ADVERTISEMENT

Gaines Gone

IGNORE2

Well-Known Member
Mar 12, 2005
10,309
3,158
113
Didn’t see that coming after Kopp left. I bet that means more to follow.
 
Kid deserves nothing but respect. Gave it all all the time. Played hard and conducted himself with great class.

I’d think if a mass exodus were to happen it would have already happened.

Question for the CC loyalists... if, say Nance and another player transfer, are you still on the camp he’s our guy?
 
Everybody that leaves makes me sad, even if I've yelled at the tv screen for something they did that I didn't like. I wish AG the best of luck and I hope he finds happiness. I'm proud of what he accomplished and the sacrifices he made at NU.
 
Kid deserves nothing but respect. Gave it all all the time. Played hard and conducted himself with great class.

I’d think if a mass exodus were to happen it would have already happened.

Question for the CC loyalists... if, say Nance and another player transfer, are you still on the camp he’s our guy?
Wouldn’t call myself a loyalist but I’m still optimistic and believe CC is our best current option. I’m not about getting rid of him this season especially with such a veteran team coming back. If Nance transfers out though I think that’s a rather large red flag. I am cautiously optimistic about next year as I think this team is a lot closer than people realize to being a middle of the pack B1G borderline tourney team. Now if NU craps the bed next season I’d start looking for replacements but I wouldn’t fire Collins for the sake of firing him. I’d want a couple candidates that they truly believe could take NU somewhere. I don’t want a firing because we aren’t satisfied and need a change. It has to be there’s a better option that what CC has proven he is capable of.
 
Last edited:
I am so conflicted. I absolutely support, from an intellectual perspective, the concept of free agency for college students who play sports. (I am refusing to use the NCAA’s hyphened phrase that denotes the same individuals). However, I am sad when student choose to leave Northwestern. I know what NU means to me. For many years I have loved cheering NU students who played sports for my benefit...watching them grow and mature over the years. Some players were fabulous. Some were not. That did not matter to me. I cheered for their 4-year journey at the school I love.

Good luck Miller. Good luck Anthony. Thanks for all the sweat you shed for my benefit and the benefit of those who participate on this board. While I pray that your departure is entirely your decision, it makes me sad that you are seeking something different.
 
Wouldn’t call myself a loyalist but I’m still optimistic and believe CC is our best current option. I’m not about getting rid of him this season especially with such a veteran team coming back. If Nance transfers out though I think that’s a rather large red flag. I am cautiously optimistic about next year as I think this team is a lot closer than people realize to being a middle of the pack B1G borderline tourney team. Now if NU craps the bed next season I’d start looking for replacements but I wouldn’t fire Collins for the sake of firing him. I’d want a couple candidates that they truly believe could take NU somewhere. I don’t want a firing because we aren’t satisfied and need a change. It has to be there’s a better option that what CC has proven he is capable of.
I am sure I an viewed as a loyalist, but I call myself more if a realist. I think this is CCC’s last year whether Nance stays or goes. The team hasn’t shown the team toughness to suddenly have it all click next year. I hope to be proven wrong, but I don’t see a tourney in the future. I think NU will get a short term jolt of energy with a change and then fall back to where they have always been, on the outside looking in. There are a lengthy list of obstacles that NU basketball must overcome to turn the program around.
 
I am viewed as a loyalist and do not yet believe that next year is CCC’s last year. I don’t see either of these transfers as program-threatening. My wife, on an unsolicited basis, said good riddance to each of them (from a basketball standpoint only, for both of us, of course. We do love what these kids for representing NU so well). Unlike many, I believe:
- our players and team will continue to improve
- Collins will continue to get better as a coach (and will replace Buie in the starting lineup, and play Nance/Young together more).
- the BIG will not be as strong.
- we will win more than 6 BIG games and be very close to making / make the Dance (no guarantees; still is NU after all. But if we land PBJ...). In the end, if we have any hope of success like the teams in this tournament we are all watching, we need to get more and more athletic. Collins has shown he can move us in that direction.
 
Didn’t see that coming after Kopp left. I bet that means more to follow.

This is the departure that I expected going into the offseason. He graduated and even though he had a leadership role on the team, his minutes diminished and probably would do so even more next year. He got a degree, has one more year of basketball and there’s probably a D1 mid-major out there where he could play big minutes. Seems like a much different situation than Kopp.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ricko654321
Question for the CC loyalists... if, say Nance and another player transfer, are you still on the camp he’s our guy?

Idk if he’s our guy or not, but count me in the camp who thinks it’s pointless to keep swapping out coaches and expecting different results until we ditch the biggest impediment to success of all. Duke has zero academic restrictions on basketball recruiting and their all of one (1!) rung behind us in the US news rankings. It has zero bearing on the school’s reputation and in fact can only help it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rogerkim
And 1 B1G winning season in the last 50
And a coach, 8 seasons in, with a worse record than his predecessor.

And new facilities.

I've said it in another thread, if the situation stays at Kopp + Gaines, we still have a pretty good roster to do something interesting in the coming year. And I'm confident they're working the portal to give us one more experience wing.

If there's a departure from a couple more relevant players, we are decimated, looking at starting another rebuilding cycle. Not sure how we can renew confidence in a coach needing another 2 to 3 years at least to get back to relevance.
 
  • Like
Reactions: The Purple Knight
Asst. Coach Emmanuel Dildy leaves to join Moser at Oklahoma. Rats leaving the sinking ship. I'm for whacking Collins and taking the pain. I don't want to risk a return to mediocrity next year and more BS extension. He is not the guy for NU.
 
  • Like
Reactions: The Purple Knight
Asst. Coach Emmanuel Dildy leaves to join Moser at Oklahoma. Rats leaving the sinking ship. I'm for whacking Collins and taking the pain. I don't want to risk a return to mediocrity next year and more BS extension. He is not the guy for NU.
I guess the fact that Dildy coached for Moser at Loyola for three seasons didn't factor into his move. OU >>> job than NU and Moser is a rising star. His lead assistant stayed at Loyola to take the head coaching job, so Dildy might be getting a promotion. Makes all the sense in the world for him to follow Porter.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: ColumbusCatFan1
I guess the fact that Dildy coached for Moser at Loyola for three seasons didn't factor into his move. OU >>> job than NU and Moser is a rising star. His lead assistant stayed at Loyola to take the head coaching job, so Dildy might be getting a promotion. Makes all the sense in the world for him to follow Porter.
True enough. Still hopng Collins gets gone.
 
"Keep swaping out coaches...."

NU has had 2 coaches in 21 years. Not exactly a revolving door at Welsh-Ryan Arena...
Historical context isn’t as fun as snark, but I’ll give it a shot.

The great Tex Winter, coming off a stint with the Houston Rockets, was supposed to be our savior, especially after the NCAA expanded to 32 teams in 1975. He wasn’t.

When that didn’t work, we promoted from within and ascended a former star player-turned-coach in Rich Falk. That didn’t work either.

But with the NCAA now expanded to 64 (!) teams, surely we just needed a steady hand at the helm, maybe even one known for turning around moribund programs. We went with a veteran NCAA coach in Bill Foster, who had made Duke (!) of all teams a competitive program (he was named ACC coach of the year when they won the conference tourny — a feat he’d accomplish twice there!) He was like 49-141 or something in Evanston. Not even he could fix things.

So what about the up and coming young coach? The one with the great coaching roots? Surely that was the approach! Only it wasn’t, as the late Ricky Byrdsong showed. He’d been an assistant on some good Lute Olsen teams, and had taken his first job at Detroit Mercy, turning them into a winning program after just a handful of seasons. This had to be the one! We went 15-14 in his first seasons and everyone thought “maybe we finally got it right”... but no. He never won more than 7 games after that.

So by this point NU had tried the NBA coach, the homegrown star, the proven repairman, and the flavor of the month. What was left? How about the guy who won at every level of college coaching? Kevin O’Neill, your table is ready. Marquette. Tennessee. Hoop Dreams. Nope.

What about the guy who coached in the ivy and knew what it was like to recruit for an academic institution? Bonus points if he had a system that “closed the talent gap.” Hi Coach BC!

Hmm... okay what if we could build a coach in a lab? Played at a successful small private school of academic note, coached under legend, AND he’s a hot commodity who has been waiting for the perfect job. Chris Collins? Check-check-check.

So yea. We’ve been swapping out every imaginable type of coach for decades and the one constant is that we perennially struggle to break through. (That Collins took us to the tournament deserves a statue out front of WRA.) Shaka Smart wasn’t gonna fix it. Moser either (let’s see how he does at Oklahoma or wherever). This program has an institutional problem that is hamstringing our ability to succeed. That is the real issue and until we address it, we won’t be a consistent winner. But by all means, fire the coach and bring in another guy who won’t get it done.
 
Historical context isn’t as fun as snark, but I’ll give it a shot.

The great Tex Winter, coming off a stint with the Houston Rockets, was supposed to be our savior, especially after the NCAA expanded to 32 teams in 1975. He wasn’t.

When that didn’t work, we promoted from within and ascended a former star player-turned-coach in Rich Falk. That didn’t work either.

But with the NCAA now expanded to 64 (!) teams, surely we just needed a steady hand at the helm, maybe even one known for turning around moribund programs. We went with a veteran NCAA coach in Bill Foster, who had made Duke (!) of all teams a competitive program (he was named ACC coach of the year when they won the conference tourny — a feat he’d accomplish twice there!) He was like 49-141 or something in Evanston. Not even he could fix things.

So what about the up and coming young coach? The one with the great coaching roots? Surely that was the approach! Only it wasn’t, as the late Ricky Byrdsong showed. He’d been an assistant on some good Lute Olsen teams, and had taken his first job at Detroit Mercy, turning them into a winning program after just a handful of seasons. This had to be the one! We went 15-14 in his first seasons and everyone thought “maybe we finally got it right”... but no. He never won more than 7 games after that.

So by this point NU had tried the NBA coach, the homegrown star, the proven repairman, and the flavor of the month. What was left? How about the guy who won at every level of college coaching? Kevin O’Neill, your table is ready. Marquette. Tennessee. Hoop Dreams. Nope.

What about the guy who coached in the ivy and knew what it was like to recruit for an academic institution? Bonus points if he had a system that “closed the talent gap.” Hi Coach BC!

Hmm... okay what if we could build a coach in a lab? Played at a successful small private school of academic note, coached under legend, AND he’s a hot commodity who has been waiting for the perfect job. Chris Collins? Check-check-check.

So yea. We’ve been swapping out every imaginable type of coach for decades and the one constant is that we perennially struggle to break through. (That Collins took us to the tournament deserves a statue out front of WRA.) Shaka Smart wasn’t gonna fix it. Moser either (let’s see how he does at Oklahoma or wherever). This program has an institutional problem that is hamstringing our ability to succeed. That is the real issue and until we address it, we won’t be a consistent winner. But by all means, fire the coach and bring in another guy who won’t get it done.
You forgot to mention we invested heavily in facilities. Some things have improved. I'm not forgetting academic standards. I dislike them as much as the next guy, and not (solely) for sports purposes.

So what's your suggestion? We stop trying to be relevant? Give it a big shrug and feel good about ourselves by telling people they'll work for us one day?
 
So what's your suggestion? We stop trying to be relevant? Give it a big shrug and feel good about ourselves by telling people they'll work for us one day?

Heavy hitters have to push the school to drop the academic restrictions. That’s the only hope.

What bugs me is when people think switching to Moser or Smart (or in my case years ago, Altman) is going to miraculously make us relevant. We’ve tried every conceivable iteration of coach over 50 years — including the Mosers and Smarts of their day — and it has only worked for once, for one season, under CCC. The problem is institutional. Until the school wises up, we’re basically buying a lottery ticket every hire and hoping for a miracle. So the board can break out the pitchforks and torches on CCC, but please just be realistic about expectations - there is no great hire once he’s gone, there is only hoping to get lucky. If we’re all in agreement, by all means, proceed...
 
Heavy hitters have to push the school to drop the academic restrictions. That’s the only hope.

What bugs me is when people think switching to Moser or Smart (or in my case years ago, Altman) is going to miraculously make us relevant. We’ve tried every conceivable iteration of coach over 50 years — including the Mosers and Smarts of their day — and it has only worked for once, for one season, under CCC. The problem is institutional. Until the school wises up, we’re basically buying a lottery ticket every hire and hoping for a miracle. So the board can break out the pitchforks and torches on CCC, but please just be realistic about expectations - there is no great hire once he’s gone, there is only hoping to get lucky. If we’re all in agreement, by all means, proceed...
Do you think our roster was worth 6 B1G wins in 17/18? or 4 in 18/19?
 
  • Like
Reactions: NJCat
I am one of those NU grads who would strongly prefer to not lower the academic standards from whatever they are now. Basketball is just one sport. With the excellent facilities, there is no excuse to lose like we have been losing in hoops (going forward). NU has plenty of advantages over Rutgers, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan State, Minnesota, Indiana, Maryland, etc. Academic standards is our primary disadvantage when it comes to recruiting certain players. For others, it is our primary advantage.

To make matters worse, you need about 7 players to be competitive in basketball. If Fitz can be consistently "good" with the football program, there is no valid excuse for "the basketball coach."
 
Kid deserves nothing but respect. Gave it all all the time. Played hard and conducted himself with great class.

I’d think if a mass exodus were to happen it would have already happened.

Question for the CC loyalists... if, say Nance and another player transfer, are you still on the camp he’s our guy?
That would be a question to be asked if that happened. Both guys that have entered the portal look like their roles for next year might be in question. Gaines as we have guys already in front of him and new guys coming in and Kopp might not get the minutes going forward. This has been a tough year on everyone and a lot more transfers overall than ever before. We saw similar things with the FB team.
 
I am viewed as a loyalist and do not yet believe that next year is CCC’s last year. I don’t see either of these transfers as program-threatening. My wife, on an unsolicited basis, said good riddance to each of them (from a basketball standpoint only, for both of us, of course. We do love what these kids for representing NU so well). Unlike many, I believe:
- our players and team will continue to improve
- Collins will continue to get better as a coach (and will replace Buie in the starting lineup, and play Nance/Young together more).
- the BIG will not be as strong.
- we will win more than 6 BIG games and be very close to making / make the Dance (no guarantees; still is NU after all. But if we land PBJ...). In the end, if we have any hope of success like the teams in this tournament we are all watching, we need to get more and more athletic. Collins has shown he can move us in that direction.
The addition of Nicholson being more ready to play coupled with Kopp transferring might make more Nance/Young possible
 
That would be a question to be asked if that happened. Both guys that have entered the portal look like their roles for next year might be in question. Gaines as we have guys already in front of him and new guys coming in and Kopp might not get the minutes going forward. This has been a tough year on everyone and a lot more transfers overall than ever before. We saw similar things with the FB team.
I'd bet money that Kopp did not transfer because his role or minutes were in question.
 
You forgot to mention we invested heavily in facilities. Some things have improved. I'm not forgetting academic standards. I dislike them as much as the next guy, and not (solely) for sports purposes.

So what's your suggestion? We stop trying to be relevant? Give it a big shrug and feel good about ourselves by telling people they'll work for us one day?
And if Collins had not been here, that was never getting done. . The BIG is stronger to to bottom than it ever has been, There were always the opportunities to get some easy wins but with the overall strength and balance, those opportunities are harder to come by. If CCC had to be replaced, I would not have minded seeing Moser but I really am not sure that I see any others that I would be comfortable replacing CCC with and I while Moser might be better in a coupe areas, not sure that overall he would have been an improvement. Scott Drew finally got Baylor to the promised land. It only took 18 years. Turning around a program with the obstacles we have had is not easy. And CCC did get us to the Dance and the only winning record in the BIG we have had in 50 plus years. Let us just see what happens
 
I'd bet money that Kopp did not transfer because his role or minutes were in question.
Maybe after the year we have had, it becomes important to get closer to home. Point is we really don't know
 
Historical context isn’t as fun as snark, but I’ll give it a shot.

The great Tex Winter, coming off a stint with the Houston Rockets, was supposed to be our savior, especially after the NCAA expanded to 32 teams in 1975. He wasn’t.

When that didn’t work, we promoted from within and ascended a former star player-turned-coach in Rich Falk. That didn’t work either.

But with the NCAA now expanded to 64 (!) teams, surely we just needed a steady hand at the helm, maybe even one known for turning around moribund programs. We went with a veteran NCAA coach in Bill Foster, who had made Duke (!) of all teams a competitive program (he was named ACC coach of the year when they won the conference tourny — a feat he’d accomplish twice there!) He was like 49-141 or something in Evanston. Not even he could fix things.

So what about the up and coming young coach? The one with the great coaching roots? Surely that was the approach! Only it wasn’t, as the late Ricky Byrdsong showed. He’d been an assistant on some good Lute Olsen teams, and had taken his first job at Detroit Mercy, turning them into a winning program after just a handful of seasons. This had to be the one! We went 15-14 in his first seasons and everyone thought “maybe we finally got it right”... but no. He never won more than 7 games after that.

So by this point NU had tried the NBA coach, the homegrown star, the proven repairman, and the flavor of the month. What was left? How about the guy who won at every level of college coaching? Kevin O’Neill, your table is ready. Marquette. Tennessee. Hoop Dreams. Nope.

What about the guy who coached in the ivy and knew what it was like to recruit for an academic institution? Bonus points if he had a system that “closed the talent gap.” Hi Coach BC!

Hmm... okay what if we could build a coach in a lab? Played at a successful small private school of academic note, coached under legend, AND he’s a hot commodity who has been waiting for the perfect job. Chris Collins? Check-check-check.

So yea. We’ve been swapping out every imaginable type of coach for decades and the one constant is that we perennially struggle to break through. (That Collins took us to the tournament deserves a statue out front of WRA.) Shaka Smart wasn’t gonna fix it. Moser either (let’s see how he does at Oklahoma or wherever). This program has an institutional problem that is hamstringing our ability to succeed. That is the real issue and until we address it, we won’t be a consistent winner. But by all means, fire the coach and bring in another guy who won’t get it done.
Fix Admissions policy!
 
I am one of those NU grads who would strongly prefer to not lower the academic standards from whatever they are now. Basketball is just one sport. With the excellent facilities, there is no excuse to lose like we have been losing in hoops (going forward). NU has plenty of advantages over Rutgers, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan State, Minnesota, Indiana, Maryland, etc. Academic standards is our primary disadvantage when it comes to recruiting certain players. For others, it is our primary advantage.

To make matters worse, you need about 7 players to be competitive in basketball. If Fitz can be consistently "good" with the football program, there is no valid excuse for "the basketball coach."
This is comedy gold. Advantages over the programs mentioned. What exactly? I am sure the MSU, Indiana, Maryland’s etc are shaking in their boots that NU is in on one of its top targets. Please point me to all of the BBall guys NU brought in because they were a top ten academic institution? Most NU grads way oversell the pull of a NU degree on bBall recruits. If you give me the top 5 academic schools in P6 and the top 25 in putting players in the league, I know which is getting the talent. I can give a dozen disadvantages and can’t think of more than a couple advantages that NU has in bringing in talent.
 
Heavy hitters have to push the school to drop the academic restrictions. That’s the only hope.

What bugs me is when people think switching to Moser or Smart (or in my case years ago, Altman) is going to miraculously make us relevant. We’ve tried every conceivable iteration of coach over 50 years — including the Mosers and Smarts of their day — and it has only worked for once, for one season, under CCC. The problem is institutional. Until the school wises up, we’re basically buying a lottery ticket every hire and hoping for a miracle. So the board can break out the pitchforks and torches on CCC, but please just be realistic about expectations - there is no great hire once he’s gone, there is only hoping to get lucky. If we’re all in agreement, by all means, proceed...
Thank you. I have been trying to make this point for years and never made the effort to lay out the Coaching history as you did. The NU BBall problem is way deeper than just the HC. If those problems are not addressed, the next HC after CCC gets replaced will just be the latest name on the list.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: willycat
I care ZERO about putting NU players into the NBA.
The advantage NU has is the college diploma.
Its a big advantage in the real world.
The new facilities are an advantage.
The campus itself is an advantage.
Evanston is an advantage.
Proximity to Chicago is an advantage.

Your description of reality as "comedy gold" makes me feel sorry for you.
 
Chris Collins already proved that you can build a tournament team at NU in spite of our academic restrictions. Our facilities are light years better now than they were when he brought in that first recruiting class. The recruits we're getting now are, in ratings terms, better than those guys. And yet we're still awful. I can see the academics being a barrier to winning the Big Ten title, but just finishing middle of the pack and making the tournament? Nah. We're not trying to recruit guys to play in a gym with a dirt floor like we were 40 years ago.
 
Kid deserves nothing but respect. Gave it all all the time. Played hard and conducted himself with great class.

I’d think if a mass exodus were to happen it would have already happened.

Question for the CC loyalists... if, say Nance and another player transfer, are you still on the camp he’s our guy?
If Nance transfers, I don't see how we can recover. But there are record numbers of players in the transfer portal; this is something that most teams will be facing after this pandemic-plagued season. So, with such a wealth of players in the transfer portal, I guess we'll just have to see if Collins can bring in players equal to or better than the ones we're losing.
 
If Nance transfers, I don't see how we can recover. But there are record numbers of players in the transfer portal; this is something that most teams will be facing after this pandemic-plagued season. So, with such a wealth of players in the transfer portal, I guess we'll just have to see if Collins can bring in players equal to or better than the ones we're losing.
 
I care ZERO about putting NU players into the NBA.
The advantage NU has is the college diploma.
Its a big advantage in the real world.
The new facilities are an advantage.
The campus itself is an advantage.
Evanston is an advantage.
Proximity to Chicago is an advantage.

Your description of reality as "comedy gold" makes me feel sorry for you.
None of that matters to the top of the line guys. Ok maybe being near Chicago does.
 
ADVERTISEMENT