Our Mike Fitz takes a look.
Are NU's recent departures a big deal?
- Thread starter lou v
- Start date
I gotta tell ya: I stupidly hope and wonder if Gaines and Kopp - both 3s - left because Baldwin is on his way, and they were told the reality of the situation.
Be gentle. I know it's probably not happening. However, I wonder why his commitment is so delayed. I assume Baldwin knows everything possible about the Milwaukee program, so why would a question continue. And Duke's season has been dead and buried for a long time.
What could possibly be delaying his decision at this point?
I wonder if NU admissions could only cause such a nonsensical delay.
In the end, I think it's going to be Virginia or Michigan - something outside the conventional wisdom. OTOH, Michigan may have too many commitments, but I can't quite tell due to all the moving parts in the portal and draft.
But one can hope and try to devise a far-out possibility.
Be gentle. I know it's probably not happening. However, I wonder why his commitment is so delayed. I assume Baldwin knows everything possible about the Milwaukee program, so why would a question continue. And Duke's season has been dead and buried for a long time.
What could possibly be delaying his decision at this point?
I wonder if NU admissions could only cause such a nonsensical delay.
In the end, I think it's going to be Virginia or Michigan - something outside the conventional wisdom. OTOH, Michigan may have too many commitments, but I can't quite tell due to all the moving parts in the portal and draft.
But one can hope and try to devise a far-out possibility.
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Back to the original question of whether the transfer was a big deal.
The Athletic has a running list of the top 50 players available including a small number of high schoolers. So when a player commits they drop off the list.
I'm a tad surprised that Kopp has not been part of their top 80. But maybe not.
BTW, former NU rumored-target Tamar Bates is listed at #15. He pulled out of his commit to Texas after Shaka left.
The Athletic has a running list of the top 50 players available including a small number of high schoolers. So when a player commits they drop off the list.
I'm a tad surprised that Kopp has not been part of their top 80. But maybe not.
BTW, former NU rumored-target Tamar Bates is listed at #15. He pulled out of his commit to Texas after Shaka left.
Kopp was Collins’s highest rated recruit. The regression and lack of development is very troubling. That being said, I think I would rather have Audige than Junior year Kopp, so let’s see who CC brings in as a replacement
Yes it is "a big deal" as far as college basketball goes.
It is no surprise at all that an assistant coach who worked for Porter Moser would now leave NU to go to Oklahoma to rejoin Moser. Would be surprising if he didn't.
However, there are now two assistants. One (Brian James) is Chris Collins' old high school basketball coach. He was a fixture as an assistant with Doug Collins at a few NBA stops. Obviously the Collins family thinks he's an excellent coach.
The other assistant is Jon Borovich, who has been with NU for just under 2 years. His coaching experience was as an assistant with Northern Illinois and Dayton.
The manner in which Collins used his players this past season (detrimentally) is not reason to be encouraged. Kopp's departure speaks volumes.
NU will hopefully be back with the "above average" Ryan Young and Pete Nance, the "talented but inconsistent" Boo Buie and Chase Audige, the "hope he improves" Robbie Beran and the "ready to step up" Ty Berry and Matt Nicholson, plus the freshmen and whatever spare parts we can get thru transfer.
In an ideal world, it dawns on Collins that he MUST play 2 big guys at all times and Nicholson gets to show his ability. Berry is likely to play better and more. That will help Audige and Buie be more consistent (and better). In an ideal world, Collins NEVER puts Beran out there with Nance and 3 guards - the Nance/Beran combo was horrible last season. NU finishes 10-8 in the Big Ten.
In the more likely world, Collins falls in love with some new player who reminds him of Aaron Falzon or Robbie Beran or Miller Kopp and uses that guy all the time, to the detriment of the team. He keeps Young and Nicholson mostly on the bench, using Nance, Beran, Audige and Buie and it is just as bad as it always is. We lose a lot of games we should win.
It is no surprise at all that an assistant coach who worked for Porter Moser would now leave NU to go to Oklahoma to rejoin Moser. Would be surprising if he didn't.
However, there are now two assistants. One (Brian James) is Chris Collins' old high school basketball coach. He was a fixture as an assistant with Doug Collins at a few NBA stops. Obviously the Collins family thinks he's an excellent coach.
The other assistant is Jon Borovich, who has been with NU for just under 2 years. His coaching experience was as an assistant with Northern Illinois and Dayton.
The manner in which Collins used his players this past season (detrimentally) is not reason to be encouraged. Kopp's departure speaks volumes.
NU will hopefully be back with the "above average" Ryan Young and Pete Nance, the "talented but inconsistent" Boo Buie and Chase Audige, the "hope he improves" Robbie Beran and the "ready to step up" Ty Berry and Matt Nicholson, plus the freshmen and whatever spare parts we can get thru transfer.
In an ideal world, it dawns on Collins that he MUST play 2 big guys at all times and Nicholson gets to show his ability. Berry is likely to play better and more. That will help Audige and Buie be more consistent (and better). In an ideal world, Collins NEVER puts Beran out there with Nance and 3 guards - the Nance/Beran combo was horrible last season. NU finishes 10-8 in the Big Ten.
In the more likely world, Collins falls in love with some new player who reminds him of Aaron Falzon or Robbie Beran or Miller Kopp and uses that guy all the time, to the detriment of the team. He keeps Young and Nicholson mostly on the bench, using Nance, Beran, Audige and Buie and it is just as bad as it always is. We lose a lot of games we should win.
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Honest question. How was Collins supposed to put the ball in the basket for Kopp? Miller's shooting was lights-out through the first eight games of the season, including four Big Ten games (57.6 3-pt %, 19-33). Was there lack of development at that point? He then shot 21.4% (15-70) the rest of the season. So was he suddenly un-developed over those last 16 games? Or maybe it's a matter of a shooter who got in a funk, lost confidence and couldn't pull himself out of it.
Agreed that I'd much rather have someone who can create their own shot instead of someone who's almost exclusively a spot-up shooter. Case in point. You can run all the perfect motion and plays you want, but ultimately it comes down to guys who can #MakeShots. It's a make-or-miss game.
I suspect that Kopp lost interest and started considering his next step after the early losses, and that the midseason slump was simply a symptom of onefootoutthedooritis.
And, yes, they’re big deals. To the extent that NU basketball departures and signings are big deals.
So Kopp’s missing shots which easily could have made the difference in the team’s winning a number of close games causes him to get down on the team and its chances and start to/ultimately quit on it? That’s either very selfish on his part or illogical on your part. He’s likely a stand-up kid, so I vote the latter.
Kopp played alright thru January. We had lost 8 straight by then. After Feb 1 his play was significantly worse.
Buie was particularly bad during the first 11 losses, except for the Penn State game. Buie scored 3 points or less in SIX of those losses. He had exactly one good game where he made over 40% of his shots.
It is not difficult to imagine that Kopp, having attended a Christian school in Texas, felt totally at odds with his classmates and teammates over political issues and all the hyper-progressive attitudes. If I were a Collins' apologist, thats what I would be proclaiming. It wasn't the coaching staff, it was that Kopp hated going to school at NU. Covid restrictions on campus and in Evanston were very strict. Winter quarter is the worst. And Miller actually loved Coach Collins, who is a great coach.
Anybody buy that?
Not sure I agree with this. Even if he was over NU, he’d still need to impress other programs. If anything, we’d have seen more hero ball from him. And when he did press the issue, he shrunk. This was a kid unable to recapture the swag we saw in those summer Twitter clips.
Ah, good to see he's still trolling here. Not sure why anyone bothers to respond to him.
I didn’t say he tanked or stopped trying, though I see how it could have been read that way.
Simply stated, he’s a successful kid who came to build a successful program. When he decided he couldn’t achieve that goal, he lost confidence. Shots stopped falling.
That doesn’t make him bad. That makes him human.
None of us know the impact Covid had on the players mental health. Tough season for him and you can easily see how when things started to spiral downhill for the team it could affect him. I hope he gets a fresh start and has one heck of a season next year. Seemed like a really good kid from the preseason "Day in the life of Miller Kopp" video.
I feel like you guys have no imagination.
I state facts like "Buie was terrible" and you guys run screaming.
I pose hypotheticals about Kopp feeling out of place at NU and you guys run screaming.
I try to help the Collins' apologists rationalize the Kopp departure and you guys run screaming.
Does anybody on here ever think outside the box?
Funny WB, you turn EVERY single situation as an opportunity to bash CCC. Then you frequently use terms like Collins apologists to pile on. Who isn’t thinking outside the box?
That is a lot of speculation but Covid made most of lives experiences difficult and the recent political polarization is really brutal. BB at this level is not a walk in the park under the best of circumstances so a lot of people are making decisions for change.
I just read that something like 28% of BB players are in the portal (couldn't retrace my steps to find the article) so lots of guys are finding dissatisfaction with their BB life this year.
Wall Street Journal:
Just one week after the season officially ended with Baylor cuttingdown the nets to win the national title, 1,296 players have indicated a desire to transfer by entering the NCAA’s “transfer portal,” a national database introduced in 2018 that lets players broadcast their intention to leave without first obtaining permission from their current school. That is more than double the 600 or so who switched schools via the transfer portal last season.
That means that more than 28% of the more than 4,500 Division I scholarship men’s basketball players could be on the move this offseason.
Thanks for that. It is amazing and (from my perspective) quite unfortunate.
So many players unhappy with their college decisions, coaches or playing time.
Whats the transfer rate for athletes who aren't basketball players?
Here is an old study from the NCAA:
A 2018 study from the National Student Clearinghouse estimates that 39% of all undergraduates who initially enroll in a four-year institution transfer schools at least once. Given the academic concerns associated with transfer (for example, longer time to graduate and lower probability of earning a degree), the NCAA collects substantial data on this topic with which to inform member discussions and potential NCAA legislation. Key findings include:
- Student-athletes transfer less often than their nonathlete peers (Gallup, 2020), but there are some sports in which athlete transfer rates may exceed those for nonathletes (e.g., men’s basketball, tennis).
- 13% of current Division I student-athletes transferred from another school. Rates of transfer from two-year and four-year colleges vary substantially among Division I sports.
It's a new world. One and dones changed the recruitment at big bloods. The portal changes it for everyone. Adapt or die.
I don't know what the best strategy is or even given it much thought. But first thing that comes to my mind is the the "get old, stay old" might require some adjustments. Probably still valid, but different ways needed to get there.
I don't know what the best strategy is or even given it much thought. But first thing that comes to my mind is the the "get old, stay old" might require some adjustments. Probably still valid, but different ways needed to get there.
PPD, I'm an NU guy. I like practically everything about the place. But, years ago, when Fitz used to punt the ball on 4th and 2 from the opponents 33, it drove me crazy.
Chris Collins has essentially been "punting on 4th and 2 from the opponents 33" for years, in my opinion, with very little on the positive side of the ledger.
He's a "decent to good" recruiter. To some degree he should be - the school has a lot to offer the right types of players. He has brought enough talent in, with some missteps, but the teams never seem to gel. In my opinion, this past basketball season was somewhere between disappointing and disastrous. I have looked for evidence that players improve under Coach Collins. I have looked for evidence that he makes astute strategy changes during games. There's not a lot of evidence to support those ideas. When you look at how he used his players last season, mathematically speaking, the lineups he chose were as effective overall as picking names out of a hat. How many times did we go on a productive run and he'd change the lineup? The answer is "frequently."
How many times did we play 6 or more minutes without substituting? "only 6 times in the last 13 games"
As somebody who wants NU to win every game, it frustrates me to see a coach who brings in enough talent, but doesn't seem to know what to do with it. Many on here see that as "bashing" Chris Collins, but to me its just commenting on reality. If something good happens, I'll celebrate.
Thanks, Fitz.
Great article.
Too bad they didnt break out the Power 5 conferences.
Retention rate of non-athlete students varies widely across schools, but I have to assume that "Top 200" schools have better retention rates.
I think questioning the transfer portal this year without any context is not really not trying to solve the problem. One of the more silly rants I heard came from the patron saint of all coaches, Dickie V below.
This isn't anything close to past years.
1) You have the whole issue of immediate eligibility. The NCAA is expected to approve this, so players are eating it up.
2) On a completely different topic, God only knows what effect staying on empty campuses and playing during the pandemic had on these guys. But it wasn't just another year as a "student athlete." I assume there's a certain percentage of players who are transferring due to this - finding a bit more normalacy ... getting closer to home ... not able to ride it out because there's not much of a support system except for the team ... any number of pandemic reasons.
3) I also wonder how many freshmen made limited trips to campus when the world closed down in March 2020, and simply chose a school.
Looking at the portal compared to past years and assuming a similar state of affairs is just ridiculous.
This isn't anything close to past years.
1) You have the whole issue of immediate eligibility. The NCAA is expected to approve this, so players are eating it up.
2) On a completely different topic, God only knows what effect staying on empty campuses and playing during the pandemic had on these guys. But it wasn't just another year as a "student athlete." I assume there's a certain percentage of players who are transferring due to this - finding a bit more normalacy ... getting closer to home ... not able to ride it out because there's not much of a support system except for the team ... any number of pandemic reasons.
3) I also wonder how many freshmen made limited trips to campus when the world closed down in March 2020, and simply chose a school.
Looking at the portal compared to past years and assuming a similar state of affairs is just ridiculous.