IU has more talent on their roster than anyone. Same for Howard at Michigan until his last year. Coaching matters as much as roster management.
Illinois obliterated by Maryland
- Thread starter CappyNU
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I believe you need good players and a good Coach. Undie is a good Coach and I don’t believe he should get blamed every time you lose. John Wooden would have had trouble Coaching the Cats to a W today. It was very predictable.
Yeah agreed. Although I still feel like coaches should always be blamed at a macro level. They’re making huge money and over the course of the season the teams performance reflects their ability to build a roster and coach the team.
Agree. My beef is after every loss fanbases tee up the HC. Undie got destroyed by your fanbase after losing in Evanston. I could actually see that one as the Illlini clearly are deeper and more talented than the Cats. If you are going to blame the Coaches for this loss then you might as well blame them for every single loss. Oh, and conversely give them credit for every win.
You want to blame Coaches watch the ending of the Indiana versus Maryland game.
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And some think I take a radical position in defending Collins when crap like this comes up so, so regularly.
Oh yeah, there is a classic overreaction to every game, the coach sucked, that player has been figured out, etc…….
Sometimes a team just doesn’t play well. It happens!
Sometimes a team just doesn’t play well. It happens!
When you lose pretty badly to a team you had previously beaten, the players and the coaches usually had a bad night.
This should surprise no one - and yet it seems there are people who believe differently.
How much blame goes to the coaches and how much blame goes to the players? Its up for debate.
In my view we weren't ready for what Illinois was doing defensively. This has happened before. We didn't do much to change that during the game. You can't just shut your eyes and say it didn't happen - or maybe you can. I can't.
This should surprise no one - and yet it seems there are people who believe differently.
How much blame goes to the coaches and how much blame goes to the players? Its up for debate.
In my view we weren't ready for what Illinois was doing defensively. This has happened before. We didn't do much to change that during the game. You can't just shut your eyes and say it didn't happen - or maybe you can. I can't.
Sometimes a team doesn’t play well but the effort by NU in the first half today was bad. Outhustled to every loose ball and just did not match the intensity of Illinois. Which is disappointing because they had to know Illinois would come out with max effort today after their last loss. And they had to know if they didn’t match it they would be in trouble.
This isn’t your finest moment PWB. My eyes are wide open and I see NU up against a team that Clearly has better players overall. Did you ever consider that we beat them the first time because our staff did an incredible job in that game? What exactly did they do that was so innovative that it perplexed a staff with about a century of experience? Where we ready for their offense? Didn’t see that mentioned, yet we had no clue how to stop them despite us having a defensive guru on our Coaching staff.
Players win and lose game the majority of time. Coaches at this level make a difference in a few games a year. Good coaches win a few more than they should, bad ones lose a few more than they should. The players were casual to start. Our best player sure seems to be playing through some nicks, our top scorer started slow and our big men lost the battle to a Freshman. We are playing with 4 offensive threats at most. It’s damn near a miracle, we have done as well as we have this year.
It’s mind numbing that after every loss some can find ways to blame the HC. I’m not Gordie nominating CCC for Sainthood, but as I said before, if somehow we take that approach that Coach is so impactful , I would like to see a balance where he gets credit for our wins too. Trailing by 20 early on is on the players. Anyone who has played high level sports would tell you that too. I don’t want to hear the Coaches didn’t have them ready. Use that excuse when it repeatedly happens. It’s not 1967, where coaches throw chairs against the lockers and peel the paint off the wall at halftime. Players are responsible for how they play once they step on the court. The blame is primarily on the players, just like the credit is primarily with the players when they play well .
When we come out and can't do jacksquat on the offensive end of the court, I find it impossible to absolve the coaches.
Our guys looked a) unprepared and b) a step slow. I think our coaches were also a) unprepared and b) slow to respond
Not sure how one can argue otherwise.
I just did argue otherwise. You choose to ignore the argument. The Players are 18-23 year old human beings not images in a video game controlled by a joy stick. Coaches can yell FOCUS FOCUS all week before every game ( not that it matters) do everything possible right and the team will still occasionally lay an egg. Players are responsible for their own effort. They control that. They shouldn’t need a cattle prod from Brian James to go after a rebound. They shouldn’t need a tongue lashing from Chris Lowrey to spur them to actually stop a drive to the rim.
Adjustments? This was tried but there are limited options when the big 2 are not playing well. I say this after every loss and you say Gelo or KJ. Yet it rarely works because they aren’t as good as Berry or Leach just yet. We have had 3 games this season that were over at the 10 minute mark. Purdue, MSU, and Illinois. What’s the common denominator? Might be they all have much deeper rosters. CCC and staff didn’t rest on their laurels and relax preparation for those games. This is a ridiculous argument. I can’t remember a high level player ever saying, “ boy, I wasn’t ready to play today”, Coaches got to be better”.
I think you give way too much blame on the CCC when things go South. Conversely, I don’t see much credit when things go well. Consistently much? Now, personally I believe the players deserve the lions share of the credit and the blame for the results. You need good game plans, you need good Coaches, but even with both of them, you still need players! Generally, Teams with the best players win more games.
I don't disagree that yesterday there was probably nothing that could have been done.
But coaching is more than choosing lineups, calling plays, scouting, strategizing for a game... It includes prepping your guys for the environment they're going to face, for the attitude you want them to have, etc, etc. I mean the announcers multiple times mentioned how Undie's shootaround was intense. That's an example. He had lost 2 in a row, he was going to try to make up from some potential confidence problem. He was going to lit fire under their butts.
Again, I don't believe much could have been done, and I have no idea what Collins did. But blame is almost always to be shared, even if not in equal parts, by players and coaches. If I had to guess yesterday was 80% players, maybe even 90%, and not because they did not want it, they just did not have it. Could recovery been done better by staff? Maybe. Could they have found a way to make them come off the locker room more aggressive? Maybe. But it surely looked like one of them days, or one of those environments this group is not ready for. Just like they were not at Mackey.
This would be an excellent time for out students to come alive again and make our environment very complicated for other teams. I mean last couple of years it would not surprise anyone we won 3 in a row at home. And we did not even need it to be 3 more accessible opponents.
I am curious to see what wildside brings to the table on Wednesday night. I could see it going either way. I hope they are out there.
I agree with this. I believe it is really really rare that any team comes out firing on all cylinders every game. It’s human nature to have those ups and downs. I know you played high level BBall, and I am sure there were a few team clunkers in there where Coaching was pretty consistent to when you came out clicking. This just seemed like one of those days and I strongly disagreed that the Coaches were the main culprit.
I hope the team comes out with a little edge to their game after getting dismantled yesterday. Wildside can make it more likely, but the only baskets they have ever made have been at halftime.
Of for sure the cats will come out ready to roll. Every time they “need” a home game, they seem to get it.
Nobody said the coaches were the main culprit.
I said "we got outcoached."
And we did. In essence you are arguing with your interpretation of what I wrote.
I wasn't expecting us to win - Illinois is one of the better teams in the conference - but I was expecting us to play competitively with Ivisic out. And we didn't. We did nothing to change our approach. Illinois was ready. Our offense was a disaster.
Imagine a scenario where Barnhizer is really banged up and playing poorly. He's hurting the team. He's a tough guy - he wants to stay in. There's only one guy making the call on his playing time.
My outside opinion is that Chris Collins is in the upper third of coaches in the B1G - he's better than Hoiberg, Johnson, Cronin, Woodson, Diebler, whoever UW and Penn St have, and at least as good as if not better than Pikiell, Willard, Musselman, Gard, Altmann, and McCaffery. Izzo and Painter are undoubtably at the top, it's too early to say on Dusty May, and Underwood certainly has the conference record to be regarded in the top 3-4. Collins has probably done more with less than any of these other guys. I'm not sure who is a better fit for the Wildcats than him.
Not sure you'd find many who think Collins is as good as Cronin, Altmann or Gard, just off the top of my head.
There are plenty of good coaches in the Big Ten.
Woodson is not one of them. Johnson and Diebler are two more, although obviously Diebler is a rookie.
Hoiberg just doesn't seem to be able to get over the hump - sort of like Collins before he hired Lowery.
Taking us to our first-ever NCAA tournament (and winning a game) is, by definition, getting us over the hump. Unbelievable “logic” you have twisted yourself into, PWB!
He took a team to the tournament with a roster made up of players that did receive a scholarship offer from any team in the conference other than Roper. Effectively, every other team picked their players and then Collins picked his. I assume he can’t offer scholarship to about half of the eligible high school players. And transfers are equally difficult.
If Ty and Matt don’t get hurt last year, I am confident we would have won at least 2 conference games. I am also very confident that Collins would be at least as successful as Gard if he had Wisconsin’s rosters every year. Gard hasn’t gotten to the Sweet 16 since his 2nd season.
You responded to me, but I'm not sure what your point was.
< edit - I figured it out - You prefer Collins to Gard>
I agree that with Berry and Nicholson last year we are likely to have made the Sweet 16. (you wrote conference games - I have to assume you meant 2 tournament games).
I have always said I thought Collins was a pretty good recruiter.
Gard has done a really good job this year. They lost at least 2 key players and didn't miss a beat. Even changed playing style. I guess its sort of a "prove it" year for him.
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I think Gard has a huge advantage in recruiting so you have to take that into account when evaluating the two coaches.
And, like many others on this board, I think you underestimate the difficulty of recruiting at Northwestern. The pool of eligible players is significantly smaller than at all of the other schools in the conference. I think Collins would have a much better record if he could recruit anybody he wanted.
That's probably the only reason he would leave. Well, that and getting fired, which is extremely unlikely.
The landscape for coaches is like Mount St. Helens before it erupted - pretty shaky.
Chris Collins is one of the coaches that hasn't sold his soul to the devil.
He has figured out how to make a go of it at Northwestern, but some of that was tied to the specifics of the extra Covid year and the immediate transfer portal. Not sure how much we did with the NIL rules, but it seems like a problem.
On the plus side, Collins has to be happy with next year's incoming recruits, assuming they all honor their commitments.
There are some scenarios where NU just can't compete for players - and Collins will find himself forced to leave. I have zero confidence in the NCAA (and the courts) to do something rational and fair - so I fear that academically-oriented private universities are simply going to be pushed out or opt out.
Perhaps this should be in another thread, as it has morphed into "Chris Collins: What are the conditions that he'd go?"
However, it seems like we are in "early days" of the college basketball recruitment/retention landscape. And it's unclear if this going to be resolved any time soon. I don't have insight w/r/t AD Mark Jackson's take on the men's basketball program. My intuition is that he's got to be satisfied that Coach Collins has been successful in recent years - amidst transition in the field, as well as in the shadow of NU's own athletic department turbulence. In addition to being successful, Collins has established himself as a veteran coach in the 2nd toughest conference in the land - he's represented the brand well. Unless AD Jackson has his own preferred candidate (like how Dr. Jim had in Chris Collins), I don't see why he'd want change. Given all of the challenges he's inherited in this role, this is a bright spot.
Perhaps Collins pressed the advantage given his recent success, and maybe that's how NU has been able to "be competitive" w/r/t NIL. Either way, he seems like he's in an optimal position - he's coaching in the area he grew up; he's established himself among his distinguished peers in the B1G; the Northwestern fanbase may be still emergent, but at least it's not as toxic as other power conference programs; and the inherent "challenge" of NU may limit the window of who he can recruit, but it can also provide cover. All in all, it's a compelling challenge for Coach Collins - and if he pulls off a trifecta of NCAA appearances, it's not like he can claim "Mission Accomplished" - there's still B1G Championships to chase, or #1 seeds to attain.
Again, I don't know what the future portends with regards to the regulation (or lack thereof) - but while Collins seems to be reverent for the "old ways", I don't think he's as fatigued as how Pat Fitzgerald seemed at the onset of this era. Given his ties, perhaps Duke might be a compelling project for him to tackle - but it seems Scheyer's got that on lock. Otherwise, I have a hard time seeing him leaving NU.
A huge advantage in recruiting? If recruiting rankings are a thing and you look at 247 since Gard has been there, not much of a difference in recruiting rankings as far as average player ranking. Now, they've had a couple more highly ranked transfers lately like Storr but overall since Gard has been the Head Coach they have nowhere near a huge advantage in recruiting.
I remember looking up the WI players' rankings as well as Iowa's, over the course of a few seasons, and found no big difference to the rankings of NU players. Purdue was not the same, but even against them, no huge difference.
Not my point. Does Gard have the same recruiting limitations as Collins? Does he recruit the same pool of players as Collins? If he does, then I am mistaken and Gard has done a better job than Collins.
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I am under the impression (mainly from posts regarding football recruiting) that our coaches are unable to recruit a fairly large pool of players because of academics and that the other teams in the conference don’t have the same restrictions. It seems we don’t have many basketball insiders on the board but I would be curious if that is correct. And, if so, what percentage of the top 200 players in an average year would get past admissions.
