidate that has the ability to recruit in the city of Chicago. This has been an issue for the Illini for decades. As the foremost basketball program in the state, you'd expect that the school would get its fair share of Chicago talent.

It hasn't been the case.

Players like Derrick Rose, Quincy Miller, Anthony Davis and Iman Shumpert all hail from Illinois. Davis and Rose are from the heart of Chicago, yet none of these top talents have landed in Champaign.

Many blame Bruce Weber's lack of recruiting charisma, but this issue dates back further than him. Even the legendary Lou Henson had problems recruiting in Chicago's talent-laden Public League.

Where the Illini will go from here is uncertain, and that doesn't bode well for recruiting moving forward. This represents instability, and it isn't as if the Illini are building on a ton of on-court success. It'll likely be a much lesser-known coach, or someone getting their first opportunity when the job is filled.

Either way, this isn't an exciting time for Illinois basketball.