Prior to last season, Collins was not performing at an acceptable level. Prior to be fired, Fitz was not performing at an acceptable level. Its pretty simple.
No one on this board saw last year coming. We never could have imagined that losing Pete Nance and Ryan Young was actually addition by subtraction. We never saw that losing Miller Kopp to Indiana would be a positive for the program. No one could have predicated Boo Buie would start playing at an all-american level and that Audige would be Big DPOY.
One thing I will say is that overall, Collins and his staff do not waste scholarships. All three NU recruits who came in last year have decent film, and any criticism is based on their recruiting profile and not their actual performance on the Court - especially because two of them are redshirting. I am not saying that they will contribute because we honestly just don't know but Clayton certainly has the physical skills to play in the Big10.
Also, do you think that Hunger and Martinelli had higher recruiting profiles than this year's freshman? Remember that Martinelli had signed with Elon and only "fell" into Collins' lap because the Elon coach left to be an assistant at Duke. Martinelli was going to redshirt his freshman year as well but Collins was forced to play him. Hunger had an offer from Miami but he never contributed as he broke his foot his freshman year. By all accounts at this point last year, the class of Hunger and Martinelli looked like a non-factor for the program. And the class before that - well two have left the program leaving only Barnhizer on the roster. Also, the big transfer coming in before last season to fill the gap - a big from UTEP.
I am just not seeing where anyone thought things were going so well with recruiting and retention that the ultimatum impacted recruiting.
But with all of this going on - somehow Collins won Big COY and seems to have turned around the program. And before you freak out and say this class with be the death of the program, if Berry and Nicholson return, that means NU returns 4 starters next year and all Collins has to do to be competitive - land a starting combo guard in the portal because the rest of the pieces are there to be a mid level big program with an outside shot to get to the NCAA tourney.
Anyway,
The entire premise of the thread is silly, of course. But also, the team is good *because* CCC has stopped chasing stars and started chasing attitude and film.
Consider Sundays starting five:
PG without P5 offers, and also the best player in the history of the program
SG from Princeton, who played the best game of his career and was a zero-star kid
SF from Lafayette who led Indiana in scoring and still couldn’t get an offer from Purdue or IU
PF who would have gone to Elon except that his coach preferred an administrative job at Duke
C who won a state title and didn’t get a sniff from Michigan or MSU
This program is *better* because NU hasn’t chased stars.
Would we want rosters that looked like IU’s? — all empty five-stars?
Do we want more Berans and Kopps, or more Martinells and Langborgs?
We don’t know how good players are until they play. Recruiting rankings are *absolutely* a guess after the top ten or so, and a top 75 and a top 200 have basically the same possibilities of success (no math or research here, just my inclination).
I won’t link it, but it’s hilarious to look at Dennys all time top Northwestern basketball commits.
In conclusion, we cannot issue an ultimatum anyway, but perhaps we can consider an unsigned Open Letter from THE ENTIRE WILDCATREPORT MESSAGE BOARD. (I don’t wish to sign, but that doesn’t matter if you write ENTIRE.)
