Last year, key players were very, very young. We did not have established point guard. Seen much more this year already. And we still do not have a senior on the squad. Gaines is still adjusting after the injury. The BIG is very tough this year, but we will surprise some people. May not have a great record but will be entertaining
It’s time to move on from Collins
- Thread starter TheC
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I am man enough to admit that I was completely wrong in the above post. Am eating a big dish of crow.
Against MSU most of what I wrote had been corrected. Collins obviously watched the tape of the Pitt game and coached the boys up on it.
1) Defense was much stronger. Good use of body positioning to stay between the Spartan players and the basket. Special note of how Robbie Beran guarded the baseline several times and prevented drives in that place.
2) Nance played as a stretch 5. Even Robbie Hummel paid compliments to Nance in this role. Nance hit threes, drove on his man to the hole and made plays with his back to the basket. He was effective in all three roles. What I saw on Sunday night said NBA potential.
3) Shooting was good. High % of both FG and #'s made. Obviously, Buie was on fire.
4) CATS took more time to get good shots. Early in the game Audige three up a couple of shots early in the set for misses. Collins got very upset on the sideline and pulled Audige after the second miss. This is good coaching to help his player understand that, while he gives the kid the green light to shoot, he expects everyone to work for the quality shot. Miller Kopp missed a couple of threes early and did not take many more shots on the night. He realized he was not on last night.
5) While the CATS only got a few rebounds on the offensive end, they actually out-rebounded the Spartans overall. Obviously, this was something Collins pointed out to the team on the tape of the Pitt game.
6) Ty Berry is starting to look like the 6th man or first off the bench, to bring energy and scoring when needed. He looked great last night.
Overall, I am much more optimistic about the season. Now, for this style to work, the CATS have to continue to shoot well. A cold night will mean a loss.
I was upset after the Pitt game and let it hang out in my earlier post. My bad. Let's see how the CATS do against Indiana in Bloomington on Wednesday.
Tastes pretty good, doesn't it
There will be ups and downs throughout the season. Just have to feel we are overall going in the right direction. This team is learning and is much improved but the BIG is tough top to bottom so it might not show in the record. I expect next year to be a big year as key guys get to be soph jrs and seniors
Last night’s game was incredible, but I’d like to see us win a few now that opponents have to take us seriously. Wednesday is a really good road test against a tough but beatable opponent.
I just don’t see any of those competing with this team’s depth. This year wins at least 7 out of 10.
We surely go from extreme lows to extreme highs. Even clobbering UAPB made this board overly optimistic.
Manage expectations. Mine are just to be competitive, get to 7 wins and not see CC blow it on the sideline
Look we have seen good signs but don't get too carried away. We will likely take a step back at some point. Just want to see a couple steps forward for each step back
Agreed. to clarify: the 7 out of 10 was not against the B1G, but against certain NU teams of the recent past/pre-Collins era.
This is my perspective as well. The schedule is brutal. This could still be a very bleak start to the season. Here's the next month: at Indiana (30), Ohio State (23), at Iowa (4), at Michigan (18), Illinois (19), at Ohio State (23), Iowa (4).
BTW, I do get annoyed with the big ten schedule makers. For example, MSU opened up with a much gentler stretch (on paper because NU done gone and whooped their butts) of NU, Wisconsin, at Minnesota, at Nebraska, Rutgers, Purdue, at Iowa.
Collins need to be fired. They looked so uninspired and couldn’t rebound or play defense. Horrible coaching.
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Corbi says we're struggling as a program. He knows NU hoops as much as he knows NU OC's.
Hey I was probably wrong about my take in here last week regarding firing Collins! Wow, impressive couple of wins for the boys. Go cats!
My position coming into the year was that the team needed to show that it was building toward another tournament appearance, or Collins would have to go. I did not expect that they would do so. After the Pitt game, I really did not expect that they would do so. Well, after two B1G games, it looks like they are doing so. Thumbs up.
So happy for Audige. He’s had a few rough games and the first half into the beginning of the second half wasn’t easy, either. But he can be an enormous help for this team, and that showed again tonight.
Test passed but next up is dOSU and we need all our bigs. Hopefully Behren is OK. Ruthgers was up big and then one of their bigs fouled out and dOSU took them apart
Each team will have their brutal stretch (for example they posted PSUs next few games and about as brutal as what we have to face) and remember that the ranked teams have one ranked team that they do not have to play.
One of the things that makes this stretch really hard is we will have had 3 games in 7 days and with Behren hurt and facing dOSU... And MSU had to face us right out of the gate. That was a pretty tough start to the season. We only had to face MSU
yeah teams coached by Chris Collins never choke. Must've been an off night.
You couldn't be more wrong. Seem to remember that Collins took NU the the "dance" for the first time ever. Ok let's bring back O'Neil then ,right? or how about Carmody , who never got us into the 'dance"!
We are not nearly as bad as this board thought we were after the Pitt game.
We are not nearly as good as this board thought we were after we started 3-0 in conference play.
We are not nearly as good as this board thought we were after we started 3-0 in conference play.
Don’t be stupid. If you can’t see an gigantic gap in talent I can’t help you. The first half was as much of a fluke as the second half.
So who's to blame for the talent gap then, if Collins is apparently off limits.
I see a talent gap most of the time when our football team takes the field. What we never see with our football team is what we saw tonight.
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All I know is NU basketball has made the tournament one time. So, I hope Collins gets the axe so you can all come back and fire the next guy in 8 years. The next guy will get a few players and win a few games he shouldn’t win, but the age old issue of NU has been they can’t get the top players that alpha dog’s. Top 50 in a class, a legitimate NBA talent. Great players win games. We can’t even land the son’s of alumni because they want to play in the league. They want to play in big arena and be BMOC. They want to go to a school where we have something in common with at least a reasonable portion of the fellow student body. NU offers none of that, but some of the alumni are delusional that the degree sells the recruiting and we’ll get comparable talent to the rest of the league. It pisses off people when you say it, but NU is not a basketball destination and the best it gets is when you have a strong class that matures together and has that good year. So, go ahead and blame CCC for not closing the talent gap, but then you better criticize pretty much every Coach that ever walked thar sideline. See a common theme here.
Well said.
And a friendly reminder that NU is working with 10 scholarship players this year.
I am cautiously optimistic that with a full 13 next year, and hopefully 13 each year going forward, we will at least have the depth, if not the top-tier talent, to compete night in and night out with the rest of the conference. Even when a guy or two is having a bad game.
I actually think Collins HAS closed the talent gap. My point is that he has not closed the toughness gap. Our team frequently lapses into soft and sloppy play. The talent is too good to play this badly. Fitz maximizes results with our talent; Collins does not, at least so far.
Well, Vassar69, it’s because Collins has learned not to reach for marginal Big Ten players and is trying to balance out his class sizes.
I agree that the team is a bunch of nice guys. They could use a complete jerk out there. A Brad Davison type that every hates, but he hates to lose. I don’t see that guy on this team. The best player today was Ryan Greer.
As far as Fitz, let’s not forget that he was at the helm for that Illinois State and Akron debacle. MSU was just a little over a Month ago, I love the guy, but the nature of college sports outside the the truly elite programs usually is littered with inexplicable performances.
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