So when will we be competitive in the btn
- Thread starter catcrazy
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If that were a guarantee, I'd gladly take it. If we don't make it by 2019, I would be very disappointed.
So any thoughts on the various recruits that we are chasing? Anybody feeling that we might get one in the coming months? Any positive news to report? Combes, Haywood - anything to brighten this cold February day?
I agree with much of what you say, but can't agree that making the NCAA tourney is as difficult as making the Rose Bowl. You need a much larger group of good players to make a top-quality football team than a basketball team, which can be tourney-bound with 2-3 studs and a decent cast of supporting players. The historic ineptitude of the football team leading up to the Rose Bowl year, probably even worse than the basketball team's performance during that era, made the Rose Bowl appearance nothing short of a miracle. And even then, we wouldn't have made the Rose Bowl without Michigan's upset of Ohio State. It also helped that we didn't have to play a championship game as there was none at that time. If we'd played Ohio State for the championship, we might have won — or not. The relatively greater difficulty of turning a football team around vs. basketball makes Northwestern's epic NCAA tourney drought even harder to understand. But I think if we do finally do lift up our team enough to break into the tourney, it's entirely possible we will be a tourney contender many years after that. On the other hand, I think it's entirely possible that NU won't make another Rose Bowl appearance in my lifetime.
By "it," I assume you mean the NCAA tournament.
In some ways, I don't even worry about the NCAAs. I'm concerned about the NIT. I'm worried CC will run into much of the same problem Carmody had that so many want to overlook.
You gotta have an NIT on your resume somewhere early in your tenure. You can only sell vapor, hope and "we just need one star player" for so long.
Get an NIT this year, next year or (God forbid) the year after and you have a fighting chance. Miss out and we're looking at SSDD.
On the face of it, I had thought NU was turning the corner on support of (that is really getting behind) its major sports teams. Like Stanford, for example (I mean, what do they have to lose by it, they're the best school in the country after HYP). In spite of lip service, I'm no longer sure that is true. This is certainly only my imagination, but I picture a cabal of skinny, pasty white professors in bad suits (who actually are not the best in their respective fields) meeting weekly to figure out how to keep the administration in line with their eventual plan to get rid of football and basketball once and for all. It may be impossible for NU to field a great basketball team. But why?
Yeah, NCAA (I was responding to another poster in the chain).
I'm in agreement with you on most of this, especially in regards to making the NIT as a short term goal. As good as a recruiter as Collins seemingly is, at some point the program needs on court results. This was the first year I expected a postseason birth, but without depth (on the way), the 'Cats couldn't really afford injuries to key pieces like Law and Olah. Hiring Collins was, as Hdhntr used to say, a "point B to C" move. To get to point C (aka: NCAA), NU first needs to get back to point B (aka: NIT) fairly soon.
All things considered, I do feel like we're in pretty good shape at the moment. I'd like to think CC will only get better on sidelines as time progresses.
Stilll harboring a growing concern with CCC the coach. I think he is missing many opportunities to give his recruits valuable experience.
I'm quite optimistic for next year. In particular I can see Pardon making a huge jump in development, and he's impressive now. We're a pretty young team compared to many of the better teams in the B1G.
I think the calculus is different for a school that is the only private school in a power 5 conference.
For all other schools I agree completely.
It's been discussed previously on this board by people smarter than me so I don't have much to add.
NU had to win the conference to get to the RB in 95 (and go undefeated in conference to do that). To get to the NCAA, they only have to get to the top half of the conference and potentially can lose half of their conference games. Much tougher to get to the RB. That said, now with the playoffs and conference championship, it potentially only it may only take getting to the conference championship to get there.
As far as the original questions goes, we will be competitive whenever we don't lay bricks for 40 minutes, and occasionally when we do. We lost to PSU by 9 after not hitting the broad side of the barn for most of the night. We lost to Iowa and MSU terribly when we couldn't hit the target at all. Maryland? Halfway decent shooting at times and an OT game. We finally get fairly hot against Minny and kill a team that had lost consecutive games like this (going backwards) IU by 6, PU by 4, UI in OT, Mich by 5, IU by 7. On a good day we're competitive against anyone. If we can stay out of our horrible slump, we should set an all time record for victories in a season (we would need 5 more, including post-season). I can take that, personally, without even fleetingly considering firing our coach or seriously dumping on our team. Go Cats.
