Some people think Bruce Weber was fighting for his job when the embattled Illinois head basketball coach made some rather surprising postgame remarks after another painful loss on Wednesday night.

"The sad thing about the whole thing," Weber told reporters after a 67-62 home loss to Purdue, "and I guess it's my fault — instead of creating toughness and developing a team, I coached not to lose all year."

Others were convinced the man who led the Illini to the NCAA national championship game seven seasons ago sounded like a defeated man who was issuing a deflated concession speech.

"Instead of developing people, I was worried about winning," he said. "The last three years, all I did was worry about winning instead of developing a culture and a toughness. That's my fault. You're trying to please everyone instead of pleasing yourself. That's my fault, in hindsight."

But to me, Weber doesn't sound like he's worrying about saving his job or surrendering to the inevitable, either. It sounded more like a very prideful man trying to preserve his sanity and maybe just a bit of his own professional dignity, too. That wasn't resignation we heard. It was defiance, and good for him. Weber is the sort of coach who is great for college basketball. Everyone should want a guy like this running their basketball program. He has integrity. He cares about doing things the right way. He knows how to teach. He is a reliable game coach, too. He isn't one of those BBD (bigger better deal) guys who are always ready to dash off to the next big opportunity.

And yet, he's a man on the hot seat and I completely understand why.

He has a new boss who already has put a bulls eye on his chest, a fan base that grumbles about him incessantly and a team that seems to have very little fight in their competitive personalities.

So, Weber is fighting back against all these forces, and I don't blame him.

But I also think that it won't save his job, and maybe that's a good thing.

Maybe it's simply time to move on. Maybe it's time for Weber to go find a director of athletics who does like him, wants him and has his back no matter what the situation. New Illinois AD Mike Thomas doesn't appear to be that guy. Thomas wants his own people coaching his biggest teams. He fired football coach Ron Zook a few months ago, and now he's zeroing in on Weber and women's basketball coach Jolette Law, too.

I understand why Weber's job is in jeopardy. The man who hired him is no longer there, and Thomas has made it clear that Weber's job was under heavy scrutiny. Last week, Thomas told a Champaign radio station that he would evaluate Weber's job status at the end of the season.

"For us, we have to compete at the highest level with our men's basketball program," Thomas said Saturday on WDWS-1400 AM. "There's no doubt about it. We have to be in the higher ranks of the Big Ten Conference. Let's face it, in the Big Ten, not just men's basketball but for anything, if you're in the upper crust, you're a top team nationally."

When you go from a 15-3 start of the season only to lose seven of the past eight and plunge to 16-10 (5-8 in the Big Ten), that isn't good. When you had these bad late-season fades over the last three seasons, that's even worse. When you are 49-52 in the Big Ten over the last six years, that's how a fan base can go sour on you.

On Thursday, Weber issued a statement through the school that seemed to back track off Wednesday's comments just a bit.

"I spoke out of frustration following another difficult loss," he stated. "I am disappointed in myself, as I said, for not developing a culture of toughness with our team up to this point in the season. The difference between winning and losing is toughness and having the will to win, and that is something we will continue to try to instill in our team. We have a young group that has now been involved in 13 games decided by five points or less, which I believe is the most of any program in the country this season. Our players, our staff, and I know our fans are frustrated because we are so close to putting it together. As I told our team last night, we have a lot to play for over these last five regular-season games as well as the Big Ten tournament. We still have an opportunity to make the NCAA Tournament, and I'm looking forward to practice today and working with our players to help us reach that goal."

Those weren't his words. Those were words that were put in his mouth and you have to know they didn't go down easy. This was supposed to be a clarification, but really it wasn't anything more than proof that he was a coach who knows his days are numbered. Barring a late February or early March miracle, his time at Illinois is up, but Weber won't be out of work long. This is one of those guys who everyone in college basketball respects.

In his ninth season since moving from Southern Illinois, Weber is 212-95 (a .691 winning percentage and the third-highest win total in Illinois history). He has won two Big Ten titles — the 2003-04 title was Illinois' first outright Big Ten championship since 1952 — and finished with at least 20 wins in seven of the eight seasons he's completed in Champaign. He took the Illini to the Sweet 16 in his first year, and Illinois was the NCAA championship runner-up in his second season. Yet, since the championship game appearance in 2005, the Illini have gone 2-4 in the NCAA, and missed out on March Madness in two of the past four seasons.

So, I refuse to accept the idea that Weber somehow has turned into a bad coach. I am more inclined to say he's merely a very good coach in a very bad circumstance.