I’m honestly a lot more unfazed about this news than I would have thought. Maybe it’s just general apathy about the program. But Kopp wasn’t getting it done when he wasn’t making open shots. Let’s see how it all shakes out before freaking out. If he’s the only departure I’m not sure it changes my view much of next season.
Miller Kopp is in the portal
- Thread starter Secho99
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Kopp was the most important player on the team last year even while he was struggling. It's hard to see this as anything other than a devastating blow to the program especially if he's not the only one.
I'm just saddened to hear this news. I can't say that I'm shocked, but this definitely gets me down.
I salute you, Miller, and thank you for all your contributions to our team. I know it has been a tough go.
I salute you, Miller, and thank you for all your contributions to our team. I know it has been a tough go.
Also the only true forward we had. It’s not like Beran or Gaines slide smoothly into the position. Or even Audige or Nance. At this point, no seasoned forward on the team for next year.
Same for me because my view of next season was already as low as can be. This does give some insight into how the players foresee next season. Core players don’t transfer out of a program they feel is on the verge of a special year.
This is B1G Basketball. Tough to compete, no question. Plus, NU has no BBall history of significance. Fitz seems to have found the formula to succeed, but it is not without precedent, despite the Dark Ages. I don't believe we should be too quick to judge. CC is in a tough spot. If Carmody (an excellent coach based on his history--I watched and listened to many Princeton games and he was no slouch) couldn't bring NU to the fore, why should Collins be expected to? Well, we want him to, but is there something inherent about NU basketball (and its history) that is holding him back? Other Chicago schools are rooted in Chicago basketball (not as good as Philadelphia basketball, but still pretty good), NU is not. NU is an elite upper-middle class suburban school which also differentiates it from other B1G schools, as well as the other Chicago BBall schools. This is not true of even many of the Ivies. It's not the coach, it's something else. Seriously, why would the Loyala coach come to NU? It would be crazy for him to do that. Which is why we have the problem we have.
Yeah. He was a lock to start and play 30+ minutes, and there's no obvious replacement for him on the roster. Players like that rarely transfer from high-major programs, especially not programs as "stable" as this one insists it is. This is not good at all.
There is nothing "inherent" about the program that is holding anyone back. It's poor talent and/or poor coaching.
That's the mystery of this. Why have we not been able to solve it in all of the coaches we have had in the past 90 years?
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I agree 100% with this post. Miller gave his all and it was a frustrating season to say the least. Don't know what went down behind the scenes but I wish him well.
Tough year with COVID and no school in person. He struggled in the second half of the season. I don’t think this is a transfer trend any more than other schools have had people reassess in this Covid environment. Lots of new players coming up looking for minutes, and will get more of a shot next season.
It sucks to lose, and sometimes deep down I wonder why *anyone* picks NU over winning programs. Yes, I know all about what Northwestern the school offers and how appealing that is, but any student who is good enough to play for a Big Ten team - even a bad one - is someone who puts basketball at or near the top of his list of interests, and it sucks to lose over and over doing the one thing that is the most important to you.
I wish Kopp the best of luck, and I hope he finds what he's looking for. I can't begrudge that decision.
As for turning NU into a school that wins more than they lose...I just don't have a suggestion. Changing coaches, getting decent transfers, lowering recruiting standards. They all sound like short-term answers, but I just don't know what else to do. It makes me sad that we just can't get over the hump. 2017 was magical, and I really thought we'd turn the corner. I saw NU as being like Gonzaga 25 years ago and Duke 40 years ago. Unfortunately it seems like we're just like NU was 25 years ago and NU was 40 years ago.
I wish Kopp the best of luck, and I hope he finds what he's looking for. I can't begrudge that decision.
As for turning NU into a school that wins more than they lose...I just don't have a suggestion. Changing coaches, getting decent transfers, lowering recruiting standards. They all sound like short-term answers, but I just don't know what else to do. It makes me sad that we just can't get over the hump. 2017 was magical, and I really thought we'd turn the corner. I saw NU as being like Gonzaga 25 years ago and Duke 40 years ago. Unfortunately it seems like we're just like NU was 25 years ago and NU was 40 years ago.
To be fair, the program is in a much better place right now than it was for the vast majority of those 90 years, in terms of facilities, financial support from the university, and, even if it only happened once, getting the "never made the NCAAs" monkey off its back. Both BC and CC left the program in significantly better shape than they found it, so there's no reason to think we can't hire someone else to take another step whenever CC's tenure ends.
I was a bit caught up in my logic / likely off the mark in a prior post when I mentioned any potential impact from Collins being frank about Kopp’s skill set. But, unless Nance leaves, Kopp’s departure is not yet a death knell for Collins. And I highly doubt it’s because he lost faith in Collins’ abilities. While we wish Kopp the best and maybe he just wants to find an easier road to winning, we will likely be a better defensive team next year, something we all want; offense is a bit more questionable. All in all, things just didn’t go as well as planned for him at NU; where have we heard that before? It’s hard for everyone involved. Finding a coach to magically transform this program completely is pretty close to finding a needle in a haystack. When Jim Calhoun turns it down because he knew flat out he couldn’t win, we know we have it tough.
He was a different player in the conference tournament game, with drives to the bucket and midrange jumpers off the dribble complementing the in-rhythm three-pointers. “I’m going to do my best to take over, and if it still doesn’t work, let’s go somewhere where I can shoot and win.” (My armchair guess at his approach, not an actual quote.)
Lots of people here (points thumb) were down on him after that performance.
Fingers crossed that he comes back, but my guess is he’ll be banging home three-pointers at a 48% clip at Houston or Texas or Baylor or aTm next year.
Best of luck.
Relevant, possibly:
His youngest brother, Maddox, is enrolling at Houston to play QB next year. And younger brother Anderson just finished his sophomore season as an 11ppg scorer at Lamar and is also in the portal.
Lots of people here (points thumb) were down on him after that performance.
Fingers crossed that he comes back, but my guess is he’ll be banging home three-pointers at a 48% clip at Houston or Texas or Baylor or aTm next year.
Best of luck.
Relevant, possibly:
His youngest brother, Maddox, is enrolling at Houston to play QB next year. And younger brother Anderson just finished his sophomore season as an 11ppg scorer at Lamar and is also in the portal.
According to Verbal Commits there are 839 players who entered the portal. According to 247 Kopp was the 7th highest ranked player out of HS that is in the portal.
I saw a team that had 15 players in the portal. It's a mess.
Start with 100% of the players in the portal:
-Remove the ones with poor stats, often just driven by lacking minutes (80 to 90% of players?)
-Remove players from mid majors with good stats (understandably wanting to compete at a higher level - some will work out at high majors, most won't, Ryan Taylor comes to mind)
How many players are you left with? 10? Why are these in the portal? Carr, Allen, Simpson and Toney come to mind.
Coaches being fired/leaving is a major reason "legit"/proven players enter the portal. Another you can assume is just being unhappy with the coach or state of the program.
Make no mistake, Kopp falls into the legit player/unhappy with coach and/or program. He's not Falzon or Benson, with poor stats, looking to just play.
I thought one not so small feat by CC was that the players seemed to still believe him and be committed to him and the program. That would be remarkable considering the 💩 show of the last two season.
Now I'm not so confident the players themselves see him as a competent coach. And wonder what the next few days/weeks will hold. It's not just Nance that would be a major blow. Young or Audige would also be devastating. Even Beran would be terrible considering we got no front court players in our incoming class.
Work that portal, work it hard, because we should be hiring.
I saw a team that had 15 players in the portal. It's a mess.
Start with 100% of the players in the portal:
-Remove the ones with poor stats, often just driven by lacking minutes (80 to 90% of players?)
-Remove players from mid majors with good stats (understandably wanting to compete at a higher level - some will work out at high majors, most won't, Ryan Taylor comes to mind)
How many players are you left with? 10? Why are these in the portal? Carr, Allen, Simpson and Toney come to mind.
Coaches being fired/leaving is a major reason "legit"/proven players enter the portal. Another you can assume is just being unhappy with the coach or state of the program.
Make no mistake, Kopp falls into the legit player/unhappy with coach and/or program. He's not Falzon or Benson, with poor stats, looking to just play.
I thought one not so small feat by CC was that the players seemed to still believe him and be committed to him and the program. That would be remarkable considering the 💩 show of the last two season.
Now I'm not so confident the players themselves see him as a competent coach. And wonder what the next few days/weeks will hold. It's not just Nance that would be a major blow. Young or Audige would also be devastating. Even Beran would be terrible considering we got no front court players in our incoming class.
Work that portal, work it hard, because we should be hiring.
You just laid out a convincing case that players of Kopp's ability are rare in the portal. So "working the portal" isn't the answer.
As an aside, Collins has had at least one transfer from every recruiting class except the Gaines class, and Anthony was the only recruit signed that year. So it isn't rare or unusual to have a transfer at the end of the season........
There's not a short term answer to fix the problem. That's for sure.
But, especially if one or two more players leave, you don't think we need patches? Even if those are not of clear "B1G quality"?
Nah..... you can't lump this in as just the regular yearly transfer. This is a senior leader who is one of your top performers transferring in what should be his and the program's banner year. This is a horrible sign for Collins and the program.
Not this season, if Kopp is the only transfer. NU will have 12 scholarship players which is more than in any recent season. Clogging up the roster with a non-B1G caliber player makes no sense to me.
Not a good sign at all. Next year imo should have been a return to the tourney, but doesn’t appear one of our most experienced players thought that was the case...
Without knowing the reason he is in the portal, you really cannot assume that is the case.......
Doesn't look like a great season for the B1G next year. Penn State and Minnesota are hot messes with the coaching changes, doubtful Nebraska will be a power anytime soon, Illini likely lose at least one of the Kofi-Ayo duo, perhaps both, Wisconsin loses most of their veterans, Garza and others depart Iowa. Best could be Michigan, where Howard is building something and has a good class coming in, and Purdue, which had a very young team with a freshman 7-4 center who seemed to have some skills. Ohio State might be OK as well. Overall, it's probably not going to be a good follow-up to the disaster of this year's NCAA tourney.
I can agree with that logic.
But, at the same time, if you lose a couple more players, especially Nance/Beran/Young, you are really short handed for size. And that was my concern, that this does not stop with Kopp. I'd be putting out feelers with players in the portal just in case. Can't hurt to gauge interest
As a friend of mine once said, in his typical way of jumbling metaphors, "we'll jump off that bridge when we cross it".......
I think we have to assume that every school is going to have multiple transfers this year, and that includes NU. I hope we don’t lose anyone else, but any of the talk of being optimistic about next year because “everyone is back” might just be a pipe dream.
I have very mixed feelings similar to the quotes above.
On one hand, Kopp was really evolving into "just a guy." Will he end up being an 18 ppg guy in a P5 conference? I wouldn't bet on it. I agree he has the skills, but it wasn't happening. And yes, Collins holds some responsibility for that as well as Kopp.
Part of me is in the camp of "let's see how this shakes out." If it's one guy, and Kopp ends up at Houston, fine ... he wanted to go back home. And maybe play in a tourney.
But the underlying circumstances around this don't paint a pretty picture.
1) Collins was obviously going to go to his grave with this guy. He wanted to give him EVERY opportunity to succeed - probably more than he deserved. He 0-for-figgin'-whatever going into the Minn B10 tournament game, and Collins was obviously STILL drawing up plays for him to get him going early in the game.
And in the end, Kopp didn't believe in Collins' direction, even though he went out of his way for Kopp.
2) I also agree with the sense that Collins pushes the envelope too much in these end of the season discussions. I can totally hear, "Miller, we've got two 6-6 guys coming in, and you need to work on X, Y and Z, or else, you're going to see less time."
Yes, it's an idea based on no knowledge or anything close to facts, but I get the feeling Collins wants to challenge these guys as a test. That's not the greatest move when you don't have a lot to start with.
In the end, it doesn't improve things for CC. If I'm Morty or the interim AD, I have discussions whether someone has a strong relationship with Moser. I agree it's a stretch that he will come to NU, but he seems to be motivated by connections, and there's few stronger connections than home. If you can quietly keep him away from Marquette and give him a nice $$incentive$$ (I always believe you need to overpay anyone with any market value to come to NU), you might have a chance at him next year. It's a difficult needle to thread, but I think it's an easy discussion with Moser's agent.
Almost hate to ask this question, but did anyone see any joy/enthusiasm in Kopp's game? I am sure there were moments and I don't follow NU basketball like most in this forum, but he always looked stressed to me when compared to leading players on other teams that appeared to embrace the moment. Tell me I am wrong I guess.
This is a problem at every level. In the Division II conference I follow, one of the bottom-dwellers recently had its two best players announce they were transferring (didn't take effect this year as we didn't have a season). This is becoming more and more common. Since you're not going to get national pub as a Division II player, playing on a winning side is all that more important to most players. Problem is, it becomes very hard if you're on the bottom end to build a winning program and in the long run it hurts the competitive balance of the league.
One of the great things about the B1G over the years is that almost all of the programs have had a heyday (except us, of course) and have made at least one or two final fours. Anyone who has followed the league for a while can remember good teams at Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Iowa, Illinois, Purdue, Indiana, Minnesota, etc. Maryland brings a strong BB tradition into the league — the other three additions not so much although Rutgers is improving and has potential in a strong recruiting area. I hope that traditional balance won't be upset as I'd hate to be like an ACC where for years it was Duke, North Carolina and everyone else. In football it's been more and more Ohio State and the other 13 recently.
I think 55 players went into the portal yesterday.
Today, it appears 11 are in, and it's not even lunch time
Today, it appears 11 are in, and it's not even lunch time
It was pretty clear on the court, right? Not many guys could have put up some of his stat lines and kept their starting spot.
The cameras definitely caught him sticking out his tongue after big shots and mugging generally.
You think it's a good investment property? Maybe an airbnb?
I've seen a few posts about the huge number of players in the portal and that this doesn't necessarily reflect a problem with the program. I think that's a fair point, but how many of those players were their team's leading scorer, potential captain, and had started 70+ games? This transfer strikes me as different. But if he ends up at Houston or Texas A&M then it's probably just wanting go home and play in the tourney.
