I’m well aware of these games. I just can’t attribute significant levels of inconsistency to coaching.
The end of the Collins era
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Before Patty Mills arrived in 2007 the Gaels had not been ranked in the Top 25 since the 1980s. Not saying they were a one man show but Mills was WCC Freshman of the year, started every game, and led the team in points and holds all the records for Freshmen (points, assists etc.) Bennett had been coaching several years at St. Mary’s prior to Mills but didn’t break through to the tourney or being ranked. He found a great recruit and it kicked off a successful run.
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The other way to look at this is Collins is doing a pretty darn good job with the talent he's got. Sure we'd like all those close losses to be wins, and not the appearance of a team that can't close or blows leads. I have to agree though that if Collins can't keep this team in tact into next year, add to it and get to the NCAA's, it's time for a change. However pity the next coach who has to endure 10 or 12 more years of the same old, same old, unless NU becomes committed to producing a winning program or at least to more wins than losses. It's pretty clear now that something else has to give besides the coach.
Would we have admission issues with attacking Europe as a prime recruiting area. Honest question? Just seems like this would be even harder than getting admission for US students.
That’s the big question. If our admissions are an issue how does they play into transcripts that have to be wildly interpreted in the context of where they come from?
Not to mention the level of English. I know of a recent recruit who arrived on a campus in America and barely spoke English. I don’t think that would fly at NU. Today, 3 years later, his English is perfect.
It is amazing to think about how many Spanish kids could give us a huge boost. But those, for example, usually speak zilch English.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence saint Mary’s is mostly Australians. At least the language is not an issue.
To be fair, we would’ve made the tourney in 1781 if we didn’t have to forfeit 4 games after our buggy broke down on the way back from Iowa City.
At this point I can't believe anybody thinks Chris Collins is elevating the play of his roster.
Lets start with solving that problem. As soon as possible.
This was the year.
It fell apart and nobody got seriously injured.
If Collins were volunteering at the park District, then sure, it would be good enough.
Most European kids who could qualify for NU already speak English, and most speak a couple of other languages as well. The European education system is much more equipped to provide NU quality student-athletes than the American system.
SD, you make some good points in the post.
1) You're right. He doesn't ignore defense. But he's always been an offense-first guy in my mind. Defense is always the second reference. Defense needs to be a higher priority if NU is going to win with less talent.
2) I COMPLETELY agree that so much of what he does is trying to build confidence in limited players on the offensive side of the ball. Unfortunately, I think so much of that will be his downfall. Their lack of discipline in shot selection is maddening. Also, it's pretty evident his teams live and die with the three. There's got to be more options for winning a game ESPECIALLY when it's pretty obvious you're a bad-shooting team.
However, you're making the assumption that I don't think he can coach. First of all, I've never been his greatest admirer. He does some things well. I think his ability to have his team adjust game-to-game to a scouting report is pretty good.
OTOH, he's been pretty mediocre about some aspects of coaching that have been well documented out here. The most important of those issues unfortunately is identifying talent for Northwestern. You just can't win with a roster full of guys who only play well every third game.
If he had Purdue's roster, I'm sure he'd coach them at a reasonable level ... let's call it a replacement-level coach. He'd be able to coach good talent to some ballpark-representative level of its talent.
But that won't work at NU. Sadly, he didn't turn the corner on recruiting. So we're stuck hoping Nance and Buie show up to every game, while Young scoops his way around all-BT players and the Beran and Audige clankathon continues.
In the end, it absolutely doesn't matter whether they are losing at this pace because of his coaching or their talent. They are just a bad team with very few options. And they show many of the same traits as teams from the past few years. So much of this is not a one-time thing.
So it's time. And you just can't give up. It's time to move along, hopefully learn something and give it another try ... even with the same ridiculous restrictions the school puts on its multi-million dollar revenue generator.
One more thing, SD. I've been meaning to write you this for a while.
I hope you don't hold it against me that I disagree with several of your positions over these past months. But I completely respect the way you've stated your case. You've fought the good fight, and it's obvious you don't do it for some of the BS games we see out here. It's pretty obvious you're just a damn good and knowledgeable NU fan who wants to root for the best for his guys. Thanks for always providing a good fan perspective.
I hope you don't hold it against me that I disagree with several of your positions over these past months. But I completely respect the way you've stated your case. You've fought the good fight, and it's obvious you don't do it for some of the BS games we see out here. It's pretty obvious you're just a damn good and knowledgeable NU fan who wants to root for the best for his guys. Thanks for always providing a good fan perspective.
Sorry, but they made the tournament in 2005 with their all time scoring leader, Dan Kickert, who came from - Australia. St. Mary’s was 2-22 the year before Bennet started there. He had an Aussie in his first recruiting class. By 2005 they had made the tournament. By 2007 they had Mills and were nationally ranked. Playing in a 3500 seat gym in an area with two power five teams which were (at the time) at or near the top of their conference and going to the tournament every year.
Thanks for two thoughtful and kind replies. Sec 112. Wish I were local and could join for the games in person.
You're right. I didn't realize they made it before Patty! I was under the impression that he was the one who led them through the tournament break through.
That is true for the population at large. I seriously doubt that it even comes close to being true for the subset of kids who play good basketball.
In my experience with the many foreign kids who have played at Idaho State over the years, they all spoke English as well as their native languages. I’m pretty certain all the foreign kids NU recruited over the years did as well. If you’re good enough academically to get into NU as a foreign player, I’d say it’s almost 100 percent you speak English as well. Especially if you’re European.
We have foreign students on various NU teams, including Tennis, Golf, Swimming, Basketball, Fencing, Lacrosse, and Field Hockey. It's fair to say, I believe, that NU recruits athletes from around the world, and, to date, it has not been a problem to my knowledge.
To me, it has now become crystal clear that we made a deal with some spiritual entity where we would at last reach the Promised Land, though, like Moses, Coach Carmody would have to watch from afar. Instead, his last two recruits would be a huge part of why we got there, and once they left the program, we would be doomed to never achieve those heights again.
That's the only explanation I have, anyway.
What you are saying is true. But that is not the point I am trying to make.
Of course the kids you see cross over are fine. Of course the ones we had were fine. But how many did we have that you'd consider B1G basketball quality players? One, VV. And a second, Olah, was a capable backup.
When you shrink the recruitment base to the quality of players we need to be able to compete in the B1G, I guarantee you you will be left with a lot of the problems I pointed out. Most high level youth players are far from caring a lot about school. Not unlike in the US I guess. They are, in most cases, just squeezing by.
On top of that, the really high performing and promising players are, in a lot of cases, living in high performance centers. While they keep going to school, there is not a whole lot of concern to more than making sure they move on from grade to grade. In Spain, for example, centers in Madrid and Barcelona recruit kids internationally themselves. And I imagine them having little interest in their top prospects (imagine Doncic) playing college basketball. While that might benefit the kid's game, it raises risk on not monetizing the investment made in them.
Having said all this, I do believe it's always worth exploring. Always be asking your network for references. There are always kids that are recruitable. The English issue is sometimes mitigated by these kids having contact with the pro level teams in clubs, who always have american players, allowing them to practice it. But all this is not, in today's world, exactly a hidden secret, scouts flood to the euro championships, even the lower divisions, every time they take place.
What interests me in this thread is that CCC is an offense-first coach. I disagree. I think he’s always wanted to be known as a hard-nosed floor-slapping type. Pound the Rock and, uh, Mc slapping the floor.
Also, if he were an offensive coach, there should definitely be fewer players whose offensive job is “stand at the arc”. (Though, I’ll note here that Kopp still views his offensive job as “stand at the arc”, even in a new ZIP code.)
Also, if he were an offensive coach, there should definitely be fewer players whose offensive job is “stand at the arc”. (Though, I’ll note here that Kopp still views his offensive job as “stand at the arc”, even in a new ZIP code.)
You say if Collins had Purdue’s roster he would probably look like a better coach. Probably true. On the other hand, if Painter was NUs coach they would probably be a much better team that looks like it has more talent. Goes both ways.
i would agree with getting a guy who has played or coached in Europe Seems during some of the Carmody years there was someone funneling some and pretty good guys from Croatia, and Yugoslavia,
If it’s not coaching, it’s the egg, or is it the chicken? Or is it Audige’s shot selection?
Player talent / ability. Buie and Audige are classic examples of guys who can go off and then disappear for entire games. And then their confidence suffers and then play poorly for an extended number of games. We just don’t have consistent, high-level talent, in my view.
The fact that they have the ability to “go off” shows that they have talent. Getting them to be more consistent is, at least partially, the responsibility of coaching.
I think Collins does a good job of getting guys to know what shots they expect to take from the offense. He also allows them freedom to take the shots. He even reprimands them (at least it appears to me that way) for poor shot timing. The rest (which is still the vast majority) is about the player making shots.
Not sure if anyone has ever asked you this but are you Chris Collins? That’s the only logical conclusion anyone can come up with for someone who endlessly and tirelessly defends everything about a guy who has done nothing but deliver disappointing results(outside of 1 season).
So that suggests, based on the B1G standings right now, that our guy can't recruit players who, when upper classmen, are of better quality than 4th worse in the B1G. It's not the defense of Collins you believe it is.
I still don't understand why we are bunching Buie and Audige together. Buie has clearly shown progress, settled down, gotten turnovers in check, passes well. If his shot is off, he finds other ways to contribute. Yes, he still jacks up threes at times a bit too much but he's not a liability. Audige on the other hand has been consistently great on the defensive end but a total nightmare with his shot selection. I haven't seen much progress, apart from an outlier game here or there in that regard at all.
But it is definitely intended to defend Collins and blame the players.
That part never ends.
The fact that we have only two lineups that have played more than 2 minutes a game together is incredibly damning. And those two "go-to" lineups have only averaged 4 minutes per game together.
Name 1 other program that has a rotation like that. Its impossible.
Chase is shooting 24% from 3, versus 34% last year.
His turnovers are down significantly (maybe he’s just chucking instead of turning it over?), assists and steals up marginally, free throws up significantly. I know nothing about advanced stats, but all of the good has significantly offset the terrible, and his win shares/40 has gone from .62 to .90.
If Chase could just focus on ‘getting to the lane’ or ‘finding an open man’ — he’d be having a great, old-school year. But, as far as I can tell, nobody’s convinced him to chuck it jusssssst a bit less frequently.
Boo is a good scorer, and Chase is high-volume, hot and cold (“bad”) shooter. For a team that spent a year with AJ Turner massacring the 1 position, and another with a lacrosse player (who is a good-enough hoopster) doing it, it makes no sense that Chase has not been been deployed that way. (Just try to be the poor poor poor man’s Ben Simmons, but who plays.)
(Spencer is playing about 15 mpg for Washington’s G-League team, while AJT has played in Germany’s second tier this season. Turner’s Twitter indicates that he thinks Kyrie Irving and Dwight Howard were NBA75 snubs, and that he’s proud of Anthony Gaines’ GWFT for Siena on 2/13.)
What is the big deal if he wants to defend CCC at every turn. There are certainly a few on here that blame CCC for everything wrong in the NU basketball. If the Rant was still around, they would blame CCC for the Ukrainian crisis and the latest strand of the virus. It’s a two way street.
I seem to remember that quite a few of the European recruits played a year or more at a U.S. high school,
To state the obvious (because you and Mr. Ignore asked for it) - think he’s treated unfairly on the board. I don’t know the man personally.
If our basketball failures are the fault of the players, then logically Collins doesn't recruit good enough players. That immediately leads to placing the blame fully on admissions standards.
So there is never a scenario where Collins is to blame for anything.
And anybody who is fair-minded cannot accept that premise.
Have you noticed how much talent is still in the BiG over these last few years? And have you noticed the impact of the portal?
I still think his recruiting is better than Carmody’s was, but not yet quite good enough to compete (which we are doing quite well this year, again) consistently in our league. He’s not as good a coach as Carmody was - obvious - not many are. It turns out their strengths and weaknesses tend to offset as it came down to record, but I think their records are more indicative of the NU environment. Frankly, do we think Carmody is not a good coach just because he couldn’t succeed at NU? Similarly, I don’t think Collins is as bad as others think.
As to Development- one can easily see how Collins took Ryan Greer very far, but Greer had a long way to improve (he became very solid from a less than serviceable start). On the other hand - you can’t create superstars out of guys who are not. (As we know these days - more and more guys come ready to contribute on Day 1. And even those who did not, like Garza - does he really owe everything to Fran McCaffery??). Unfortunately, we really could use one to win more games.
Analytics says the B1G is (significantly) weaker than last year. Our players are older.
Beran is literally our most efficient offensive player. He leads the team in offensive rating (112.9), effective FG% (56) and 2-pt FG% (58.1) and shoots a perfectly respectable 36% from 3 (Buie is 34%, Audige 24%). Yet he pretty much has to sit around and watch other guys jack up shots at twice the rate he does. Not saying he should be the go-to guy but we should want him shooting more, not less. Decent shot-blocker too.
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