Where are you with CC?

[Sec.112]

I heard the same Dakich comment that Southport Cat did. It was something along the lines that NU "should be" a top 5 B10 team next year. WHOA!?!?!

So I'd be interested to know how confident people are that CC can make this a tournament team - let's be gentle and a little more realistic with this - in the next three or four years. Are you Dakichinian?

This isn't meant to be a cheerleading exercise or some chance to advance some negative campaign. Can we look at this with as much objectivity and basketball knowledge as we can muster?

We've had two years and one recruiting classes. I don't think the program is anywhere near fully formed, but we have a much better idea of strength and weaknesses.

So how confident are you that CC can be "the one" to take NU dancing? Let me start.

I'm 60% confident.

Honestly, if this were almost any other program with reasonable facilities, strong fan base and anything close to a positive history, I'd be more like 75-80% confident.

Why 60%?? ...

a) Anybody not somewhat excited by the first recruiting class has unreasonable expectations. BMac is a wonderful gift. Sounds like Falzon has similar potential. One way or the other, NU needs two more like BMac. Hopefully, Falzon will be one or Law will become more consistent.

b) I'm not sure that I'm overwhelmed by the offense or defensive strategy that CC has shown. He's a guy who depends on the talent of his players. However, there's also not any GLARING weaknesses on either side of the ball.

c) His pedigree shows through in that he understands there's a psychology to the game also. He understand the team needs toughness and leadership to cultivate that additional "edge" you need at point in a particular game and at different points in a season.

d) I think he understands the level of athlete needs to win. Whether its height on the front line, weight-lifting or defensive speed, it's pretty obvious he's looking for these traits.

e) On the negative side, in both years, CC has needed to make drastic defensive changes midway through the B10.

I understand why he wants to be a m2m team, however, you need to be able to make these changes in November or December - not January or February. Does he not know his team well enough? (To his defense, last year's team was new. This year's team had a bunch of freshmen.)

f) Does he give too long a leash to his guys? Admittedly, this team isn't where it is if he doesn't give Demps a gigantic leash. And Law doesn't have that great run without the green light CC gave him. However, CC gives his guys A LOT of room to fail before he makes any drastic changes.

How many games did we need to sit through that Lumpkin wouldn't even look at the basket before he was pulled form the starting lineup?

g) Lastly, this is one of the things Carmody ran into. You can only sell vapor for so long. CC is going to need an NIT in the next year or two, or I'm really concerned this will be more of the same. There has to be a foundation - no matter how weak it is. There HAS to be something measurable you can point to in the living-room discussion of a recruit. He's got two more years for that minimal achievement. One of those years will be a team loaded with freshmen and sophomores.

So, in general, I feel good about the direction, but this isn't a done deal by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Fitz51]

Where am I with him? At a Turkish bath.

 

[olshin]

Very good and excited for next year.

I'd like to see growth next year, I'd like to see Coach Collins hit on this recruiting class, and I'd like to see us make the NIT with the NCAA coming in Year 4.

 

[NUCat320]

I'm 51% confident.

I believe that the talent is pointing in the right direction. I think that Mac is good enough to contribute to a tourney team today, that Law and Lindsey will likely get there, and that Skelly could get there. That's a pretty good hit rate. Vasser is clearly a great athlete, but I think that he's got a very long way to go - he would have seen time ahead of Sobo this year if he didn't.

I have no idea on the talent needle next year. I love what I read about Pardon. The others are more highly-regarded.

I wish we had a commitment for the following year already, though I'm sure very few teams do.

My concern is around recruiting momentum. Last year's class was better than the forthcoming class, at least on paper. Collins hasn't shown to be a master tactician yet, so talent and motivation is going to be the most important thing to get this program to the tourney . This does make next year important - because it's easy to get a kid like Law to take a flyer if you're a master recruiter in the first year, but it's more difficult if sub-.500 seasons continue.

So, I think on-court momentum is important, starting with a postseason bid next season. An NIT next year takes me up significantly.

 

[Walker Fan]

Here's another reason to be excited. NU was playing 5 on 4 on offense with Lumpkin in the game. Sorry, I know that is harsh and yes, there was the anomaly of the Maryland game where he hit four wide open three point shots. For next season, with the development of McIntosh, Law and hopefully Lindsey and Skelly and with a Power Forward, Falzon and not the transfer who can actually hit a jumper on a consistent basis, we might have five guys on the floor who will be able to put the ball in the basket. Then hopefully, the days of the 5-10 minutes of no made baskets is over and so are the 50-55 point games. The same thing occurred with UW for many years where you have drought periods of 5-7 minutes (not NU's 10 minutes). When you are down 24-6, it is tough to come back particularly when your are not that offensively talented.

 

[Deeringfish]

I feel really confident that we will make the NIT next year if not the NCAA. I am more worried about the year after.

I think next year we see improvement across the board and Olah will be an improved version of himself. He will be one of the top tree centers in the B1G and top 15- 20 in the nation and able to dominate in some games. He has shown improvement every year that isn't going to stop. JVZ is going to add something to the play at center both when he is in as the sub and when they are both on the court. So there is going to be a big improvement there.

In 2016-17 Olah and JVZ are going to be hard to replace.

 

[CatQ]

Maybe going to Spain. Problem is that the wife will not abide.

Seriously, I like your analysis 112. I'd say I am 50-60% on making the dance next year, and 65-80% for the following year (injuries not withstanding and good recruiting trends continuing). Once he gets his recruits in and gets some experience in them, I'm still very optimistic.

 

[Catreporter]

I guess what I like is we are bringing in a full set of real Big Ten athletes. Bill's teams were always living on the edge with the lack of depth and athleticism. That is improving. There is a lot of parity in the middle of the pack. If Maryland, OSU and home Illini games don't get away, we go 9-9. Looking at the roster now, once these guys fill out, we've got a chance to be in the NCAA hunt.

 

[loyolacat]

I don't think it will be a walk in the park next year. Not because CC isn't a good coach or that we have updated our talent.(will really be nice to have a legit power forward) but because the BIG10 was young this year,,,ton of good young players and teams. I think Indiana brings back everybody and they really were quicker and physically stronger than us. So it seems to me success next year depends on 1. This years freshman getting stronger and 2. How ready the incoming players will be 3. How well we can integrate the new players.

 

[pawildcat]

"He's a guy who depends on the talent of his players."

Well, find me a coach who isn't. Assuming basic competency on the part of the coach, recruiting is about 70 percent of the college game. Anyone who's watched Roy Williams teams play over the years knows the guy ain't the greatest game coach in the world, but he overwhelms most teams with the stud talent he's recruited. Bruce Weber, a good game coach, got to a title game with Bill Self's recruits, but wasn't able to recruit as effectively on his own.

Coach K is a damn good game coach, but having eight McDonald's All-Americans on the roster sure helps. Bo Ryan made a final four last year with maybe one or two guys who Duke even would have recruited.

Collins to me has shown an ability to adapt to his personnel and communicate with his players. You can argue about whether it takes him too long to make adjustments. We seem to be picking up on the recruiting front, and that for the time being is the most important thing.

 

[Medill90]

When you break the season up into two parts I think it's pretty encouraging. Butler, Northern Iowa and Central Michigan were much better teams than was understood at the time. Central Michigan is playing for a conference title this weekend. And the loss to a crappy Georgia Tech team can be attribute to digging too deep a hole for any team to dig out of. I really can't be disappointed in any of those losses. This same team with a year together and a summer of physical maturity takes two of those four losses. And the squeakers mostly go away.

The team struggled to gel offensively and it finally started to click a little when NU got into conference play. I think there should have been seven wins, not six. The officiating in the OSU game wrongly took four points off the board at critical points of the game. Other games with bad calls went for and against NU, but the OSU game was a win. Even so, six wins and moving up to the bye was a decent result for the youngest minutes in the Big Ten.

It's also educational to look at how the frosh played their first 7-10 games and their last 7-10. Not a huge different with B Mac who was good from the start. But there was a huge different with Law, Lindsey and Skelly. I am more than satisfied with Law. Delighted, really. Love how he elevates on his jumper from anywhere on the floor. Love his three point shot. With some strength he'll bounce off defenders and finish better at the rim.

Law and Lindsey have the potential to blow up. With Jershon headed out, really pleased to see Lindsey's offensive game. And neither Law nor Lindsey are backing down on defending the rim. Lindsey takes plays off on both ends. That'll stop.

Skelly became much more effective in the paint on D. Great passer. Not good, great. Needs to become a scoring threat. Needs to get stronger to defend the big 4s and 5s.

I think this frosh class performed better overall than it was evaluated to do. Collins and staff did a great job bringing this group in.

The defense sucked and I'm going to argue that a lot of that had to do with Cobb sitting. Drew gave the defense it's intensity last year. No one with elite physical gifts to do the same this year after Cobb sat down. I don't fault Collins for waiting so long to switch to zone. He was hoping the D would develop like last year. It did not.

I loved in his post game comments Thursday that he saw the defense as incapable of beating elite teams. I think next year's roster will be capable of playing the D Collins wants to play.

All those frosh get a year older. They will play better going into next year than they played at the end of this year. They are acclimated to the system, college ball and the big ten, and they will be physically more mature.

I stayed at the United Center and watched Minnesota and OSU. Two or three things jumped out. First, Pitino isn't half the dick-wad I thought he was. Second, I see a lot of Ash minutes next year. He takes all of Sobo's minutes and maybe some of Tre's. Not saying he'll play more than Tre -- he won't -- but he'll be on the floor more than Sobo was this year. Collins wants the speed, skill and offense at the guard spot from multiple players at the same time.

The second thing is, watching the bigs bang, we're not there yet on recruiting. Yes, it's been a huge uptick. I'm just not sure you can get guys that big and athletic into NU. OSU has two guys on its roster right now who can clear out the paint. Minny does as well.

Collins has gotten great gets. I'd argue he's putting together a track record for NU recruiting that soon will be unmatched in modern NU basketball history. But the achilles heal got its name for a reason. Can we bring bruisers into Evanston for four years? Or do we have to pull in a transfer every year?

 

[NUCat320]

Good comments, Medill.

I would disagree on two things: Mac faded down the stretch, whether due to sickness from which he never fully recovered, or from fatigue, or from both. He got his points Thursday, but that was due to volume and not to playing particularly well. So I think his was a B1G season of two parts, just in reverse order of the other three freshman contributors.

Re: banging bigs. That's not Skelly yet, but I'm pretty confident that Pardon will fit that bill. I think he'll be out most athletic true big since we got one season of Brody Deren (pours some out).

 

[Styre]

I'm cautiously optimistic and about 50% for our tournament prospects in the next 3-4 seasons. So much of this depends on how our current crop of freshmen improves and how good the incoming class is -- I know that sounds like a cop-out answer but it's really hard to predict at this point.

We do not have the talent to be a top-five Big Ten team in the foreseeable future, though, unless our recruiting gets even better. If we make the tournament it's not going to be with a 13-5 record and a national ranking. As good as our recruiting has been under Collins for us, it's pretty average for the conference as a whole and even below average for the teams that usually battle for B1G titles. That's not a bad thing, though -- average Big Ten teams are on the bubble all the time.

A lot also depends on Collins' development as a coach. As you say, he doesn't strike me as a great tactician, but he definitely belongs in the Big Ten -- this season alone we've seen him outcoach guys like Crean and Pitino -- and he seems like a good leader and motivator. But defense needs to get better, especially out of the young guys.

I expected 2014 and 2015 to be bad seasons. 2014 because we gutted the roster and 2015 because we were so freshman-heavy. 2016 will tell us a lot, though: four freshmen that saw significant playing time will all be a year older, we don't really lose much out of our graduating players, and we've got a transfer with major conference experience coming in to fill one of our bigger needs. I don't think we'll be a tournament team, but I expect this team to take a solid step forward into the NIT. If we stumble and end up having CBI conversations again, I'm going to lose a lot of my optimism going into 2017.

 

[EvanstonCat]

I refer to my expectations for the program and thoughts of CCC in the other thread.

But, in short, I have very high expectations that we will make it to the Dance this coming year.

By year 5 or so, I expect CCC will have the program in a place where we are perennially NCAA participants. By year 10, we will have won the B1G. By then or perhaps another few years, we will have gone to the Final 4.

 

[EvanstonCat]

Originally posted by Deeringfish:
I feel really confident that we will make the NIT next year if not the NCAA. I am more worried about the year after.

I think next year we see improvement across the board and Olah will be an improved version of himself. He will be one of the top tree centers in the B1G and top 15- 20 in the nation and able to dominate in some games. He has shown improvement every year that isn't going to stop. JVZ is going to add something to the play at center both when he is in as the sub and when they are both on the court. So there is going to be a big improvement there.

In 2016-17 Olah and JVZ are going to be hard to replace.

I actually agree with you to a large extent. I think this year will be the year. Olah could be dominant. Demps will be Demps. He is an assassin. The team will gel during the summer in Spain. The freshmen will be sophomores, and more help is coming, especially in the backcourt, is coming in Falzon, JvZ, Pardon and Ash. I think the way we finished (winning 5 of 8) is a reflection of where the team was (without the new additions and off-season improvement) than the overall record.

I do worry a little about the following year. Losing Olah is huge, as well as JvZ. Pardon and Skelly are a bit undersized, but we really do need Pardon to grow up quick. Hopefully we can find another 5th year transfer big or a freshman phenom to play the 5 in the next class. Or we play without a natural 5 as some teams do and try to excel with athleticism and numbers.