I can’t help but let my mind wander to a place where Billy Beane bolted Oakland for the greener payroll of the Red Sox. Watching the A’s GM operate his crafty system without having to count anything, let alone beans, seems too good to be true.

And then it hit me — I have, in fact, seen Beane lead the Red Sox. And it is too good to be true.

My Beane’s name? Bruce Weber.

Weber is, by all measures, a top-notch coach, dad, man, you name it. You don’t get an impassioned five-minute voucher from Tom Izzo if you so much as teeter any way other than respectable.

But looking at Weber’s .472 mark in Big Ten Conference play since 2005-06, it’s clear there was a disconnect somewhere along the line. No arguments there.

The fact of the matter is, Weber’s lack of success since Bill Self’s aces left town arose out of a fundamental difference between his skill set and what the Illinois job entails. Plainly, it’s the difference between a head coach and head of a program.

Weber Billy Beaned like crazy at Southern Illinois, leading Oakland-worthy grinders like Darren Brooks and Stetson Hairston past six-seeded Texas Tech (led by Big 12 scoring champion Andre Emmett) and three-seeded Georgia (led by NBA lottery pick Jarvis Hayes) in the 2002 NCAA tournament.

There he was in his element. There he could do what he wanted to do all along: coach. No groveling, no back-alley deals, no arms race. Just X’s, O’s and character building. Carbondale represented a place where his skill set was a perfect fit with what the no-frills, Hoosiers-inspired Missouri Valley Conference job entailed. And he thrived.

When he got to Champaign (Boston), he enjoyed three years of bliss thanks to inheriting a roster tailor made for his scheme. That savvy group was ready, willing and able to swing the ball around the horn to look for a great shot and then play Saluki defense on the other end. They got Weber’s give-to-get system and they played it like a violin.

And then the creek ran dry.

But that’s just it — Weber continued on after his highly successful first three years in Champaign, doing what he knew best: serving as a head coach and not a head of the program. He continued to be Oakland’s Billy Beane despite the fact he had millions of dollars worth of talent just up I-57. And he paid dearly for it.

That 2003-06 group was a rarity, one that either would have required amazing luck or a gifted recruiter to replicate. Weber, we saw, was neither of those.

Coaching is, at the highest level, much more than coaching. Weber could gameplan with his hands tied to an anvil. But he’s just not the kind of GM-coach that a top-15 program requires to thrive at its fullest. It’s about having a burning passion for recruiting, so much so that you take a place like Storrs, Conn., or Syracuse, N.Y., and turn it into a destination.

Weber seemed to have no interest in wading the treacherous territory of high-end Chicago recruiting. And who could blame him? A coach coaches, plain and simple.

Think of it in terms of an oil-exporting nation. Weber ran his Southern Illinois program on diesel because it was cheap, effective and got the job done so he could spend time doing what he really loved.

Once he got to Illinois, which sits on the world’s No. 2 high-octane oil reserve, he continued doing what he knew best instead of adapting to the stipulations of the Illini job.

As we had confirmed, Weber is not Scott Drew, Anthony Grant or Jeff Capel in terms of recruiting elite talent at schools outside the exclusive Tier 1. As for how he lasted this long, he was just that excellent at his strengths to cover up for his deficiencies.

His time in ChamBoston-Urbana came to a close Friday with a heartfelt farewell to a fan base that has always been high on his character, even if wins didn’t correlate.

In the spirit of progress, here is my unabashed wish list for this program as an observer of college basketball, looking at the job as does CBS’ Seth Davis: in terms of recruiting base, resources and might, no matter the coach (explains Duke at No. 9, Illinois No. 10 in the Duke alumnus’ program rankings). Consider it a mission statement of sorts.

To maximize the potential of the job, the head coach at the University of Illinois needs to:

* Be a primary aggressor in the arms race that takes place each and every recruiting season, not a secondary one.

* Therein assembling a team that possesses the grit and explosiveness of Chicago basketball: out-sizing, out-rebounding and out-dunking teams from states that can’t match the talent level.

* Put a team in the Sweet 16 three out of every five years.

* Run a player-friendly style of basketball that harnesses the state’s superior talent, not ability to outwit national bullies.

If this sounds like it came from a message board, just remember it’s a vision of harnessing the full capabilities of the program.

To expect the Fab Five every fall is unrealistic. To expect a consistent reflection of Chicago’s talent, however, is far from it.

Two major tweaks need to happen before this can even enter the realm of possibility:

*1) New facilities*

The Assembly Hall is dim and dreary and now arguably sits at No. 11 in the conference. This has to change, as does a major renovation to the basketball offices/practice facilities. I don’t mean to offend, but the school’s Champaign location needs compensation. Illinois, as a rurally located school, should thereby have a “plus-plus” venue to show recruits, so much so that it makes up for the fact they are far from the downtown setting they saw on their visit the previous week to Madison, Columbus or Austin.

This includes making the passable offices/practice facilities into a veritable “wow” like the one that Oklahoma State planned with its proposed Athletics Village before the oil market collapsed and T. Boone Pickens’ donation went with it.

Illinois could do without a project on that scale, but it does need something to set it apart, something that will make prospective players excited about playing there instead of it being just adequate enough to keep it as a finalist.

*2) A gifted recruiter*

Finally, recruiting is about making and sustaining a splash.

It means straight-forward, genuine, un-slimy charisma that builds relationships and fosters a program for which recruits will be thrilled to play. Weber had a one-of-a-kind, gentleman-like personality, but it just didn’t click.

As for who that man is who has the “it” factor in recruiting, that remains to be seen. One thing is for sure, though, AD Mike Thomas would be wise to go for a man with experience mining high-octane oil, not data a la Billy Beane.

_Gordon is a senior in LAS. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @GordonVoit._