As Illinois prepares to face Northern Illinois on Tuesday night in Champaign, coach Bruce Weber was faced with a new round of questions about his willingness to play Southern Illinois-Carbondale, his former employer and a program of national impact throughout the 2000s.

“We’ll play the state schools if they want to come to us,” Weber said Monday. “It’s difficult for us to return. There’s chatter from the SIU faithful. We’ll try to work out somewhere to play them. … We’ve told them they can come here. We’ve talked about Chicago. They’d like to play in St. Louis, but I don’t know if that would ever work out. We’ve got the Mizzou game and we’re not going to change (SIU for Mizzou).”

Illinois and SIUC have played twice: In 1982 and 2001. Saluki fans will argue that Weber doesn’t want to play after he nearly coached their team to a win over Illinois in Las Vegas in ‘01. Illinois won that game 75-72.

Under Weber, Illinois has played Chicago State, Illinois-Chicago, Illinois State, Western Illinois and now Northern Illinois. He attended an event in Carbondale last week and was asked about scheduling the Salukis, coached by his friend Chris Lowery.

“It was the first question asked, of course,” he said. “I said we’d try to play. They may come up here, but they’d like to see if they can get us in Chicago or somewhere else.”

Then he added:

“I don’t mind playing in-state schools. It’s good for everybody but you can’t keep everybody happy and can’t play games on the road.”

Weber said the expanded Big Ten schedule, an annual game in Chicago, the ACC/Big Ten Challenge and a yearly exempt tournament make it difficult to play many road games.