These are times that make me ask "how bad is it? so I go back in history and find out, it has indeed been a lot worse. In 1990-91, under Bill Foster, the Cats were 0-18 in the Big Ten and 5-23 overall (and those five wins were over some real lightweights!) Foster, who won 467 games in his career, was just 13-113 in the Big Ten in 7 seasons, finishing last every single year. I guess if I can endure that, (and I did! Season ticket holder since 1983), I can handle a couple of last place finishes following the biggest high a Northwestern basketball fan has ever had. Hoping for better things ahead....
Can't be the worst
- Thread starter Catreporter
- Start date
I believe that was the year of the mass exodus out of Evanston. Rex Walters, Brody Deren, Evan Pederson, David Holmes, and I believe Kevin Nixon all transferred out prior to that season. If I recall, they had open tryouts, and there were like 3 walk-ons that were basically getting rotation minutes that season. The sterling history of Northwestern basketball.
Foster left Ricky Byrdsong a solid team and in his first year, they started 9-0 in non conference before losing a heartbreaking Big Ten opener to Purdue on a last second shot by Glenn Robinson. The end of that season was one of NU's greatest Big Ten wins, defeating Michigan (with Fab Five minus Chris Webber) in overtime to get a bid to the NIT where they beat DePaul and lost to Xavier in OT. And yes, with Eschmeyer, that might have been an NCAA team. Unfortunately, NU went 5-22 the next year.
Deren, Lepore, and Newman transferred you Creighton, Wake, and Drake in April 2000 under O’Neill. It was a dark day in the 1835 Hinman lounge when that day’s issue of the Daily showed up.
Was LePore the cat who wore white knee high socks?
Newman seemed like a kid with energy and promise, broken by O’Neill’s abusive style by season’s end.
Newman seemed like a kid with energy and promise, broken by O’Neill’s abusive style by season’s end.
I think of that Purdue game a lot. If NU had won that game, who knows how different that season - and the NU hoops trajectory - would have been. That was of course the "Walk on the Wild Side" year.
You’re right! I was just going off of memory, and got my leaving of the masses out of Evanston mixed up.
Even with the transfers out, they only won 4 fewer games than they did in 1989-90.
This was my era as well. Rankin was a hard to find true center. Ryan Young will be better but Rankin was also good fit for NU. Evan E was a true NBA talent who made the League despite the injuries. Foster seemed like a really good guy and despite the record he made sense for NU. O'Neill pretty much just ranted and left. Collins is handling the adversity far better. This post brought back a lot of memories.. some good some not We could sit so close to the bench you could hear a lot. That at least made it fun.
The first season my family had season-tickets was 1993-94 (I was in middle school). I remember that Purdue game well. Glenn Robinson made a difficult baseline jumper to give them the lead with about 5 seconds left. Pat Baldwin drove to the other end, where I was sitting, and front-rimmed a pull-up at the free throw line. Still, making the NIT that season was considered quite an accomplishment and made me a life-long fan. When people ask why I'm a big NU fan even though I didn't go there for undergrad I mention going to football games, including the Rose Bowl, in 1995 and that gets an understanding nod. Then I mention going to basketball games, including NIT games, in 1993-94 and that tends to get a look of puzzlement. It was considered a big deal at the time, people!
Anyway, I was cleaning out some boxes over the summer and came across and old Tribune sports section from the early 1990's. The headline announced our victory at Purdue that broke an 80 game road conference losing streak. So yeah, things have been worse.
There were a couple guys who wore the high socks then but you might be thinking of Sean Wink, who shot the lights out as a freshman, regressed a bit as a sophomore, then quit the team because he couldn’t deal with O’Neill. But as I remember he stayed and finished school.