Have any of the grad transfer men's basketball players in NU history ever received a masters degree from NU?
Collins
- Thread starter stpaulcat
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A lot depends on the conference. Loyola is a great story. I had 3 kids go there so I follow them. Moser would have been a great guy to get. He knows what he is doing and is a helleva nice guy to boot. However, things would be much different for them if they were in the B1G. Xavier and Providence both have a much richer BBall tradition than NU. Pretty sure their admission standards are lower than NU.
Being a Non-Alum, I want players that can win games and not be knuckleheads. If players go to classes, learn something that makes them productive citizens after BBall, and can reasonably be expected to make academic progress, sign me up. Might be rooting for laundry, I will take being Duke light any day of the week. Take the leap, it isn’t that hard.
Glad to see your support while you were a student. I am wondering why you think the student support seems to have waned over recent times? NU certainly wasn’t a powerhouse when you were a student. I am disappointed at the overall support of the program. The Wisconsin game was much better. I know you said your daughter is a student, do you have any insights on why student attendance seems to be down. To me, this isn’t a recent development. So I am not sure recent poor performance accounts for this. The university needs to figure out how to get Purple Clad maniacs into unused fat cats Seats in the Wilson Club. Students would be the best in those highly visible seats.
I think it's directly related to winning. If there is excitement around the program, the students will show up and be loud. That's a given. No one wants to watch a game where we have nearly a zero chance of winning.
I don't know when PWB attended, but let's look at this century. I'm going to take an arbitrary # of B1G wins at, say, 7. Below that is a pretty bad year, and above that is close to our recent peak. re fan support, those are the only games that people really attend, right? Not many go to see Kutztown State during finals week. Especially now with a 20 game B1G season, 7 wins shouldn't be that hard.
This is the longest stretch of "6 wins or fewer" this century, and I am presuming there is no way this team comes up with 5 more wins. None of these students have seen a winning season overall or more than 6 B1G wins. That can't help their enthusiasm.
I went twice. First at the end of dark ages. Returned for a second degree in around 2005. The first time, winning or lack thereof. Week nights were studying or bars. Weekends were tailgate outside stadium, rarely go in.
During the second tour, teams were better but Greek system seemed to have died. I think a Greek system really helps. But even still, I went to a bunch of athletic events and they all seemed well attended. Hell, we had incredible field hockey, lacrosse and softball teams. Walker died and that was a real curve ball.
Winning is the answer. NU has nerds. But also has plenty of sports interested kids. But rabidly cheering on a loser team that’s tough to watch…when most didn’t pick NU for athletics…. I was a ND fan in high school.
PPD, I think student support for athletics has fallen for two reasons, maybe three.
Most importantly, "school is hard." These kids study a LOT. The mindset is pretty different. NU, in my opinion, has shifted its focus to kids who are really driven. Being intelligent just doesn't cut it any more. You have to be a "leader" or "entrepreneur" in high school, with all kinds of accomplishments or NU probably doesn't want you. Thats a double-edged sword. But I can tell you that many NU students don't feel like they can take the time to go to the games. And a lot of them really don't care much about the teams. They are too focused on trying to get ahead themselves. I'm generalizing of course. But the focus on GPA is astonishing and dismaying at the same time. "If, you don't have a 3.7 GPA, you won't get a decent internship and if you can't get an internship, your life is ruined" type of mindset. When I was at NU, I needed a really good reason to miss a conference game.
Secondly, the social scene at NU has declined (badly) as the Greek system has come under scorn by a lot of students and faculty. Its a little too "woke" for me. (For the record, Morty Shapiro was a big advocate of Greek life) I never joined a fraternity but had friends at many of the houses and the frats were the social pulse on campus. They led the attendance at football and basketball games. Now I think there are 4 fraternities left. Not a lot of parties. No pressure to go to games. Not a lot of "school spirit." I find that rather sad. (I also find the attacks on fraternities and sororities to be quite disingenuous, bordering on asinine)
Lastly, winning does matter to these students. They don't like to be associated with losing. It did not matter to me or most of the people I hung around with. Some of the football and basketball players lived in my dorm and I knew them personally. Football can get away with losing because games are usually on Saturday afternoons in the fall, so the weather is usually ok. Weeknight games in the winter require more energy/enthusiasm, so basketball games are easier to skip. But I have asked my daughter why so few students go to games and her answer has been "because we're terrible" and "only about 25% of the students are social." Winning would bring out more students, I'm sure of that.
the last one, winning, is the key. Especially HOW we lose close games so often, so you can't even get excited by the close game, since we will likely lose. Also the LOOOOONNNNNGGGG losing streaks. Last year is the best example. If you look at the 6-13 record, it's comparable to/better than all but 2 of our last 10 years, including this year, but that 13 game losing streak is like watching "ow my balls" on Idiocracy. No fan would sit through that, and the three game winning streak at the end - meh.
While I'm griping about losing, I still fail to understand how we have such a ridiculously poor record in the B1G tourney. Other than the tourney year, what have we won like 3 games in the history of the conf tourney?
Attendance at NU basketball games has always been weak. This is nothing new. When I was a student, the crowds at an NU game were pretty tame. Some conference games brought out the students, like when Coach Knight came to town. But even those games didn't have the atmosphere that other programs probably regularly enjoy.
The best, most raucous crowd I ever saw at Welsh Ryan Arena during my four years wasn't for an NU game. Since I worked in Sports Information during my undergrad years, I would sometimes head up to the offices on weekends to use the computers. These were the days before everyone had their own personal computer. When I arrived, I noticed something was going on at the arena. Since I had my all-access pass, I walked in and saw a scene at WR I'd never seen before. It was packed and loud and crazy. Turns out, WR was hosting a high school playoff game featuring none other than future NU coach Chris Collins. He was a local stud getting ready to head off to Duke. But I got to see what a full, intense WR could look like. I never saw anything like that during my four years. Maybe when Duke came to WR to play that Walker Lambiotte team, things were pretty loud, but nothing like that high school game. I can only imagine the Purdue game we hosted during the tournament year was close, but I wasn't there.
NU just doesn't have the fanbase. NU students don't grow up NU fans. Even the local kids don't. Winning will have to come first, as hard as that is.
The best, most raucous crowd I ever saw at Welsh Ryan Arena during my four years wasn't for an NU game. Since I worked in Sports Information during my undergrad years, I would sometimes head up to the offices on weekends to use the computers. These were the days before everyone had their own personal computer. When I arrived, I noticed something was going on at the arena. Since I had my all-access pass, I walked in and saw a scene at WR I'd never seen before. It was packed and loud and crazy. Turns out, WR was hosting a high school playoff game featuring none other than future NU coach Chris Collins. He was a local stud getting ready to head off to Duke. But I got to see what a full, intense WR could look like. I never saw anything like that during my four years. Maybe when Duke came to WR to play that Walker Lambiotte team, things were pretty loud, but nothing like that high school game. I can only imagine the Purdue game we hosted during the tournament year was close, but I wasn't there.
NU just doesn't have the fanbase. NU students don't grow up NU fans. Even the local kids don't. Winning will have to come first, as hard as that is.
I have witnessed how NU fans can and will get behind the team. The caveat is that the team has to be competitive and actually win some games. When I was an undergrad in the early 80s, we made the NIT my junior year with a team led by seniors Jim Stack, Gaddis Rathel, and Michael Jenkins - all Chicago area boys. We also had local boys like Art Aaron and Paul Schultz. Ironically, this was during the first remodel of Welsh Ryan and we played that season at Alumni Hall in DePaul. That didn't stop the students from attending either.
As @TheC experienced, the high school state tournament supersectional was played at McGaw Hall / Welsh Ryan, and I also experienced a full house there. It was electric, dirt floors and all.
A packed Welsh Ryan is one of the loudest venues, too.
Put a winning team out there, and the fans will come.
I remember going down to DePaul for those games. Smaller venue, easier to get to it (compared to Allstate), novelty of a good team for the first time in a generation. And they won home games.
I was in the same year as Art and Gaddis and had some random early (history?) class with them and recall them attending after a midweek game at Minnesota or some other trip where they must have gotten back to campus at like 1am. Good for them to get to class,
edit, I think Gaddis may have been a year ahead but was in that class
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NU is 9-24 (.273) all-time at the B1G Tournament.
Record by coach:
O'Neill: 1-3 (.250)
Carmody: 5-13 (.278)
Collins: 3-8 (.273)
Gaddis was one year ahead. I had an econ class with Art Aaron but he dropped that class.
I wasn’t around as a fan back in the Stone Age, so I can’t speak to these teams. All I know is the place rarely rocks and the tourney year was respectable but was hardly intimidating. Not sure Fat Cats show up even with wins and that sucks.
In fairness to current fans, Alumni Hall only held about 3K people, so it wasn't to hard to fill, but it was rockin'. If it had been any smaller they would have had to change the name to Alumnus Hall.
That's the type of venue that would have been good for post-tourney year.
That is true in retrospect. However, coming off a tourney year and expecting another tourney run, most of of would have went ballistic to be limited to Alumni Hall crowds of 3000. Would have blamed the poor season on that as much as we did on the Rosemont atmosphere.
Thinking Alumni Hall held closer to six or seven thousand. Maybe even a bit more.
Styre, thanks for doing this. I actually though it was worse than this. Even removing the 2 tourney year wins, we are still at .233, which is a win every ~ four years. To me, it feels like a win every 10 years.
How many times have we been able to avoid playing on Day 1? That makes our records even worse because we're hardly ever make it to the quarterfinals.
Just a guess, but never.
NU’s home court advantage will always be limited by alumni presence — “every Big Ten school has more alumni in Chicago than Northwestern.” (I’m not sure if it is true today, or ever was, but it’s plausible.)
That said, the students do a good job when the team is playing well, and the 30-70% pro-NU crowd can rock when at points in the game that are truly awesome. But the team has to earn it
It’s a really unique and fun environment, though even the need to shout down “Go Green” or “I-L-L” with some regularity tells you what you need to know about inherent ‘advantage’.
Prior to Rutgers and MD joining, never. Since they joined and Day 1 became Day 2, we started on Day 2 the first four years and have been on Day 1 the last 3. Highest seed we ever had was 6th, in both the tourney year and 2004 when we finished 8-8 in an extremely weak Big Ten and Carmody won coach of the year.
Michigan, not a moral victory at all, but it is feeling like Collins team is very close to getting over this hump and becoming a winning program. Not this year necessarily, but with the right input, hopefully next.
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Why even stay in the B1G if you’re not going to try? We are in the premier college basketball conference, may as well try to act like it.
That's a fundamental point, we could be doing quite well in some other conference. Something has to change, and while that might be the coach, it is not necessarily.
Pat Ryan would never allow for us to leave the B1G after all the money he's put up.
I go back to Jim Calhoun. He would not come to NU because he knew he could not win. We have had some truly excellent coaches over the years. That is obviously not the problem; getting a new one will not markedly help unless admissions policies change. As I have shown, Collins has made progress despite this (even though the W/L record is similar to Carmody). That is to his significant credit and only worthy of firing because he made the apparently flawed decision of entering into a no-win situation.
So, you think if Izzo or Painter were coaching this team instead of Collins the results would be exactly the same?
NU is in a different universe than it was back in the courting Jim Calhoun era. The institutional support and facilities are some of the best in the country. Collins does many core basketball program things poorly, things that have nothing to do with admissions: poor talent identification, poor player development, poor rotations and schemes. If Carmody wasn’t good enough then neither is Collins.
Addressing both above - it’s not possible to judge the Izzo/Painter question because it’s apples/oranges. Tie their hands behind their back and who knows how they do, but surely not nearly as well as they do at their current schools.
And how many players really make their decisions based on “institutional support and facilities”? Calhoun sure knew it was the admissions issue. All of your other comments about his coaching are your rightful opinion, but you can’t prove he’s better/worse than anyone else would be if given the same situation.
And how many players really make their decisions based on “institutional support and facilities”? Calhoun sure knew it was the admissions issue. All of your other comments about his coaching are your rightful opinion, but you can’t prove he’s better/worse than anyone else would be if given the same situation.
It’s not apples and oranges. Do you think this exact team of players would be failing so miserably if Izzo or Painter were coaching them instead of Collins? You say no coach can succeed here. I think there is no question this exact team would be better under Izzo or Painter.
Of course it’s ridiculous to think either of them would coach here but I’m just addressing your assertion that coaching “is obviously not the problem”. As if bad coaching has nothing to do with the failure of this team or other Collins teams.
Coaching is not just x’s and o’s(which in my opinion is a Collins weakness) but it’s also getting your players to play their absolute best. To instill confidence and attitude. To get them to believe in themselves.
To say coaching is absolutely not the problem and not acknowledge that it’s at least part of the problem with this specific team is really naive in my opinion.
Depends on player development and recruiting. I like a lot of our players from a talent standpoint, but I‘m not sure CC gets them to develop fully or rapidly.
If Collins can keep bringing in recruiting classes like last year I think he’ll keep getting chances and better results will eventually come. If the recruiting slips he’s in trouble. He really really really needs to find an impact transfer or two for next season.
It is apples and oranges - I disagree. They are not in our situation. They might be able to sneak out a few more wins here/there with this team, but I don’t think it’s a big difference. Of course, if we were able to hire them outright, the future might look brighter.
I never said Collins was perfect. I just recently criticized our help defense, some part of which has to be his lack of clear communication to the players. I disagree on a lot of observations - he’s developed many players (already addressed many times) and instills confidence (our guys aren’t shy to shoot, we do take it to the hoop (see Cappa’s info), we routinely come back from deficits, etc.) as well. And I have shown / said the substitution patterns are an overblown issue, based on my review/opinion. Our problems are largely ones in the control of the players (free throws, layups).
I’ve just said since last year that his firing is not justified. Of course, things are not going well, so my position may ultimately change. But, I also hold out hope for improvement, especially given that our schedule is easier the rest of the way.
I never said Collins was perfect. I just recently criticized our help defense, some part of which has to be his lack of clear communication to the players. I disagree on a lot of observations - he’s developed many players (already addressed many times) and instills confidence (our guys aren’t shy to shoot, we do take it to the hoop (see Cappa’s info), we routinely come back from deficits, etc.) as well. And I have shown / said the substitution patterns are an overblown issue, based on my review/opinion. Our problems are largely ones in the control of the players (free throws, layups).
I’ve just said since last year that his firing is not justified. Of course, things are not going well, so my position may ultimately change. But, I also hold out hope for improvement, especially given that our schedule is easier the rest of the way.
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