My thoughts on NU retaining Chris Collins
- Thread starter lou v
- Start date
- Status
Just curious, how much/often do the assistant coaches scrimmage with the players?
Look, CCC is the CEO pf the program. Every assistant is there because he brought them in. Every player. He took the brunt of all the criticism over the last several years so when thing go well, he gets a lot of credit. Players do as well but bottom line is it is his program. If it had not worked out this year, it is likely he would have been the one out on the street so he deserves all the credit he is getting
I don't know. My understanding, based on the comments of others, is that McIntosh and Battle were regularly scrimmaging with the team because we didn't have enough quality players to get 10 "good" players on the court. Not to diminish Roy Dixon, but you know what I mean.
I would say that is not the impression I got from your posts last year, but the past is the past, no need to re litigate it. Nicholson’s emergence this year has been great and I’m looking forward to seeing more of it this postseason and into the future!
Go Cats
I was definitely in the camp that CCC should not have been retained after last year. This is a results business to me, and that matters the most: 5 straight losing seasons typically will overwhelm any positive argument in favor of a coach in my mind.
But I gave this year a chance because of Gragg's statement, which I still feel he absolutely had to make, and the changes that were made (Lowery and players).
Obviously, CCC, the team, and his staff proved that he deserves a good extension (at least 3 or 4 years, maybe 5 if we make a deep tournament run) given this season's results with a tournament bid and #2 finish in the conference.
Those who believed in him should feel vindicated. He's also earned potential rebuilding time if needed with a year like this. This was a "hot seat"/"prove it" year, and he aced the test with flying colors.
Ultimately, I think we all want Northwestern teams to win the right way. Long stretches of losing fracture the fanbase and sap enthusiasm, but a team like this can bring all the excitement back fast.
I'm happy to have been wrong about the situation last year, and I'm hopeful we'll have a much better track record of success under CCC. I think most of us hoped he'd have a long 20+ year career here with lots of NCAA bids and establishing the program as a force. That is still on the table though it's worth being reasonable on what is achievable.
But I gave this year a chance because of Gragg's statement, which I still feel he absolutely had to make, and the changes that were made (Lowery and players).
Obviously, CCC, the team, and his staff proved that he deserves a good extension (at least 3 or 4 years, maybe 5 if we make a deep tournament run) given this season's results with a tournament bid and #2 finish in the conference.
Those who believed in him should feel vindicated. He's also earned potential rebuilding time if needed with a year like this. This was a "hot seat"/"prove it" year, and he aced the test with flying colors.
Ultimately, I think we all want Northwestern teams to win the right way. Long stretches of losing fracture the fanbase and sap enthusiasm, but a team like this can bring all the excitement back fast.
I'm happy to have been wrong about the situation last year, and I'm hopeful we'll have a much better track record of success under CCC. I think most of us hoped he'd have a long 20+ year career here with lots of NCAA bids and establishing the program as a force. That is still on the table though it's worth being reasonable on what is achievable.
Last edited:
If thats true then the clique did a good job of misrepresenting my numerous (consistent) statements about what Nicholson's role should be and how he could help the team.
We economists like to study what factors have changed, what the results are, and have an opinion on which factors led to those changes. 1) we lost two of our best players, both in the front court. I don't "blame" this on CCC and NU. Lots of people grad transfer even before NIL. The results on the offensive end were pretty stark - Young and Nance scored 10ppg more last year than Matty/Beran. 2. Gragg and CCC had their EOY talk. They publicly said they were committed to making the necessary changes 3. Among other presumed changezls, CCC hired a defensive specialist. Now, he has had good defensive teams in the past. It's not like he doesn’t know defense; however, I hope we can agree that the Lowery hire, which I fully credit to CCC, changed the dynamic of the team and even the program. We went from a soft team that could score some, to a junkyard dog team that can't hit the ocean if they are standing at the shore.
My hypothesis/conclusion is that CCC (and Gragg) recognized that something(s) must change, and, probably, Gragg said ''come to me with your plan'. To me, it was the equivalent of a PIP. If anyone thinks CCC could have survived another losing season, I will have to disagree. But, he DIDN'T have a losing season, and he SURVIVED the PIP. He coached for his career and he saved it. Good on him. I was choked up watching that video of him finding out he got the award, getting so excited, then saying "it's a staff award" like 10 times.
This is one of the greatest turnaround in NU sports history. Depending on the end result (BTT and NCAA runs) it could rival the Rose Bowl team. To the extent that some portion of this is attributable to the staff and admin, i.e. not the players' obvious contributions, CCC deserves a ton of accolades. To pretend that Gragg's leadership and Lowery's defensive transformation were trivial is just being disingenuous.
Many on this board would have fired CCC - in error. That’s not good, especially knowing how smart all the people are on this board. It would make you have to question the thought process and analysis that went into it.
Or, I am just a darn lucky guy to have known he would convince us someday of his talents.
Either way, Go Cats!
In a way, Gragg did provide a sort of cover for CCC this year when he released his statement on retaining CCC.
This board and our basketball fanbase generally were in a pretty bad place a year ago.
Many if not most wanted or expected CCC to be shown the door, and there were a lot of arguments about what reasonable expectations are here and what the quality of the NU job is.
I do think Gragg's statement at least convinced the doubters (including me) to give CCC another chance in a hot seat year where we had to overperform expectations (which were to finish near the bottom of the Big Ten) and at least get us to the NIT to be kept another year or the NCAA tournament to get an extension.
Keeping CCC doesn't seem like an obvious slam dunk in retrospect either given the personnel losses and low expectations.
If we had finished near the bottom of the Big Ten, I'm pretty sure the negativity around here would be even greater than last year and plenty directed at Gragg for keeping a "lame duck" in place just to save a few million in buyout money while throwing away a 6th straight year.
So yeah, I'm happy that we're in a much better place than the alternative with the BTT and NCAA ahead, but it is worth contemplating that this year had some risk to Gragg as well, not just CCC who was obviously coaching for his job.
Gragg singing CCC's praises in public is a much better place to be for both men.
The Head Coach takes most of the blame and gets most of the credit for the team’s performance. No one was clamoring for Brian James or BMac to be shown the door. That is just the way it is and always has been.
I am pretty sure I have never intentionally trivialized Lowry’s impact. He clearly has made a difference. I still don’t think Gragg pubic hot seat comments had any bearing at all. We’ll never know if the changes would have occurred or not. I tend to think CCC is smart enough to figure out something needed to change without a public flogging. So if that is disingenuous, then so be it.
Gragg's job comes down to how he oversees the football and basketball programs and whether they're successful or not.
Any time an AD makes decisions about retaining or hiring or firing football/basketball coaches they expend some of their capital.
Yes it was a minor decision for him to retain CCC for a year, but if this year had been a disaster, keeping CCC a year too long would've been Gragg's first mistake.
He answers to the boosters... who are just really big $ fans at heart. And it's pretty clear (from the fact that Gragg gave that statement last year) that he was making the ultimate decision unlike say on Fitz where I'd venture that Ryan probably has the real power over Fitz's tenure here (and where there was changes but no public statement from Gragg - though presumably conversations did happen on background).
- Status
