Kansas State has hired Bruce Weber to be its next men's basketball coach, Weber told ESPN.com's Andy Katz on Saturday.

Weber, fired March 9 after nine seasons at Illinois, is replacing Frank Martin, who left this week to become coach at South Carolina.

Weber will be the fourth coach to lead Kansas State in the past eight seasons. His deal with the Wildcats is for five years; financial terms were not disclosed.

Kansas State scheduled a 4 p.m. ET Saturday news conference to introduce Weber.

Weber led the Illini to the 2005 NCAA title game, where they lost to North Carolina. He finished 210-101 at Illinois, trailing only Lou Henson and Harry Combes in wins at the school.

However, his teams were just 55-66 in the Big Ten the past six seasons, including 6-12 this season. The Illini closed the season 2-12.

Weber told ESPN.com that he probably should have considered openings at Oklahoma and Missouri last season, but really wanted to coach the 2011-12 Illinois team. He also said his family loved living in Champaign.

When he got fired, he said, he needed time to figure out what he was going to do next, but knew he wanted to coach rather than go into television broadcasting.

Weber considered going back to Southern Illinois, where he coached for five seasons prior to Illinois, after the Salukis fired Chris Lowery. But the Kansas State opening was too good not to pursue.

The Wildcats wanted to hire a name coach after they lost Martin, the face of their program, to South Carolina.

Weber recruited well at Illinois, signing players such as Brandon Paul and Meyers Leonard. Recruiting at Kansas State is going to be tougher, however. Although both schools are in small college towns, Champaign, located between Chicago and St. Louis, has a much larger talent pool from which to draw.

Information from ESPN.com's Andy Katz and The Associated Press was used in this report.