Actually...I may have jinxed. Up 1 with 1:06 to go...
Also, I don't think that's how it works...Bucknell has the auto NIT spot as the league regular season champ. Lehigh wouldn't be in on resume.
BC has Holy Cross 1 win away from NCAA
- Thread starter catsattackfor3
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Also, I don't think that's how it works...Bucknell has the auto NIT spot as the league regular season champ. Lehigh wouldn't be in on resume.
Congrats to Carmody! Great to see him making the NCAA Tournament. But as many have said before, he's in the perfect place to do so. Still impressive considering they are five games under 500 as well.
I echo those congrats. But now let's get back to our team and our coach. Our NCAA chances are 0 just yet.
Yeah, easier making the Big Dance in a crappy conference than in the Big Ten. Hopefully in a year or two, it will be our team and coach's turn.
Exactly right, Secho99. I will always be a fan of BC as the guy who brought respectability to NU hoops, and with the class I hope people associate with Northwestern. I recall an Indiana fan stating on this board how he loved watching Carmody's teams because they play the game with smarts, skill and precision and often overachieve. High praise.
What did the Holy Cross team just achieve? Using a newly installed defensive scheme for their tournament, which I think was basically "rolling the dice", they just won four straight ROAD elimination games as underdog (9th seed out of 10) despite having lost all nine prior conference away games. They beat the #1, #2, and #4 seeded teams. They played all comers with confidence, poise, scrappiness, that you virtually never see from a team that finished one slot above the cellar, and gelled as a "true team" during those contests. They simply delivered thrilling basketball entertainment for 160 minutes. Cardiac Crusader basketball, in fact.
Okay, call Carmody out for finishing ninth in the regular season standings, if it helps you cope with what happened last night. First year in the league teaching a new system to unfamiliar players he had not coached before, and where he said he needed to confront some of the hard-heads to buy in to the concepts. And as he is not a "rah-rah leader" personality, or abusive/intimidating (as far as I can tell anyway), I think it had to be done rationally and firmly and as a "thinking man's coach".
I will never be really partial to any college team besides NU. But, I found myself riveted to the TV and backing the Crusaders more than I expected to. Such an extraordinarily improbable (Carmody's word last night) story was playing out game after game; a real "thing of beauty".
It just felt good seeing purple-clad players jumping all over each other in joy, shouting and cavorting and rolling around on the floor after the game(s) of their lifetimes --- coached by a guy I sort of know from a distance and appreciate for who he is. It's a scene we will see again, I believe, with a different name on the front of the jerseys and a different but also-admired head coach. I just hope THAT Northwestern head coach has the same satisfied smile and also has a last name starting with "C".
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Winning 4 straight road games and playing a team that had already kicked your butt twice during the season for the Championship ain't exactly "easy".....Congrats to Bill and his team. He definitely didn't "lose his team"
Winning 4 straight road games and playing a team that had already kicked your butt twice during the season for the Championship ain't exactly "easy".....Congrats to Bill and his team. He definitely didn't "lose his team"
No one said it was easy. But, it is TONS easier to do it in a crappy conference vs. the B1G. What Chris Collins accomplished getting to 20 wins in the B1G with NU dwarfs Holy Cross's accomplishments this year. And I'm still thrilled that he is our coach and Carmody was fired.
I guess E-Cat it depends on how you define it --- Going 10-19 during the season sure isn't great. But KenPom had the odds of Holy Cross winning the Patriot 2,000-1 at the start of the conference tournament. Beating 2,000-1 odds is a great accomplishment in basketball even if it's the Podunk Little League title. I would say it's the most amazing accomplishment of championship week until we go 4-for-4!
Is it really easier in a one bid crappy conference to get to the tournament? Not sure about that. Your whole season revolves around 3 or 4 games in a week in early March. The whole season is for nothing but seeding. In the Big Ten it may be more difficult to to compete for players but our league has had 8!!! teams make the dance once (in a 12 team league at the time). Its projected to have 7 this year (half the league). And do we need to be reminded of the Big East having 11 out of 16 making it just a few years ago before they split apart. You can finish 9th in the Big Ten if you have a good record and make the NCAA...finish 1st in a one bid league go undefeated in conference play and lose in the conference tournament and you are going to the NIT...totally disagree on that. Winning 20 games at NU is great but if we are playing in the CBI and Holy Cross is in the NCAA you really think that dwarfs HC's accomplishment over ours. Please our record is inflated by the weak arse non conference schedule and every one knows that. Its not to diminish we we have done but this is not the best team we have ever had here at NU (a couple of our NIT teams were better for sure) just the best regular season record.
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Throw in the fact that in many of the 1-bid conferences you have to win true road games along the way.
It's so different that it's just silly to compare.
Carmody is at a place that fits him. He served here to the best of his ability for 13 years, had some of our best-ever seasons, and helped the outside perception of our program a great deal.
Collins is the type of coach we need to really have a shot at taking the next step.
Why people can't accept that and feel the need to denigrate the accomplishments of one or the other is inescapable to me.
Well said. I would rather have Collins any day but I am happy for BC as well. That is tough to do what he did especially having a such a poor regular season which the team had to be full of doubt and could have cashed it in but instead rallied for a nice 1 week run and now will be in Dayton for the play in games. Maybe the Cats can have a nice 4 day stretch this week (which is are only hope to be playing in the NCAA)
Here's how I define it. Going 20-11 in the B1G beats a losing season and winning a Podunk midmajor tournament, that really shouldn't have an automatic bid to anything.
If we played Holy Cross, we would KILL them.
If we played in their conference, we would be undefeated in league play and we would win the tournament easily.
But that's silly and completely irrelevant. The NCAA Tournament provides an opportunity for the champion of each of its Division 1 member conferences to appear in its tournament. To say they don't "deserve" it is flat out wrong. To say they're actually one of the best 68 teams in America is ALSO flat out wrong.
Of course, I would hope, that Big Ten basketball players would win the Patriot League easily. Of course, if we were in the Patriot League, who on our roster would still be on our roster?
Did Carmody equal his conference tournament wins during NU's entire tenure this season with Holy Cross? If not, it's close...
Don't know what your trying to say but teams from conferences like the Patriot League do not belong in the NCAA tourney. Holy Cross and programs like them are not and should not be included in a tournament which should include the 64 best college teams.
The Patriot League gets a free pass for all eternity for Lehigh showing the Dukies the door in 2012.
How about some more Patriot love? Buckell over Kansas in 2005. That was great too.
I cannot even believe anyone is complaining about 1 bid leagues getting an automatic bid. That has been the case forever and its not going to ever change. The NCAA tournament has never been about the 48-64-now 68 best teams in the country. Aside from making the brackets the selection committee is all about choosing the 36 best teams who do not get an automatic bid. That's it, that is their purpose, that is what all the speculation and hand wringing is about this week until Sunday.... that's all that matters. You need to be the 36 best teams not to win your conference tournament to get in (Except for the Ivy League which is actually changing next year as they are having their top 4 teams play a tournament at the Palestra for the automatic bid)), all this other stuff is a waste of time.
Why don't you ask the players (or coaches, or fans, or...) in the Patriot League what they think of this idea?
It's a D1 conference just like any other and their conference champion deserves a berth in the NCAAs. The strength of the conference will be reflected in their seeding.
Which school has a better basketball history, Holy Cross or NU ? Which program has produced better pros ? Holy Cross belongs as do the other D1 League champions or tournament winners
Essentially, the current setup makes it possible to say that the NCAA tournament provides a chance for all Div 1 teams despite their eye appeal, considering that any one of them can hope, wish, dream, etc about getting in to the Big Dance by winning consecutive elimination games at the end of the season in their own conference tourneys.
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Actually that's a terrible record. HC should be judged on their record and strength of schedule.
We could make the tournament every year from now to 2027 and still have fewer tournament appearances than Holy Cross.
Who cares what happened before. NU plays in a actual power 5 conference, HC, not so much.
5-13 (.278) is a better percentage than 1-3 (.250)
Some great coaches have failed in Evanston.
We all THINK Collins will get us over the hump and it sure seems that way ..... but we all should know better than to count anything before it happens.
Wow, you sure posted that quick after we lost. Excited, are you? Of course, if you really want to compare things, we could compare B1G winning percentage.
If you really want to compare us to Holy Cross, maybe you should just switch teams, no? I guess the B1G isn't your cup of tea...
We never got to 0.500 BT record during those years. We needed to get to 0.500 in conference to get in.
It's not a damn comparison anymore.
What do you not understand? I've said many times the past three years I'd rather have Collins, and we're better off with Collins.
But are you that petty that you can't be happy for someone who served 13 years at Northwestern to the best of his ability, with moderate success that we hadn't had since the 1930s, never once hinting of scandal? Are you that butthurt he didn't give a farewell address so he's a dick, even though he spent the 2 years after the was fired running a tutoring program with a Boys and Girls Club in Central Jersey? Apparently you are.
I commented on a few threads after the game, most of which saying we deserve to be playing somewhere, probably not going to be the NIT, but so what I'm excited to play in the Vegas Tournament if we go there, and to me it IS a big deal to get Win 21.
But yeah I'm convinced you read what you want to read and hear what you want to hear.
I'll say it again and maybe you can understand. I liked Carmody a lot and appreciated his time and appreciated what he did, and yes, I'll respond to your snarky comments throughout this thread because you're pissing on someone who doesn't really deserve to be pissed on.
And I like Collins more. I'm willing to bet next year we make the 68.
Sigh. I thought this was over.
Hdhntr, if you think you know better than Lunardi and the rest of the pundits, then I won't debate you. The quote you referenced was in response to a poster that said we were never close to the tournament in BC's tenure. I was pointing out factual evidence to the contrary. The BIG was the strongest or tied for the strongest conference in the country for the first part of this decade. That's huge because...
...the .500 conference record requirement is a myth. It's important, but wasn't the deciding factor. Losing in the 1st round of the BTT in OT in heart breaking fashion (hey, like today!) was the nail in the coffin. If Sobo's floater doesn't bounce out vs Minnesota, there was chance the 'Cats would have gone dancing. I'd call that close.
Not a rule
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If it's not a comparison, then WHY DID YOU MAKE THE COMPARISON???? Make up your f'n mind, olshin...
Well, for some BC love, this from CCC after the game today:
"COACH COLLINS: I told them to remember what it was like when we had our first team meeting, you know, and you got a new coach, a young coach. It's a little bit disarray. We didn't know if Drew Crawford was coming back. And I had core group of guys, man, that -- I had a core group of guys that just believed in me and my staff coming in. All we wanted to try to do was be a continuation of what the -- I didn't think the program was in an awful place. Coach Carmody is a helluva coach. He proved that last night. I wouldn't have come to Northwestern if I didn't think we weren't in a place where we could build on what he did."
