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Looks like that Bruce Weber coaching tree firing up.
Welcome Coach Shane Southwell
- Thread starter macarthur31
- Start date
Looks like that Bruce Weber coaching tree firing up.
Looks like he's raised performance everywhere he's been. Looks like he knows how to recruit, too. Exciting hire,
WildcatReport - Northwestern hires Shane Southwell as assistant coach
Shane Southwell is leaving his role as associate head coach at NIU to join Northwestern's staff
northwestern.rivals.com
Here's our story on the hire of Shane Southwell.
I'm a big Lowery fan, so I'm glad to see the connection there.
One of the things I appreciate about our assistants - starting with Lowery - is that they show a lot of leadership. Lowery and Battle both seem to have big, intense personalities: they have knowledge, they confront and demand things, and when they do, players hear. I get the feeling that Collins is the type of coach that can cultivate this - building trust and leaving assistants the space confidently do their jobs without micromanaging or needing to show he's the alpha.
Whether Coach Southwell is as 'spikey' as Battle or not, I'll bet NU is now seen as an attractive program for assistants like him, for that reason. I recall the B1G crew in one game talking about how at the end of a half or a game, CC will give the pen to James and let him call the play. Makes sense because James is a wizard of inbound plays - but not a lot of coaches have the ability to trust assistants to that degree, or to successfully delegate to such a high level.
I think CC deserves huge credit for how he has built the staff in the past several years, and for the way he leads it - and look forward to seeing Coach Southwell's impact on the program.
One of the things I appreciate about our assistants - starting with Lowery - is that they show a lot of leadership. Lowery and Battle both seem to have big, intense personalities: they have knowledge, they confront and demand things, and when they do, players hear. I get the feeling that Collins is the type of coach that can cultivate this - building trust and leaving assistants the space confidently do their jobs without micromanaging or needing to show he's the alpha.
Whether Coach Southwell is as 'spikey' as Battle or not, I'll bet NU is now seen as an attractive program for assistants like him, for that reason. I recall the B1G crew in one game talking about how at the end of a half or a game, CC will give the pen to James and let him call the play. Makes sense because James is a wizard of inbound plays - but not a lot of coaches have the ability to trust assistants to that degree, or to successfully delegate to such a high level.
I think CC deserves huge credit for how he has built the staff in the past several years, and for the way he leads it - and look forward to seeing Coach Southwell's impact on the program.
CC has made some missteps (all coaches do, particularly the younger ones who are just starting out), but unlike some, he's learned from them - whether it's regarding building a staff, recruiting, team construction, etc.
Feels like CC is entering his coaching prime with the next decade or 2 bearing fruit for the program.
Just need to avoid the injury bug, which probably cost the Cats at least a Sweet 16 appearance.
Feels like CC is entering his coaching prime with the next decade or 2 bearing fruit for the program.
Just need to avoid the injury bug, which probably cost the Cats at least a Sweet 16 appearance.
NU wasn't beating UConn even with Berry and Big Matt. Just stupid to suggest otherwise.
I think the point is we'd have neen seeded higher without those major injuries and wouldn't have had to play them in second round and then had a decent chance at sweet 16.
Injuries, to some degree, are a by-product of depth and how you use your bench.
Many other factors, of course. Luck being one of them, but also how you practice, how you play defense, all kinds of things.
I think most would agree that tired players are somewhat more likely to get hurt.
And there's the simple math of it. Assuming there's a tiny likelihood of getting injured for every minute you play, the more it behooves you (haven't used that word in a decade or two) to rest your starters when you can.
Last year we saw this - it was anticipated/feared by quite a few on this message board because everybody saw how we had only 5 guys to play 4 positions. The shocking thing was that we had unused guys on our bench who were able to come in and play competitively, so that the impact wasn't as painful as we had feared when Berry was lost for the season and Langborg missed some time.
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Pretty sure that wasn't the point. Pretty sure the point was they'd have been seeded higher and not have to play them so early. Sweet 16 may have still been a stretch, but a healthier team facing a mortal team ... probably still would have come down to matchup.
The impact wasn’t as bad as thought because these players are good players who practice hard and compete against each other. But you play the guys who give you the best chance to win until something happens. And we don’t often blow teams out; it’s just reality for NU. The issue here with potential injuries has an undercurrent of unfounded Collins criticism. I can’t believe either Matt or Ty would say being tired/overused was the cause of their injury, If we think CCC should play starters about 1 minute less in the 1 or 2 games where we blow someone out, we couldn’t dream up something less meaningful. Let the guy coach; he’s doing a great job.
"Practice hard" is a big point, and I get the feeling we've made a huge leap terms of practice competitiveness and intensity the past few years. Part of why we didn't drop off as much as we might have in past years when Matt and Ty were lost for the rest of the season. If I think back to the Shurna/Crawford years I doubt we had the athleticism down the roster - or the coaching intensity - to practice like that. Also a defensive work ethic is key - if our guys face that in practice every day, it sharpens the offense as well.
I watched the full FAU replay the other day and ended up very focused on Blake Smith. He played impactful minutes - doing all the little things, with plenty of athleticism. That's a very different kind of walk-on for NU, which says a lot about the standard.
Would have loved to watch the Wildcat team that pushed Purdue to the brink in West Lafayette in the NCAAs. The fact that the Cats won some big games down the stretch without two starters and pulled an upset in round one speaks volumes about the coaching and competitiveness of practice. I am hoping for big leaps forward from Mullins and Clayton this year. I think they have it in them.
What happened happened. I assume that Coach Collins is assessing the past season from top to bottom and will modify anything that he thinks could have been managed better. All good coaches learn from their mistakes. Some are more obsessive than others. I think Collins probably believes he had a Sweet 16 team last year. I hope he doesn't just blame "bad luck" for the injuries and the resume-damaging losses to Chicago State and at Illinois.
Good coaches will tell you there is always a way to improve. Bad coaches obsess about bad luck and blame losses on their players. If you look at it objectively, Collins has done a lot less of that since Ryan Young and Pete Nance graduated. Is that because Gragg threatened him with termination and he re-evaluated what he'd been doing as coach? Did Lowery bring a new perspective along with his defensive coaching? Did Battle and McIntosh provide the missing spark by scrimmaging with the team and teaching by example? I don't know. All of those probably contributed to some degree.
I take Collins at his word that he did some real soul-searching 2 summers ago and adjusted his approach.
I'm very happy for him - the results have been great. But, I'm sure he would tell anyone who listens, there is always room to improve.
Hard / no reason to dispute the statement there is always room to improve. I just don’t think there’s much to be gained discussing how Collins somehow can try to better manage the injuries of his players (other than through normal strength and conditioning programs).
Honestly, I would play the best players for 1) as long as it was necessary to secure a win or 2) as long as they can physically perform at a reasonably high level.
Any good player wants to play as many minutes as they can. I don’t think being tired leads to a rash of injuries. It didn’t cause Ty or Big Matt’s injury. Bench players should primarily get their development in practice. They have to be ready when they get a chance. Smith did that. They play well when they get in games, they play more.
I don't disagree with anything you wrote. And I am very confused with the correlation of minutes and injuries. It all makes sense on paper but I see load management, improvement in science in many areas, while it appears players get more injured than before.
Anyway, my $0.02 to the discussion is that in my experience players with just a 5 to 10 pounds gain start to have an enormous incidence of injuries. It always seemed like something was always bothering them with a small weight gain. And I have wondered if that was the case with Matt. To start the season it looked obvious he was a bit heavier.
I'm pretty confident that tired players get hurt more than fresh players. There's no study to prove that. Just intuition. You've played sports, I'm surprised you think otherwise. When people are tired their bodies don't do what they expect and sometimes they take a bad step or land awkwardly or trip or whatever.
"any good player wants to play as many minutes as they can." Too broad in my opinion. A lot of good players are perfectly willing to rest during blowouts.
As for bench players, just being specific, there's no way, in hindsight, that Clayton should have been getting minutes over Mullins and Smith last year. I'm a big fan of getting the bench guys into games (as long as you win) so that you can see how they do in game situations. You may recall past discussions on this board where I asserted that practice is not the same as games as a response to those who were simply assuming "if somebody isn't getting off the bench, then the guys playing ahead of him are better." We have seen that proven wrong often enough.
If I'm nitpicking, I apologize. There's not much discussion of anything right now. Glad to see Gato re-emerge.
I don’t think we are disagreeing on much here. I don’t want to make a habit of playing my starters in blow outs either. I was probably not clear on my statement on playing time. I want my best players out there as much as possible against top teams where the outcome of the game is in doubt. If we are up (or down) by a large margin, by all means play the subs. The best players I have been around in Sports want to play as much as possible when the game is in doubt. Never seen one object to coming out in a blow out. However, I haven’t heard players that wanted to come out due to a fear of injury from over work. It’s really hard to square away the reasons for increased sports injuries. A lot of theories out there, but I am not sure any are totally supported by evidence.
Without the injuries we are facing UCONN in the final four instead of the 2nd round.
And then I would still love to see Donavan Clingan just try to defend a Nicholbomb.
Not sure the Clayton position you take is rock solid but am quite sure it would have had very close to zero impact on our season. Seems to me he played Clayton to give Boo a breather early on in the long season because his ball handling was better than Mullins’ or Smith’s. Later in the season, it did not matter - just let Boo play.
There's not much doubt that Collins felt it was important to find a backup for Buie at point guard right away.
The risk (fouls, injury, illness) was pretty apparent.
To me, it was a top priority coming into the season. So I don't blame Collins at all for trying Clayton repeatedly.
Unfortunately, that contributed to our loss to Chicago State. We got outscored 8-1 when Clayton was on the court for all of 3 minutes.
(The primary reason we lost that game to Chicago State is that a heavier, somewhat slower Nicholson was still required to guard all over the court, something we essentially abandoned later in the season)
Thankfully, Buie never really missed any time the entire season.
After Clayton didn't pan out at point guard, Collins had Barnhizer or Langborg handling the ball when Buie wasn't out there - and even occasionally when he was.
Fair enough, but Wesley Cardet was the main reason we lost. We could not stop him all game, and having Nicholson be the main way to stop him could not have been our primary defensive strategy.
Cardet is now playing at Providence.
Wesley Cardet, Jr. - Men's Basketball - Providence College Athletics
Wesley Cardet, Jr. (0) Guard - 2023-24 (At Chicago State):Started 31 games for Chicago State…Recorded 12 points, five rebounds and four assists at Bowling Green
friars.com
Cardet played great, no doubt.
I just don't like to say we lost to a pretty bad team because somebody on the other team had a great night.
if thats the case, your team is pretty vulnerable.
For me, when you're the much better team and you lose, you have to look inward and blame yourself for letting somebody have a great game.
Bad defense + bad offense = bad loss.
Its okay. Great season regardless. But probably not going to be forgotten for a little while.
We are vulnerable. It’s just the reality of NU basketball (and football and most all NU sports (even arguably lacrosse)). But the loss still stings, to your point.
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