I don't think Izzo could do anything that Collins doesn't do. Izzo couldn't get the same players admitted here.
Can we get a little realistic?
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I don't think Izzo could do anything that Collins doesn't do. Izzo couldn't get the same players admitted here.
Yes? NU is paying the head coach significantly more than they ever have, they broke the tournament streak, they just spent hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading the facilities, and now they've jacked up the ticket prices and are requiring high-dollar donations on top of that to get better seats. That was after they fired the previous head coach because four NITs in five years wasn't good enough and they had bigger ambitions. They're acting like a grown-up program and, more importantly, spending a lot of money to get there.
It's year two of the new arena and, if the team is anywhere near as bad as we all expect, W-R is going to be deserted this year. (Except, of course, when visiting fans fill it up.) Who knows, maybe Pat Ryan will look around his $100M+ mausoleum and think "Oh well, must be the admissions standards, at least these players get good grades" and be happy, but somehow I doubt it.
Four NITs (followed by a season of 4 conference wins along with building our future around Ajou and Turner) doesn’t hold a candle to making round 32 of the NCAAs. That’s a fact. And you can THANK Collins for the upgrade in facilities, etc. That was him...
Styre, you're a better fan than that.
You're really going to lead with the salary argument? At best, he's paid in the upper level of the second half of B10 salaries. Pikiell at Rutgers has a higher base salary (don't know the total package. I assume and WOULD HOPE CC's is better.) So, as usual, NU is nowhere near leading. You really want to compare to the laughable investments they made in the past?
But this is why we need the discussion about realistic expectations. In the end, the money the school spends only gets the program so far until you hit the wall of grade restrictions. It's like driving an Indy car with the best sponsors, an aggressive team owner, the best driver and a great mechanic who is only allowed to build engines on parts from the junk yard.
Yes, the expectations should be higher than they were in the late 90s and 2000s. It wouldn't be hard for them to be much lower. And as much as everyone continually does everything to ignore it, at least one of many goals was met - not to mention the facilities, etc.
Now, can Collins do it again? I'm not going to blow smoke up anybody's skirt and say I believe he can. As I said, plenty of questions.
But the guy sure deserves more credit than he gets. And he's EARNED something in the ballpark of the foundation of his second class to see if he can get beyond the first tourney bid, the new stadium, the new practice facility and higher-rated recruits in rankings only.
Excellent post.
CCC is the 13th highest paid Coach in the Big Ten besting only Pat Chambers at PSU. The salary argument is null and void.
The new WR is great to watch a game. A monumental improvement over the old one, but it still not going to bring in any recruits. All but 2 B1G arenas are twice as large. Doubt we get any recruits saying I got to go to NU with the new WR instead of Maryland. The new WR just puts NU in a position to not have to apologize for the locker rooms, training facilities and bleacher seats in the upper ranges. A great step but not an enticement over other teams.
If NU wants to act like a big boy program they alleviate some of the admissions restrictions to supplement their spending ( which is high for NU only). I am not at all convinced that granting extra latitude will result in kids that can’t graduate or kids that represent the program poorly. There are conflicting priorities here and Admissions wants to insure the academic reputation is maintained at all cost. We bash Duke on here as letting in anyone that meets minimum requirements, yet the profile of the average student and the application for admission have improved with the success of the BBall team.
Thanks!
My point is that NU is spending a lot more money than they ever did before. Sure, that level of spending only gets them into the Big Ten team photo - but the fact remains that their expense sheet is significantly bigger than in the past. I would not be surprised at all if the people writing those checks will hold the program to a higher standard as a result. After all, if admissions requirements are the sole factor holding the program back, and those aren't going to change, why did they bother spending all that money in the first place?
For as long as I can remember, the refrain around NU fandom has been that if only we can make the tournament, if only we stop playing and practicing in a garbage dump of a stadium, the sky will be the limit. Well, those things happened, and unsurprisingly, after the NCAA appearance, the tone here was rapturous - the program is headed to stratospheric new heights! Why can't we make the Final Four? Chris Collins is the next Coach K! The future of the basketball team is clearly brighter than that of the football team! And yet I don't remember a bunch of posts at the time saying "Hold on, folks, none of that is going to happen because we'll never overcome our admissions standards."
That said, I don't think we're that far off from one another. I agree that more patience is warranted with Collins, and I think anyone advocating for his firing right now is being silly. But if we're sitting here two years from now and things don't look any brighter, I don't think advocating for a change would be out of line. You can't give him a lifetime contract for one NCAA appearance.
Plenty of people said that, and having been saying so, for years. This dates back before Brzoja but even with that guy, we're talking about seven years ago:
https://www.insidenu.com/2012/6/7/3068085/mislav-brzoja-northwestern-recruiting-admissions
I'm talking specifically about the time immediately after the NCAA appearance, when nobody was saying "let's be realistic, NU is never going to do better than this with its current academic requirements" as the fanbase was losing its mind with fantastic visions of the future.
Complaints about the admissions department largely stopped after Collins arrived, because recruiting improved and the team got better. After all, Collins was able to get the core of a good NCAA team through admissions, and those guys weren't even that highly rated relative to the Big Ten. Now that the team is bad again, admissions has resurfaced as a big concern.
Of course, I'm not saying admissions isn't a concern; in fact, we know from our resident program insider's posts that Collins is frustrated with admissions. But the reason the team is bad right now isn't the admissions department, it's the fact that 5/7 Collins recruits across three classes contributed little to nothing and then left the program. That's unsustainable no matter where you are.
My solution starts institutionally. NU chose to become competitive and respectable in FB. Then thy started filling the roles - Barnett, Walker, Fitz - series of facility improvements - major money into marketing. And we now have a program that competes - some of us push to see the program be further developed. But the last 25 years has been a success.
MBB - they had coaches that were good, but no school support, then they started bringing in looney coaches, screamers, over the hill guys, etc. Now they have instilled a low budget, local kid with ties to the NBA. CCC was not a hot commodity, he wasn't a reknown Xs and Os, etc. He is a sparkling personality that passed on NU for the bigger stage. They piggy NU FB marketing, band-aid facility upgrades, cheap on coaches, etc.
It is no surprise that BB doesn't command the exceptions that FB does. The admin does not care much about BB. So dump it - drop the budget dramatically and spend that money elsewhere. Absent a major donor alum throwing a fit and demanding serious BB improvement - the institution has not created the environment to generate success.
Just plain dumb. And for a smart guy you really do yourself a disservice to suggest this.
Well, maybe. I'm a frustrated fan. I also believe in the definition of insanity. So when the conventional fails, gotta think outside the box. Everything I have stated, I would do. If MBB fans would simply stop supporting the team (rough on the kids - but this is big time revenue, not little league, so too bad), maybe that would force something. But that won't happen. If CCC quit and left complaining about the admissions in a public fashion to ward off potential coaches, maybe that would force a change in order to simply recruit a non-laughable coach. Who knows? But what has been going on does not work.
And it's easy to attack thinkers -especially when creative and potentially volatile answers are needed - how about this? Offer up your idea on how to change the program to achieve a success level enjoyed by the FB program.
Hire a better coaching staff. One who can actually x and o plus can recruit Jimmies and Joes.
Ahhhhh, my faith in the NU fan base has begun its rehab. Good stuff.
There are a couple items that I practically agree with you, but ...
The cost/benefit factor is something you regularly reference in your postings. Of course, it makes sense, and I'm sure there's at least some (very small) attention to that internally to justify the expense. But God bless 'em ... I really don't think that's much of a consideration for Ryan. I really think Ryan's love is unconditional as far as W-L record.
I mean, both major programs are better in the last 20-30 years ... they're acceptable in an NU framework ... but if you think about it as a cost/wins-benefit, has the man received a good return on his $500 million+? I'd generously say no.
The idea that he generally donates as much as he does with no strings attached blows my mind also. But the football program, for instance, has shown improvement, but it still has a ways to go. And attendance isn't exactly mindblowing. But he continually keeps the program afloat. I assume he's not that far away from his second stadium rehab.
I just don't think cost-benefit is a strong consideration for him.
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OK, let’s explore your idea. What candidates do you have in mind that we could realistically lure to Northwestern?
I genuinely don't know the answer to this. We know, though, that the football facilities investment was a direct result of Fitz demanding it, and supposedly Collins agitated for the same thing with W-R. Fitz has consistently improved the football team in that time; Collins had one wonderful year and is back to struggling. Does that make a difference to Pat Ryan? I have no idea, but at the very least I think it could.
What I do know, however, is that the other part of the cost/benefit factor is the fans, and our fans are absolutely not going to shell out to watch a bad basketball team at notably higher prices. I know die-hard NU fans who dropped their season tickets after last year, people I would never have expected to do so. And I do think that the athletic department will sit up and take notice if they start taking a big revenue hit.
Ultimately, the best solution to all of these problems is for Collins' newest recruits to come through and point the program back toward success.
No clue. I'm not the AD for a very good reason. The only think Phillips and I have in common is we're both Drs.
Do what Carmody's staff did. Recruit guys who will be here for four years and develop them.
Do what Carmody and his staff didn't. Emphasize defense and rebounding. Carmody de-emphasized those areas, presumably because he was conceding them to the more talented conference opponents. I don't think that's necessary.
It's no mystery why Carmody remains polarizing. His players were likable. His teams walked us right up to the precipice of the NCAA Tournament. Yet, his glaring weaknesses and failures were maddening and were a direct obstacle to reaching The Dance.
If he were a worse coach, we would never talk about him. He would be consigned to the dust bin of Northwestern head coaches of the past without a shrug.
He was just good enough to piss us off, not good enough to do what we ultimately wanted.
Oh please. You know better. You must be bored tonight. Don't put us through this.
If he hates the program enough to want to drop it, I’d like to know why he wastes his time on this forum.
We've won a greater percentage of BIG games in the first 6 years of CC's tenure than ANY six-year period since the 1960s! ANY! And THIS is the time you pick to be frustrated?
Let me tell you about frustration-- from 1985 to 1989 I attended NU. During that time, we won 8 BIG games, Not 8 in one season, 8 total! We are light years ahead of those days, and have dramatically improved with each of the last two coaches. Do you think Dr. Jim turned down the BIG commissioner post because he is going to allow the MBB program to fail?
He was the consensus #1 candidate for the commissioner, and he is not the commissioner. You're smart, you figure it out...
Better than what? Getting to the tourney was better than we had ever done. Will we get back? I would say yes. Do I know when? Heck no. Hopefully in a couple years
On the other hand his conference percentage the last 5 of those 6 years is not as good as Carmody’s was his last five years in the job, and Carmody was fired. I think the time to judge is two years from now, and by that time success will be clear, or the program will have had four bad years after reaching the tournament and his retention should be in question. That doesn’t mean I want him to fail, and I don’t want Carmody back, though I really don’t think Collins would have had a team reach the tournament without some of the successes Carmody had.
His overall conference winning percentage is better than Carmody’s. You can’t cherry pick BC’s best years for your argument. You have to use the whole framework.
In other words, you're just guessing.......
Read all rhe detailed articles on Dr. Jim, in this regard, as I have. Then let me know if you still think this is sone sort of randon guess.
Yeah, funny how he could have just compared CC six years to BCs last six. But of course, that would have to include BC's 1-17 (lol) BIG season. Whoopsie...
Ok, I'll do that:
6 years before CC took over: 97-96 (35-73)
6 years since CC took over: 101-96 (40-70)
he didn't turn it down
interesting - strength of conference and OOC over those years? B1G win percentage?
disagree only from the standpoint that the few high end academic kids that will go to blue bloods would the potentially give NU the commitment. would definitely get kids like Cormac Ryan and then getting kids like Steward and Baldwin/Christie if had a name and resume such as Izzo.
hiring a coach like that is a long shot and it really needs to happen organically.
So....we have improved (albeit slightly), but with an NCAA appearance to go with it, along with a coach who’s been proactive about making upgrades to the program. I’ll take it.
Oh, geez. Does coaching get a lifetime achievement award guarantee?
Yes, I picked 5 years instead of 6 both because the 1-17 was a terrible year, and not including it helped make some points I think you both are missing.
Mike, you used 6 years because that is Collins current tenure but did limit it to the period ending in 1969 when Larry Glass left, which is ok I guess.
I will also stipulate that Collins has the best winning percentage in conference since Glass.
When Carmody was fired, he had the better winning percentage in conference than any of the six coaches since Glass before him, and the best 5 year conference win percentage (41.67, which Collins matched in his first five years). Rightly, he was fired.
My points, which I should have said explicitly, were that at some point you no longer consider a coaches tenure a lifetime achievement award, and have to evaluate where the coach and team are at the moment and trending, and said I thought that was 2 years out from now. I used 5 years not only because it fit my point but because it represents a full recruiting cycle, that is, four years with a redshirt. In two years, if the team goes 4-16 each year will either of you want to retain Collins because he had the best 6 year run since Glass or got the Cats to the tournament, even if his five year trend at that point is considerably worse than Carmody’s was? In two years, by the way, to beat Carmody’s final 5 years, the Cats will need to average 9-11 in conference., which I don’t expect them to do. I’ve implied, and will say directly that there are a lot of cases where you would want to retain him with a record poorer than that. I would also say that if there are two more season’s like last, you would probably want to let him go.
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Bingo. The reason no one ever complained about admissions around the Tourney year was because BMac, Lindsey, Law and Pardon (and Skelly to an extent) all turned out as good (or better) than advertised.
By contrast, whether due to injury or lack of development, Falzon, Ash, Ivanauskas, Brown and Benson did not live up to expectations.
Pretty darn hard to win games when you effectively have two completely lost recruiting years (2015 and 2016) and follow that up with a one-recruit class.
