I know what you mean, but the hyperbole is inappropriate. I could think of a lot more examples. Let’s keep some perspective.
Collins’ Future
- Thread starter Hungry Jack
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True. It’s when you know you know more than your preferred college program’s coach that’s the worst. (Lololol, that was just for you.)
I must be the only parent who feels that way....
I have coached Little H in baseball for 5 years, and we talk a lot about sports. He has regularly said that the coaches don't do much X and O stuff on offense. They do get coached up on man and zone defense. In his defense, he's a teacher first and a coach second. It's a small school.
But I do think sports, especially competitive ones, are one of the best teachers for kids. So many key lessons can be learned (and not learned) through sports. Surprisingly, there is a TON of trash talk on the court during the games of these small private schools. It's shocking to hear what Little H tells me. Thankfully he is learning how to avoid the trap (of talking back) and learning to let his play speak. It's really gratifying to see him learn to deal with this, as it something he will encounter the rest of his life.
What is your guess? How many points is a good coach going to get out of his roster each night compared to a bad coach with the same roster?
I don't follow your conclusion - looks like a typo.
I'd say good coaches are paid appropriately and bad coaches are grossly overpaid.
at the power 6 level.
5-10 points seems like an awful lot. I would be more inclined to go with winning 2-3 more games a year, which is massive and only the very best see that bump IMO.
The board can name its price with me if we stop using this and several other lines as talking points in the discussion of basketball coaches. The other lines are:
* Chicago is an incredible base for recruiting.
* We're right next to a world-class city.
* NU's academics are a strong advantage.
* The Chicago market gives us advantage.
* All we need is that ONE guy.
I'm sure I'm missing one or two more.
As far as I know, every coach since Foster (and probably earlier than that) has repeated the same four or five ideas. That's at least 30 years of the same ideas ... with just the hope of mediocre results every once in a while.
How many more decades do we need to understand these concepts aren't really differentiators? They're not as easy a "sell" as they seem.
You are conflating the goal (recruit two good players a year) with some of the reasons people cite as to why we should be able to achieve that goal.
Apples and oranges.
He's actually pretty wise about social media. Stays away from message boards.
They are the same mindless phrases used for decades for people who don't understand the reality. It's a huge problem with the administration. It's a huge problem with the fans.
Rutgers and NU are very different. I don’t think we lost Mulcahy because of any other reason than academics.
Gragg’s statement certainly hurt recruiting. I do agree that, IF it helped to make coaching change, then that’s a good job by Gragg.
Collins has (rightfully, IMO) tried to change the recruiting / playing dynamic to an NBA-prep style. I think it’s the only way we can someday change our history. He can’t just cherry-pick good academic students all that easily. There are other obstacles. And I think the biggest reasons we lose on recruits, after academics, is our lack of history, plus our lack of gameday environment. Getting a new facility does not change our history or put butts in the seats or attract recruits; it’s just table stakes to compete.
Collins was a great hire, IMO. And he still is proving it. But if he can’t / couldn’t get us to a sustainable winning model, then I ultimately really don’t think it is possible without major institutional change.
To get a little more realistic, I think we should look at the '16-'17 tournament team and Carmody's unfortunate '03-'04, 8-8 team. Assuming a great player won't sign on for awhile, these give us good templates for minimums for strong NU teams.
For a little definition, I'll say there's three types of players NU needs in its rotation:
1) Great - Unfortunately, during my time, I think there's only been one - maybe two - players in this category, Eschmeyer and maaaaaaaaybe Shurna. So I'm assuming the great player won't be here in the short term.
2) Good - BMac, Law, Pardon and maybe Lindsey on the tourney team. Jitim, VV and maybe Parker and Hachad on the '04 team.
3) Role Players /Pieces- To me, these are rotational players who no one would call a good all-around player. But they add value. On the '04 team, I'm tempted to put Parker abd Hachd here. After that, Davor and ... well, that's it.
For the '17 team, this was a strength. You had Sanjay, Taphorn, Brown and Skelly. A bit of quantity-over-quality approach.
Without that great player, for me, the '17 team shows a decent realistic template - four good players and 3 or 4 pieces/role players [4/4]. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the Carmody teams had a number of those role players to go along with even three good players .
And look at any of the NU teams maybe going back to Byrdsong. Do any of them have this 4/4 mix? I don't see it
I might be playing semantics, but to get two "good" recruits for - let's say - 3 out of 4 years requires nearly perfect recruiting at NU. Six well-evaluated choices ... no injuries, no transfers, no grade issues. When has that ever happened at NU?
You need those 4 workable, role players to fill in any gaps that are bound to happen with the good players.
I think Carmody was stronger than CC at getting the good players. The opposite is true for Collins. A consistent (key word) mix of the 4 good players and 4 role players would be a realistically good step forward for the next guy.
For a little definition, I'll say there's three types of players NU needs in its rotation:
1) Great - Unfortunately, during my time, I think there's only been one - maybe two - players in this category, Eschmeyer and maaaaaaaaybe Shurna. So I'm assuming the great player won't be here in the short term.
2) Good - BMac, Law, Pardon and maybe Lindsey on the tourney team. Jitim, VV and maybe Parker and Hachad on the '04 team.
3) Role Players /Pieces- To me, these are rotational players who no one would call a good all-around player. But they add value. On the '04 team, I'm tempted to put Parker abd Hachd here. After that, Davor and ... well, that's it.
For the '17 team, this was a strength. You had Sanjay, Taphorn, Brown and Skelly. A bit of quantity-over-quality approach.
Without that great player, for me, the '17 team shows a decent realistic template - four good players and 3 or 4 pieces/role players [4/4]. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the Carmody teams had a number of those role players to go along with even three good players .
And look at any of the NU teams maybe going back to Byrdsong. Do any of them have this 4/4 mix? I don't see it
I might be playing semantics, but to get two "good" recruits for - let's say - 3 out of 4 years requires nearly perfect recruiting at NU. Six well-evaluated choices ... no injuries, no transfers, no grade issues. When has that ever happened at NU?
You need those 4 workable, role players to fill in any gaps that are bound to happen with the good players.
I think Carmody was stronger than CC at getting the good players. The opposite is true for Collins. A consistent (key word) mix of the 4 good players and 4 role players would be a realistically good step forward for the next guy.
Shurna was a great NU player. All time leader in scoring and blocked shots, led the B1G in points, NU made postseason all 4 years he played. First Team All B1G. All American.
No question about it.
No question about it.
Gary Barnett won 2 conference championships (not divisions) with the worst facilities in the country. Randy Walker won a conference championship with awful facilities and had the program on very solid ground when Fitz took over. You can finish in the bottom third of the conference in recruiting every year (which Fitz pretty much does) and still be competitive because a senior 3-star offensive lineman might be much better than a 5-star freshman. In basketball, people are upset if a highly ranked player isn't making an impact in his first 10 games (see the center from Duke). Aaron Rodgers didn't have a Division I scholarship offer out of high school. 2 star recruits get drafted in the first round every year. Football recruiting is kind of a crap shoot at the middle tiers. 18-year old kids can gain 50 pounds in college. Those sorts of dramatic transformations rarely happen in basketball. Most of the great players are identified by the time they are 16. Most of the kids couldn't pass admissions and the few remaining players aren't coming to NU. How many programs do we actually compete with for football recruits (maybe 50 or 60). How many programs do we actually compete with for basketball recruits (maybe 100)?
Every basketball coach in the history of the program only has had to recruit 2 good players a year. Nobody other than Collins led us to the NCAA tournament. Why is that?
I'd put a lot of the blame on bad coaching and really bad facilities, coupled with the academic standards.
Is it possible that Walker, Barnett and Fitz were good at identifying coachable, dedicated players and developing them into more than others expected than to be? You know, being a head coach. You seem to be completely ignoring the wasteland that was Northwestern football before Barnett.
Carmody was not a dynamic recruiter, but he inherited a disaster of a program and it took awhile, but eventually he got NU into the NIT four years in a row. It wasn't the top of the heap, but it was pretty good for Northwestern basketball. Then he got fired after one season where injuries destroyed his roster.
I'm not going to go beyond that because everybody is entrenched in their feelings about Collins. If I repeat what I have said in the past, I will get blamed for the discussion that follows, even though it is pretty obvious that Gordie is back with his same old agenda.
Frankly, did you predict us to do so well so far this year, PWB? My agenda is renewed and fresh from this; you’re still trying to find needles in the Collins hatestack.
You win. I give up. There is no reason to engage you. You're like February weather in Chicago. Relentless, dreary and monotonous. It's your board.
Carmody was 3 and 31 in years 7 and 8. And the NIT is meaningless. Nobody cares. In those 4 great years, our best record in the conference was 8 and 10. He was fired after 13 seasons for not getting us to the tournament. Not after 1 tough year. He deserved to be fired just like Collins needs to go. But at least Collins got us to the tournament in his 10 years, which is the only thing that matters.
Having to play at All State after the tourney season really hurt in my opinion. Some of the crowds at home during the tourney season were fantastic. A real home court advantage. Winning will do that. And then instead of playing the next season at home with a ton of momentum they had to be in Rosemont. Collins never took advantage of the momentum he had but I think it might’ve been different if he could’ve played that next season in Evanston.
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