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Secho99

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I don't think this has been posted here. The general theme about us never making the tourney is something we've seen many times, but there's some interesting quotes in here. Carmody saying he has never talked about his time at NU and doesn't want to and Crawford admitting he was originally planning on spending his 5th year at another school stick out:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...07d2b2-d0e0-11e5-b2bc-988409ee911b_story.html
 
Secho99 said:
I don't think this has been posted here. The general theme about us never making the tourney is something we've seen many times, but there's some interesting quotes in here. Carmody saying he has never talked about his time at NU and doesn't want to and Crawford admitting he was originally planning on spending his 5th year at another school stick out:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...07d2b2-d0e0-11e5-b2bc-988409ee911b_story.html
Click to expand...

And for those who wonder about the thinknig about the OOC schedule, there is this:

"After Saturday’s 58-56 win over Illinois, they are 17-9 overall, 5-8 in the Big Ten this season. Collins put together a soft nonconference schedule and it produced a 12-1 start.

“We needed some confidence and, frankly, even if we don’t make the NCAAs this year, we should have a chance to be in the NIT,” he said. “That isn’t the goal — but it’s a step. I think we’ve put most of the off-court things we need in place. Now comes the hardest part — the on-court things — the wins.”

Talk about making the NCAA in 2015-16 was probably premature and Collins and Phillips know it.
 
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Thanks for posting Secho.

I thought one of the more interesting tidbits was Collins telling Phillips that they needed the boosters to help w recruiting by making private aircraft standard.
 
Very interesting piece by Feinstein. Really puts into perspective what a steep mountain ANY coach taking on the NU program has to climb. I appreciate Carmody's reluctance to talk. I'm sure he's still stinging from being fired after all he put into the program, and I'm thankful he's not willing to publicly criticize Phillips or the program. I found it interesting that Phillips never explored the idea of raising money for private air travel until Collins approached him about it. I'm sure Carmody's thinking, "Well, I could have used that assistance when I was there."
 
IdahoAlum said:
I appreciate Carmody's reluctance to talk. I'm sure he's still stinging from being fired after all he put into the program, and I'm thankful he's not willing to publicly criticize Phillips or the program.
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He could've at least thanked the school for the opportunity. 13 years of handsome pay is nothing to scoff at. He's practically acting like those years never existed...
 
Well, I don't know a lot of people who are up for "thanking" the employer that just fired them -- good pay, or not. Most humans aren't wired that way. But neither of us know what Carmody's really thinking, so I give him props for not whining or complaining about the conditions and just moving on. And I think NU got a pretty good return from Carmody for that "high salary." He rebuilt the program into respectability and accomplished something his successor has yet to do -- post-season tournament runs. And no, I'm not criticizing Collins or renewing the "Carmody shouldn't have been fired" debate. I'm just saying NU got its money's worth from the Carmody tenure.
 
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IdahoAlum said:
Well, I don't know a lot of people who are up for "thanking" the employer that just fired them -- good pay, or not. Most humans aren't wired that way.
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I don't know very many coaches who literally won't say a single thing about a school they coached at for 13 seasons. Nothing. It comes off as very prickish to me...
 
Well, as I said, at least he's not dumping on the school or the program, which a lot of coaches who have been fired are more than willing to do.
 
IdahoAlum said:
Well, as I said, at least he's not dumping on the school or the program, which a lot of coaches who have been fired are more than willing to do.
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That is true. Although by dismissing the entire era, I would consider that somewhat trashing the school...
 
Would love to know all of the coaches that Dr. Jim sat down with in that period--that process was new information for me. The booster comment was good as well. Other than, a lot of the same stuff we've heard before. Good piece though.

Does anyone think there's a coach out there who would have been a realistic hire at the time and would have had us in the tourney by this point?
 
VirginiaWildcat said:
That is true. Although by dismissing the entire era, I would consider that somewhat trashing the school...
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I didn't see anything in the story where Carmody "dismissed" an era. He just declined to talk about his experience here, and if I were a betting man, it was because he didn't want to make negative comments. If he felt warm and fuzzy things about NU, I think he probably would have offered those up.
 
" I'm sure Carmody's thinking, "Well, I could have used that assistance when I was there."

Yes, and maybe Carmody could have bothered to be in town when Frank Kaminsky came to Evanston for his recruiting visit! Maybe he thought that since his mother played volleyball here, and Jim and Karen Stack are his uncle/aunt that it was a done deal, but showing just a bit of interest in the second best player on that Benet Academy team (Sobo being the best, tho most certainly not the best collegiate player!!!) might have helped. Nah, who needs a kid who's going to end up as the National Player of the Year?
 
Dr. Jim left Carmody twisting in the wind for close to his full final season. Everyone in the world know Carmody was gone and Collins would be hired. Phillips tried to get that done years before. The BS way that Dr. Jim handled getting rid of Carmody was very bad form. The "search process" and all that was such a crock..

I think it was time to move on from Carmody and I think Collins was a great, great hire but I think Dr. Jim should be ashamed of the way in which it was done.
 
Smolmania said:
" I'm sure Carmody's thinking, "Well, I could have used that assistance when I was there."

Yes, and maybe Carmody could have bothered to be in town when Frank Kaminsky came to Evanston for his recruiting visit! Maybe he thought that since his mother played volleyball here, and Jim and Karen Stack are his uncle/aunt that it was a done deal, but showing just a bit of interest in the second best player on that Benet Academy team (Sobo being the best, tho most certainly not the best collegiate player!!!) might have helped. Nah, who needs a kid who's going to end up as the National Player of the Year?
Click to expand...

Carmody was not a good recruiter.

However, I have to wonder where on a low 3-star prospect with 6 total offers, only 2 of which were from P5 schools, does one find the "Future National Player of the Year" tag? Is it clipped to the ear? Or maybe it's printed on the heel?
 
Idaho

Good posts on this today. Thought you summarized fairly and in a balanced manner. It would be great if people could just leave it alone now.

The travel thing really stands out. Collins came from Duke which was doing "state of the art" recruiting. I don't think either Carmody or Phillips really understood how it words at the elite basketball schools. And having taken a Southwest flight with Fitz a few years ago I wonder if the Collins hiring has helped football as well.

And Joey Meyer's comment about Collins' practices.

It's just a matter of time. It'll break for NU in a positive way.
 
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thewildcat2011 said:
Does anyone think there's a coach out there who would have been a realistic hire at the time and would have had us in the tourney by this point?
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This is a great question that always seems to suddenly draw the crickets.

The fact is ANY hire deserves far-more-than-the-usual time to change the course of this program. As so many argued in Billy C's last year (yet so conveniently ignored for the previous 12 years in such a Northwestern way), these facilities and the school's dedication to the program are often laughable. And they still are - especially with the "arms race" happening in college sports!

I think NU has been VERY lucky in its last two hires. I appreciate any reasonably established and successful college coach - Carmody and Collins included - who dares to take on this challenge. I have the same fear about Collins that I did about Carmody. If NU doesn't find the guy who can crack this code soon and get the infrastructure of the program past 1990, the next coaching hires are going to be like the UofI - candidates who would be fourth or fifth on most lists.
 
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Sec.112 said:
The fact is ANY hire deserves far-more-than-the-usual time to change the course of this program. As so many argued in Billy C's last year (yet so conveniently ignored for the previous 12 years in such a Northwestern way), these facilities and the school's dedication to the program are often laughable. And they still are - especially with the "arms race" happening in college sports!

I think NU has been VERY lucky in its last two hires. I appreciate any reasonably established and successful college coach - Carmody and Collins included - who dares to take on this challenge. I have the same fear about Collins that I did about Carmody. If NU doesn't find the guy who can crack this code soon and get the infrastructure of the program past 1990, the next coaching hires are going to be like the UofI - candidates who would be fourth or fifth on most lists.
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Completely agree with this. Carmody and Collins were both excellent hires. Carmody inherited a compete dumpster fire and made a significant improvement. Collins is just so impressive. When you listen to his interviews, he is just so well spoken and professional, and he clearly knows basketball. The question is whether he can recruit top half of the Big 10 talent. If so, he'll win. If not, it will probably be the combined result of zero basketball tradition, worst facilities in Power 5, and academic standards. I seriously doubt NU could have done any better than Chris when he was hired.
 
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I think Carmody was the right hire. I think Collins was the right hire. I actually do think Carmody isn't pleased with how things went at the end and appreciate the fact that he'd rather not say anything negative or anything that could be construed as negative. I don't think that makes him a prick at all. Or prickish. Or think that receiving 13 years of money would matter if I felt I was left to twist in the wind at the end of my tenure.

Now it's time to get over the hump hopefully next year or the year after.
 
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VirginiaWildcat said:
Seriously!? I'd love to know why he has such a chip on his shoulder...
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I interpreted that mostly as frustration that he wasn't able to get the team where he wanted to, and not wanting to revisit how some good chances he had to get to the tourney melted away late in the season.

We also don't know the full content of what he said to Feinstein, so he may or may not have spouted a few platitudes that Feinstein didn't think were worthy of including. Of course, BC may have also lobbed some off-the-record grenades at NU.

The point is it's hard to know his exact intent without having the full context of his conversation with Feinstein.
 
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olshin said:
I think Carmody was the right hire. I think Collins was the right hire. I actually do think Carmody isn't pleased with how things went at the end and appreciate the fact that he'd rather not say anything negative or anything that could be construed as negative. I don't think that makes him a prick at all. Or prickish. Or think that receiving 13 years of money would matter if I felt I was left to twist in the wind at the end of my tenure.

Now it's time to get over the hump hopefully next year or the year after.
Click to expand...

He wasn't left to "twist in the wind". We were coming off a really poor season and things didn't look all that better the next year. We made a change...it happens in basketball ALL THE TIME! He's not some poor unfortunate victim here...
 
NJCat said:
Completely agree with this. Carmody and Collins were both excellent hires. Carmody inherited a compete dumpster fire and made a significant improvement. Collins is just so impressive. When you listen to his interviews, he is just so well spoken and professional, and he clearly knows basketball. The question is whether he can recruit top half of the Big 10 talent. If so, he'll win. If not, it will probably be the combined result of zero basketball tradition, worst facilities in Power 5, and academic standards. I seriously doubt NU could have done any better than Chris when he was hired.
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He also has a level of energy that BC just no longer (if ever ) had and it recruiting, that is needed in spades. As much as I appreciate what BC did, Collins is the right guy now.
 
VirginiaWildcat said:
He wasn't left to "twist in the wind". We were coming off a really poor season and things didn't look all that better the next year. We made a change...it happens in basketball ALL THE TIME! He's not some poor unfortunate victim here...
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I don't think anyone holds him out as a victim, nor does he view himself as such.

It's a business and reasonable people can disagree about what happened and their perceptions of it. He chooses not to comment, oh well.
 
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VirginiaWildcat said:
He wasn't left to "twist in the wind". We were coming off a really poor season and things didn't look all that better the next year. We made a change...it happens in basketball ALL THE TIME! He's not some poor unfortunate victim here...
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It was just Phillips pretending that there was a decision to be made after the season when in fact it had been made much earlier. I don't feel sorry for Carmody but I also don't blame him for not holding Phillips in high regard. I think Dr.Jim is a very good AD for Northwestern but I'm not a big fan of his "style".
 
julescat said:
It was just Phillips pretending that there was a decision to be made after the season when in fact it had been made much earlier.
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The decision has been made that a weak season would have resulted in a change. Had the season been a spectacular success, he'd still be the coach. Yes, AD's have to be prepared as well. It's a business...
 
VirginiaWildcat said:
The decision has been made that a weak season would have resulted in a change. Had the season been a spectacular success, he'd still be the coach. Yes, AD's have to be prepared as well. It's a business...
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Not to reopen old wounds, but the excuse that a change had to be made because of a poor season is complete crap. NU was 7-3 when they lost Crawford, their best player, for the rest of the season. This included an upset of a very good (23-14) Baylor team in Waco. They upset #23 Illinois and #12 Minny and were 13-11 when they lost Swopshire for the rest of the season. That injury depleted team then lost the rest of their games.

Phillips made the right choice in changing coaches. You could argue he waited too long to do so. If he believed Carmody was not going to get NU from B to C then just make the change. But saying the change was because of a poor season is just plain wrong. You cannot blame Carmody for losing his 2 best players to injury.
 
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NJCat said:
That injury depleted team then lost the rest of their games.
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They didn't just lose. They got obliterated by 30 points seemingly in every game. It was REALLY bad. There was no way we could have kept him around the way we finished that season...
 
VirginiaWildcat said:
They didn't just lose. They got obliterated by 30 points seemingly in every game. It was REALLY bad. There was no way we could have kept him around the way we finished that season...
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Last 3 regular season games, lost by less that 30 total points:

#16 OSU 63, NU 53
PSU 66, NU 59
#10 MSU 71, NU 61

BTT, Iowa 73, NU 59

Kids fought hard down the stretch.
 
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NJCat said:
Last 3 regular season games, lost by less that 30 total points:

#16 OSU 63, NU 53
PSU 66, NU 59
#10 MSU 71, NU 61

BTT, Iowa 73, NU 59

Kids fought hard down the stretch.
Click to expand...

Penn State won 2 B1G games that season.

And interesting you left out the three previous games. 74-43, 69-41, 62-41

No matter how you slice it...we couldn't stay the course after that season, and I think everyone agrees. And yet, some will continue to put blame on Phillips. Geez...
 
I'm not sure all of the circumstances surrounding the decision, but as I understand it, after that season, Carmody had 1 year left on his contract. I imagine there is a bit of a dilemma about extending (even short term), or changing directions. How do you recruit if you're not sure if you're going to still be there after that last year, and not confident that an extension is coming? Essentially, I would think that would be a tough sell. I think how a lot of things played out at that time (contract/difficult season), it may have been the right time to make the change, if one was going to be made. As for how the process played out, I imagine that's probably how it happens at a lot of places more often than not.

I really liked Coach Carmody, and everything he did for this program, and I like Chris Collins, and everything he brings to the program.

I think every new coach at a college should be given 1 full recruiting cycle, but I really believe at Northwestern, they should probably be given 2, unless they're egregiously bad (example: Kevin O'Neill).
 
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Secho99 said:
I don't think this has been posted here. The general theme about us never making the tourney is something we've seen many times, but there's some interesting quotes in here. Carmody saying he has never talked about his time at NU and doesn't want to and Crawford admitting he was originally planning on spending his 5th year at another school stick out:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...07d2b2-d0e0-11e5-b2bc-988409ee911b_story.html
Click to expand...

Yeah but Carmody also said, "It’s nothing against anyone there — it’s not. I just don’t want to talk about it.”

When you're fired from a job, are you really excited to talk about it? I don't blame him and think you took his ambivalent quote and made it more negative.
 
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Cat Fan in Buckeye Land said:
I'm not sure all of the circumstances surrounding the decision, but as I understand it, after that season, Carmody had 1 year left on his contract. I imagine there is a bit of a dilemma about extending (even short term), or changing directions. How do you recruit if you're not sure if you're going to still be there after that last year, and not confident that an extension is coming? Essentially, I would think that would be a tough sell. I think how a lot of things played out at that time (contract/difficult season), it may have been the right time to make the change, if one was going to be made. As for how the process played out, I imagine that's probably how it happens at a lot of places more often than not.

I really liked Coach Carmody, and everything he did for this program, and I like Chris Collins, and everything he brings to the program.

I think every new coach at a college should be given 1 full recruiting cycle, but I really believe at Northwestern, they should probably be given 2, unless they're egregiously bad (example: Kevin O'Neill).
Click to expand...

I think it's fair to say that Princeton offense or not, a team built around Sobolewski, Sina, Abrahamson, Lumpkin, Taphorn, Demps, and Olah would not have made the NCAAs. I don't know; maybe Hardy would have brought in the next Shurna or Crawford or Juice, but we can't assume as much. Shurna was our all-time leading scorer; how often do those guys come around? Those of us long-time Cats fans can name the phenoms of the last 25 years of NU BB on one hand--and two of them transferred out.
 
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Secho99 said:
I interpreted that mostly as frustration that he wasn't able to get the team where he wanted to, and not wanting to revisit how some good chances he had to get to the tourney melted away late in the season.

We also don't know the full content of what he said to Feinstein, so he may or may not have spouted a few platitudes that Feinstein didn't think were worthy of including. Of course, BC may have also lobbed some off-the-record grenades at NU.

The point is it's hard to know his exact intent without having the full context of his conversation with Feinstein.
Click to expand...

Well, Feinstein lays out part of it for us when he asks Collins about the level of funding support. When Phillips and Collins ask for more money for recruiting and travel, donors ask, "Why didn't you ask sooner?" To me, that's an indictment of Phillips, Morris, and the Fast Break team during Carmody's latter years.
 
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Secho99 said:
I don't think this has been posted here. The general theme about us never making the tourney is something we've seen many times, but there's some interesting quotes in here. Carmody saying he has never talked about his time at NU and doesn't want to and Crawford admitting he was originally planning on spending his 5th year at another school stick out:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...07d2b2-d0e0-11e5-b2bc-988409ee911b_story.html
Click to expand...


I thought there was a story a few years back about Collins saying that he biggest first recruit at NU was drew Crawford and getting him to stay there.
 
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Collins first recruit of an incoming freshman was Vic Law who made it very clear as did his father that he would never have come to NU under the prior regime. We have a much more talented, energetic and charismatic head coach who style is not stuck in the 1950s or 1960s (the Pete Carill system). That really hurt recruiting too. Would prior regime have been able to recruit 4 4 star recruits and playmakers like McIntosh or go to Washington and recruit the all-time high school leader in points Isiah Brown? In six months, CC recruited a real PF in Skelly that the prior regime never did. Let's drop the debate. NU is in a much better place with Coach Collins. Enjoy the ride because once he gets his recruits in to fill the roster, it will be quite a historic ride.
 
YesterdaysCat said:
Well, Feinstein lays out part of it for us when he asks Collins about the level of funding support. When Phillips and Collins ask for more money for recruiting and travel, donors ask, "Why didn't you ask sooner?" To me, that's an indictment of Phillips, Morris, and the Fast Break team during Carmody's latter years.
Click to expand...

I don't know, it seems it's up to the head coach to get those things in place. Carmody being a seemingly humble man, it wouldn't surprise me if he didn't feel comfortable jetting around in private jets and such. But I like Carmody and what he did at NU. Just like I believe Collins is the right guy for the program now.
 
So, a reporter comes up to BC and says, "I'm doing a [another] story about Northwestern's futility and never getting to the NCAA tournament. Care to comment?" And from that people are mad that he doesn't want to talk about it?

It took Dennis Green over 20 years before he would make a comment about Northwestern and only after the program started winning.
 
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