Question for Collins Supporters

[7th Cir. Cat]

Is there any amount of losing this year that would make you think that we need to change prior to next season? Losing 10 in a row? 13, 16? I would imagine that the list of P5 teams this year that lost 10 conference games in a row is pretty small, so we are in rare company. Styre or Gatolouco who post with actual data can correct me if I'm wrong . . .

But for those of you who don't think it matters if Collins wins another game, what is the reasoning for staying the course? Admissions are too tough and not Collins's fault, inabiity to find someone better to take the job, belief in incoming recruits, rewarding Collins for historic heights with the NCAA appearance, conference is historically good so can't expect NU to compete, COVID makes this a mulligan?

 

[SDakaGordie]

Is there any amount of losing this year that would make you think that we need to change prior to next season? Losing 10 in a row? 13, 16?

For those of you who don't think it matters if Collins wins another game, what is the reasoning for staying the course? Admissions are too tough and not Collins's fault, inabiity to find someone better to take the job, belief in incoming recruits, rewarding Collins for historic heights with the NCAA appearance, conference is historically good so can't expect NU to compete, COVID makes this a mulligan?

I think the number of losses is ultimately not the most important question. Given where we are with the losing streak, and with Ty Berry’s dad, it’s mostly about keeping the players believing in you as a coach and themselves as a team. He showed us he and they could do that tonight. If he keeps the team playing hard, and we have no transfers, then he’s handled the remainder of this year very professionally and successfully, and I’ll for one be even more supportive of him going forward. Losing is not easy and we should measure him based on how he and the team respond to adversity. They are responding well based on my limited perspective. (Look how close we were to winning with Ryan Greer as our point guard! Collins made the right call to play him more. And Collins has made him better as a player - no doubt). Let’s see how it all keeps up and judge them based on that. (And I still believe they will win 2-3 more games).

 

[Styre]

Is there any amount of losing this year that would make you think that we need to change prior to next season? Losing 10 in a row? 13, 16? I would imagine that the list of P5 teams this year that lost 10 conference games in a row is pretty small, so we are in rare company. Styre or Gatolouco who post with actual data can correct me if I'm wrong . . .

Bart Torvik tweeted that Collins is the only coach in any major conference since at least 2008 to preside over three straight seasons with 10-game losing streaks.

DePaul is the only other major conference program in that span to have three straight seasons with 10-game losing streaks, but those seasons spanned two coaches for them.

 

[NUCat320]

Bart Torvik tweeted that Collins is the only coach in any major conference since at least 2008 to preside over three straight seasons with 10-game losing streaks.

DePaul is the only other major conference program in that span to have three straight seasons with 10-game losing streaks, but those seasons spanned two coaches for them.

Yeah, but he loses with grace.

 

[Catfanincolo]

Do we ever play Nebraska?

 

[The Purple Knight]

I think the number of losses is ultimately not the most important question. Given where we are with the losing streak, and with Ty Berry’s dad, it’s mostly about keeping the players believing in you as a coach and themselves as a team. He showed us he and they could do that tonight. If he keeps the team playing hard, and we have no transfers, then he’s handled the remainder of this year very professionally and successfully, and I’ll for one be even more supportive of him going forward. Losing is not easy and we should measure him based on how he and the team respond to adversity. They are responding well based on my limited perspective. (Look how close we were to winning with Ryan Greer as our point guard! Collins made the right call to play him more. And Collins has made him better as a player - no doubt). Let’s see how it all keeps up and judge them based on that. (And I still believe they will win 2-3 more games).

That’s a crock. Wins and losses is the way you measure a coach and a program. Every team in the country has had the same adversity or worse. NW has actually been fortunate with Covid and injuries.

 

[FanatiCat]

Maybe Collins is in some way the BBall program’s Gary Barnett who broke a historic barrier (Rose Bowl/Big Dance). Barnett would’ve trended back up if he stuck around to see his 1998 class through. Maybe Collins could do the same, but maybe with him it’s more a coaching deficit than talent. Otherwise maybe BB needs to move on to find its Randy Walker or Pat Fitzgerald to actually build something sustainable.

 

[CappyNU]

We're currently slated to play 15 games in a row against top-30 Kenpom teams before closing out the season with 3 games against non-top-30 teams. Find me a team that has ever played that kind of schedule before, it's unprecedented. No, it's not an excuse that we keep losing all these games but the conference is historically strong right now and we got historically boned by the schedule makers.

 

[go cats go]

We're currently slated to play 15 games in a row against top-30 Kenpom teams before closing out the season with 3 games against non-top-30 teams. Find me a team that has ever played that kind of schedule before, it's unprecedented. No, it's not an excuse that we keep losing all these games but the conference is historically strong right now and we got historically boned by the schedule makers.

Re-reading your post a couple times, it definitely looks like you are making an excuse.

 

[lunker35]

Re-reading your post a couple times, it definitely looks like you are making an excuse.

You can’t have 4 10 game losing streaks in 8 years. You just can’t. Other program has done it other than DePaul no other major program has done it. It just can’t happen.

 

[NUera]

We should totally move on. I mean, the next coach we hire will absolutely be the one to accomplish what no other coach in NU has (other than Collins). /s

Can’t help but wonder: If Chade Audige hits the front end of a one-and-one are we even having this conversation? Or are we talking about how CCC managed to keep the team together and rally despite covid, one of the nation’s hardest schedules, terrible refereeing and the unfortunate passing of a close member of the program?

 

[mickbula]

Can we hire former NU player Rex Walters to coach our bb team? I think he's an assistant for NO pelicans now. Used to be head coach of sfrancisco u?? I am at a loss for words about our bb team's recent performances

 

[SDakaGordie]

That’s a crock. Wins and losses is the way you measure a coach and a program. Every team in the country has had the same adversity or worse. NW has actually been fortunate with Covid and injuries.

FIrst, NU, not NW. Such a simplistic and unemotional view about where the program specifically stands now, and generally when it comes to coaching college kids, is misplaced in my opinion. And I said nothing about COVID and injuries.

 

[cedricmelons]

Maybe Collins is in some way the BBall program’s Gary Barnett who broke a historic barrier (Rose Bowl/Big Dance). Barnett would’ve trended back up if he stuck around to see his 1998 class through. Maybe Collins could do the same, but maybe with him it’s more a coaching deficit than talent. Otherwise maybe BB needs to move on to find its Randy Walker or Pat Fitzgerald to actually build something sustainable.

If only there was a Gary Barnett type coach who has actually developed a consistent winning program just down Sheridan Road... Hopefully Moser is still available in a year or two if CCC can't right the ship.

 

[GatoLouco]

If you are a die hard Collins supporter you make excuses. That's what you do. Geico pun intended.

Here's a few, a collection from different posters (and our coach in several post game press conferences):
1) Berry's father - not to be insensitive. Not to discount it. But it applies to one game. Not to 9 out of the last 10. Or any of the previous seasons
2) COVID - wha? One of several where what applies to NU, applies to all or several other teams. Yet, somehow, it is hurting us and not others
3) No point guard - First it was because we lost Lathon, now it's because we can't rely on Buie. Several different avenues to fix: change style of play to not rely on a PG. Many teams keep winning without a great point guard, not every winning team is composed of a floor general in the style of MSU/Simpson. Go ahead, without looking it up, tell me who is Purdue's PG. Who is Rutger's? Chances are you don't know. Different avenue, get one in the portal. MI went ahead and found one in the Ivy League. If there's not one, it proves the first point, many many teams are playing and winning without a "true" tradition, floor general.
4) Only 10 scholarship players. Have we compared to other teams? Does it matter? Or what matters is how many players you trust to put into the rotation? CC says he has 9. How many players were on the rotation of IA last year? Or MN? Less than that, I assure you.
5) Injuries and illnesses - Not that we have not had our fair share. But last time I checked (at some point last season), surprisingly or not, we were not worse off than other teams. We had them, they had them
6) Multiple games in a short period of time - one of my favorites. Again, we have them, others have them. It fits the excuse for a given period, so let's use it. PSU just played like 6 games in 12 days. Got some wins, with a ehh roster.
7) Strength of the B1G - not totally convinced the league is harder than last year. Stronger in relation to other conferences, yes. But that could be explained by those conferences being weaker than last year. The B1G was really tough last year with more pro prospects than this year. But let's say it is indeed tougher this year. 10 in a row? No way. Every team with a not so impressive roster, outside Lincoln, finds a way to steal a few: PSU, Minny, Maryland. And... Purdue, doing it with freshmen and a lot more than just stealing a few. We don't.
8) Only (insert number) scholarship players - See injuries/illnesses. In this case, does not even apply to this year, as 10 is not exactly a low number. If you have 7 available reliable players for rotation, in a given night, you can steal games. MN played the entire last season like that. 7 players. Not great, does not prevent stealing some games
9) All state - down memory lane - in a weak B1G year, seasoned players that had made the tournament... it was an abomination for sure. Don't know if it was possible, but we could have tried the UIC arena, even LUC... might not have been possible or we might have thought we needed 10k seats because we were a tournament team. We were ranked and showed up from the summer in poor shape, that was more the reason.
11) Transfers - no player of major impact on the team has transferred. And I'm willing to risk stating our rate of transfers is lower than average
12) Bad luck/can't catch a break - wish I could find the post from last season where someone had compared the games we won vs the games we were expected to win. We are either the unluckiest team on the planet or there's more to it. I go with the latter

If you think we lost last night because we were unlucky, you probably want to convince yourself of that. Front end of one and one. Turnovers, bla, bla, bla. What can the coach do? Reality is we keep not being prepared. We were outscore 7-0 and 6-0 in closing of regulation and OT. This is not a one off. Every team botches games. We just botch a lot of them. Often in spectacular ways. Writing it off as bad luck or chance is naive.

CC is a good recruiter for our standards. He is empathetic and seems to be liked by the players. I believe that is a good thing.

 

[charcat]

Collins is recruiting well and this is a crazy season. Give him a couple of years to continue to build the program. We are a much better team, even if we have a losing streak to top teams.

 

[NUCat320]

Collins is recruiting well and this is a crazy season. Give him a couple of years to continue to build the program. We are a much better team, even if we have a losing streak to top teams.

“Build” implies progress. I have a tough time seeing this year as any different than the previous three.

 

[corbi296]

Collins is recruiting well and this is a crazy season. Give him a couple of years to continue to build the program. We are a much better team, even if we have a losing streak to top teams.

How many more seasons do you want to give him? If he doesn’t produce a winning season next year with a .500 or better Big Ten record, he should be out.

 

[BarefootCat]

Statements rarely heard:
- "Wow, that team played together way better than would be expected given their individual talent"
- "Wow, that coach put that individual player in the best position to succeed"
- "Wow, that coach really had a great game plan to take away the other team's strengths"

Also, count me among the people that believe that we'd have a better chance of landing PBJ if we moved on from Collins.

It's been long enough. Time to move on.

 

[Styre]

Collins is recruiting well and this is a crazy season. Give him a couple of years to continue to build the program. We are a much better team, even if we have a losing streak to top teams.

2018: 10th place
2019: 14th place
2020: 13th place
2021: 13th place

He's certainly built the program to the glorious heights of "better than Nebraska."

 

[its_the_sauce]

If you go back a few years, a lot of these same current comments being made about Collins were made about Joe McKeown.

Just saying...

 

[willycat]

Statements rarely heard:
- "Wow, that team played together way better than would be expected given their individual talent"
- "Wow, that coach put that individual player in the best position to succeed"
- "Wow, that coach really had a great game plan to take away the other team's strengths"

Also, count me among the people that believe that we'd have a better chance of landing PBJ if we moved on from Collins.

It's been long enough. Time to move on.

Only if we hired his dad as HC!

 

[freewillie07]

How many more seasons do you want to give him? If he doesn’t produce a winning season next year with a .500 or better Big Ten record, he should be out.

I agree. He has one more (non-COVID) year. 2021-22 or bust. At the very least he needs to get the Cats to .500 in the Big Ten and at least on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

Assuming no transfers and assuming Gaines wants to come back, he will have a full 13-man roster with a ton of experience. There will be no excuses.

Scholarship roster for 2021-22 as it stands today:

Guards: Boo Buie (Jr.), Ty Berry (Soph.), Ryan Greer (Sr.), Julian Roper (Fr.), Brooks Barnheizer (Fr.)
Wings: Chase Audige (RS Jr.), Miller Kopp (Sr.), Anthony Gaines (RS Sr.), Casey Simmons (Fr.)
Stretch 4s/Small Ball Bigs: Pete Nance (Sr.), Robbie Beran (Jr.)
Bigs: Ryan Young (RS Jr.), Matthew Nicholson (Soph.)

That's 1 fifth-year, 5 fourth-years, 2 third-years, 2 second-years and 3 first-years, by my count.

 

[peatymeanis]

I think the number of losses is ultimately not the most important question. Given where we are with the losing streak, and with Ty Berry’s dad, it’s mostly about keeping the players believing in you as a coach and themselves as a team. He showed us he and they could do that tonight. If he keeps the team playing hard, and we have no transfers, then he’s handled the remainder of this year very professionally and successfully, and I’ll for one be even more supportive of him going forward. Losing is not easy and we should measure him based on how he and the team respond to adversity. They are responding well based on my limited perspective. (Look how close we were to winning with Ryan Greer as our point guard! Collins made the right call to play him more. And Collins has made him better as a player - no doubt). Let’s see how it all keeps up and judge them based on that. (And I still believe they will win 2-3 more games).

this is one of the sorriest things I’ve ever read on this board, which is saying a lot

 

[Styre]

If you go back a few years, a lot of these same current comments being made about Collins were made about Joe McKeown.

Just saying...

McKeown reached the postseason 5 times in his first 8 years.

(And yes, it's easier to reach the WNIT than the NIT, but you still have to be .500 or better.)

 

[CappyNU]

How many more seasons do you want to give him? If he doesn’t produce a winning season next year with a .500 or better Big Ten record, he should be out.

I've been on record saying he needs to make the tournament by the time Kopp and Nance are seniors, i.e. next season. If they don't go dancing next year, then I think it's time to make a change.

 

[PurpleFaze]

Is there any amount of losing this year that would make you think that we need to change prior to next season? Losing 10 in a row? 13, 16? I would imagine that the list of P5 teams this year that lost 10 conference games in a row is pretty small, so we are in rare company. Styre or Gatolouco who post with actual data can correct me if I'm wrong . . .

But for those of you who don't think it matters if Collins wins another game, what is the reasoning for staying the course? Admissions are too tough and not Collins's fault, inabiity to find someone better to take the job, belief in incoming recruits, rewarding Collins for historic heights with the NCAA appearance, conference is historically good so can't expect NU to compete, COVID makes this a mulligan?

At this point the big positive is his recruiting. But at some point talent with no ability to turn that into wins is worthless as well. Next year will be a vet heavy talented deep team. If he can’t get that team to the tourney then I think it’s time for a change

 

[PurpleFaze]

We're currently slated to play 15 games in a row against top-30 Kenpom teams before closing out the season with 3 games against non-top-30 teams. Find me a team that has ever played that kind of schedule before, it's unprecedented. No, it's not an excuse that we keep losing all these games but the conference is historically strong right now and we got historically boned by the schedule makers.

But we’ve also thrown away several games because we look like a very poor fundamental team. That’s on the coaches when it is a continuing theme year to year

 

[peatymeanis]

We're currently slated to play 15 games in a row against top-30 Kenpom teams before closing out the season with 3 games against non-top-30 teams. Find me a team that has ever played that kind of schedule before, it's unprecedented. No, it's not an excuse that we keep losing all these games but the conference is historically strong right now and we got historically boned by the schedule makers.

Sure sounds like an excuse to me

 

[PurpleFaze]

Statements rarely heard:
- "Wow, that team played together way better than would be expected given their individual talent"
- "Wow, that coach put that individual player in the best position to succeed"
- "Wow, that coach really had a great game plan to take away the other team's strengths"

Also, count me among the people that believe that we'd have a better chance of landing PBJ if we moved on from Collins.

It's been long enough. Time to move on.

Really who has improved beyond what you would expect from natural yearly growth? I’ll patiently wait for any answers lol

 

[SDakaGordie]

this is one of the sorriest things I’ve ever read on this board, which is saying a lot

Maybe if you read it more thoroughly and used your brain and your heart, you might feel differently. This kind of statement from an NU grad (I presume) is what is the most sorry thing.

 

[GatoLouco]

this is a crazy season.

Add "crazy season" to the never ending list of excuses. It is a crazy season. For EVERYONE

 

[GatoLouco]

Really who has improved beyond what you would expect from natural yearly growth? I’ll patiently wait for any answers lol

Maybe RY, maybe

 

[peatymeanis]

Look, this is very simple. Chris Collins is paid a lot of money to win basketball games. That is something that he has been very poor at in the last 4 years. In fact he has been one of the worst D1 coaches at winning basketball games over this period of time. Regardless of if he is fired tomorrow or runs out his contract, he will have made 10s of millions of dollars over his tenure at NU. The school doesn’t owe him anything. He owes his employer a competitive team, which he has failed to deliver.

 

[willycat]

Really who has improved beyond what you would expect from natural yearly growth? I’ll patiently wait for any answers lol

Young, Nance, Beran and Greer.

 

[PurpleFaze]

Young, Nance, Beran and Greer.

I don’t think Young, Nance or Beran have developed beyond a natural progression curve. Beran seems to maybe even have regressed. Greer is better, but he’s also been around 3 years. If CC’s biggest success to use as an example is our backup point guard then my point has been made.

 

[GatoLouco]

I don’t think Young, Nance or Beran have developed beyond a natural progression curve. Beran seems to maybe even have regressed. Greer is better, but he’s also been around 3 years. If CC’s biggest success to use as an example is our backup point guard then my point has been made.

Young is, in my view, better than last season. While players getting better is expected I do think he continues to outperform expectations. But I fully admit I am biased cause 1) I love the guy 2) He does not naturally pass the eye test when you see him move

 

[IdahoAlum]

I don’t think anybody sees Collins leaving after this year, even if NU goes winless the rest of the way. Too much money tied up in his contract, no AD in place and, presumably, a full roster of returners next season offering some hope.

But if the team continues to struggle next year, and fans are allowed but don’t show, and if the new AD hears from enough donors, and enough season ticket holders cancel, it’s over for Collins.

I have to say I like Collins as a human being, he projects empathy and compassion for his players and that’s very important to me. But he’s made millions of dollars, has had very little success and continues to trend downward. And if attendance, donations and program interest dive, the new AD will have no choice but to move on. “The market” will have the last word.

 

[catsattackfor3]

If only there was a Gary Barnett type coach who has actually developed a consistent winning program just down Sheridan Road... Hopefully Moser is still available in a year or two if CCC can't right the ship.

Now why would Moser even think of taking this job? He has a top 2 or 3 job in his conference. Here he would have the 11-14 best job. Unless he just has his heart set on taking a Big Ten job, any Big Ten job, then its a no go. Moser more likely would pursue a Minnesota with a built in recruiting base than here.

 

[willycat]

Now why would Moser even think of taking this job? He has a top 2 or 3 job in his conference. Here he would have the 11-14 best job. Unless he just has his heart set on taking a Big Ten job, any Big Ten job, then its a no go. Moser more likely would pursue a Minnesota with a built in recruiting base than here.

You do understand the difference in salary from coaching in the MVC and the Big Ten, right?