People forget that the big complaint was all the close games that were lost. The issue was we really did not have the go to guy down the stretch. Over the last couple years he had developed Buie and to a lesser extent Audige and working on Barnhizer into that closer.. It is always a fine line between winning and losing in the BIG. If you have the guy that can close, you win more of those games and that is the difference between dancing and not
Collins will be getting lots of calls
- Thread starter JimStarr777
- Start date
He bought himself and extra year or two on the contract. One year is already gone so adding two years is only adding one more to the situation he was in after last year
You cant avoid playing him like top 25 and really there is not as much difference in BB as in FB
Pleas stop with the four NITs and even the 20 win seasons The year before we went dancing, we had 20 wins with an 8-10 big record and never sniffed the NIT. He only had 17 and 18 wins in thee of those seasons before the NIT.(did have 8-10 BIG records in 2 of those seasons and He had 7 wins (7-11) in two of those NIT seasons) He got to one NIT with 20 wins once and that was with 13 OOC wins (out of 16 OOC gams) before he got there (Heck this year we only played 11 OOC games and went 9-2)
What I am saying is that the standards for getting into the NIT have gotten much more difficult for a BIG program recently than they were then. If the standards applied to teams while CCC has been HC were applied while BC was HC it is quite possible that we would have been to no NIT games under him. One of the 20 wins seasons would not have been there and neither would the 19 win season. Heck, now it probably takes 10 BIG wins to get in. And there are no where near as many OOC games to build the resume with. I think this is partly because the NIT is forced to take the regular season conference champ if they are not the same as the tourney champ and back then that was not really an issue. Basically a record over 500 overall would get a BIG team in the NIT.
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What evidence do you have that CCC isn’t working?
From what I see and hear, he is working far harder than Carmody ever did.
I think that Dr. Gragg provided a salient coacing point to him much like Mark Murphy did for Fitz back when Colby was let go. Every head coach is only as good as his players AND assistants.
Hopefully CCC doesn’t let absolute power corrupt absolutely like Fitz did.
Ok. Throw out NIT if you want. Just look at conference winning percentage. The point is that CCC hit a super big high, but by 5 seasons past that high the total results over his 9 years were beginning to average out to his predecessor’s last 9: instead of being “close” several times it was “definitely making it” and “not even close” the rest of the time. BC was rightly fired after that run - the point of this conversation was whether external parties like recruits were wondering the same about CCC at that point in time.
Is anyone saying that Carmody is better than Collins?!
He went from being a fired coach to a pretty good coach. He is not being fired for a HOF jacket currently. More still to prove
To cite a close friend on this board, in hindsight, it was a great decision and has led to two magical seasons. And any disagreement lies in as much subjective conjecture as the whole CCC is Jesus 2.0 narrative.
I went back and looked at those three seasons. It was not a series of close losses. More close wins than close losses. There was the 40 point loss to Iowa in the BTT to close it out. There was a one point loss to Hartford in there. But for every close loss, there was a close win. Then there were the rest of the losses.
This 
is wild.
It’s a shame Rick Taylor ran off Kevin O’Neill. O’Neill was The Truth. (This is a joke.)
It took me less than three seconds of the NU-Vandy game in Salt Lake City to recognize that the NIT is a fundamentally stupid tournament and that marking any progress by qualifying for the NIT simply means you’re accepting really low expectations. When Carmody was fired, his run of finding star-ish players every class had run out. Lumpkin, Olah, Ajou, and Abrahamson, and then Taphorn, were his final two classes. Olah became pretty good, Lumpkin was tough and fun, and Taphorn had one great moment. Carmody’s time was done. I was sad, but he had shot his shot. (Kale Abrahamson’s LinkedIn is a trip.)
We are blessed with a guy who had a front-row seat to what it means to truly build something at a school. There is no good reason for him to jump from a built program to a rebuild. He’s improved so much as an in-game coach. He and Boo have made NU cool. He landed a top transfer prospect in the last cycle, and has a ready-made plug and play team for a point guard that can shoot and run a team in this cycle.
I don’t think anyone is actually arguing that Carmody was better — that’s classic message board ‘put words in someone’s mouth’ garbage. But what’s exciting to me is that CCC has a chance to become one of the best in the country.
There are so many things going right at NU. The crowds were great. Lax and Softball are real programs. (Today’s softball renovation announcement is great.) The football stadium will be beautiful. CCC has become such a contributor to the university, and is a really respected presence in the city, and he looks cool whether in his studious glasses or his Boo-tribute headband , and I can’t see why garbage Louisville or garbage Vandy or wherever else could be comparable to building a real program 20 minutes from where he grew up while building generational wealth for his children. Not a bad go.
is wild.It’s a shame Rick Taylor ran off Kevin O’Neill. O’Neill was The Truth. (This is a joke.)
It took me less than three seconds of the NU-Vandy game in Salt Lake City to recognize that the NIT is a fundamentally stupid tournament and that marking any progress by qualifying for the NIT simply means you’re accepting really low expectations. When Carmody was fired, his run of finding star-ish players every class had run out. Lumpkin, Olah, Ajou, and Abrahamson, and then Taphorn, were his final two classes. Olah became pretty good, Lumpkin was tough and fun, and Taphorn had one great moment. Carmody’s time was done. I was sad, but he had shot his shot. (Kale Abrahamson’s LinkedIn is a trip.)
We are blessed with a guy who had a front-row seat to what it means to truly build something at a school. There is no good reason for him to jump from a built program to a rebuild. He’s improved so much as an in-game coach. He and Boo have made NU cool. He landed a top transfer prospect in the last cycle, and has a ready-made plug and play team for a point guard that can shoot and run a team in this cycle.
I don’t think anyone is actually arguing that Carmody was better — that’s classic message board ‘put words in someone’s mouth’ garbage. But what’s exciting to me is that CCC has a chance to become one of the best in the country.
There are so many things going right at NU. The crowds were great. Lax and Softball are real programs. (Today’s softball renovation announcement is great.) The football stadium will be beautiful. CCC has become such a contributor to the university, and is a really respected presence in the city, and he looks cool whether in his studious glasses or his Boo-tribute headband , and I can’t see why garbage Louisville or garbage Vandy or wherever else could be comparable to building a real program 20 minutes from where he grew up while building generational wealth for his children. Not a bad go.
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I can easily accept this. Will you acknowledge W>L
No good losses or participation trophies
Could end the argument
No one is saying that NU was not good before BC and we all thank him for what he was able to accomplish. That said, he hit his plateau at about a 7-11 to an 8-10 BIG record and with the way thing are currently that gets you jack squat as far as post season. People hole up his NIT appearances but with the present standards most if not all would never have happened. Thankful that they did but now they would not
Did the Collins era have a setback after the tourney run? Yes. Was it disappointing? Again yes. But it was also understandable. Some key injuries and Allstate arena wrecked the following season and the rebuild was difficult without the real glue guys and the focus and purpose. Perhaps he felt he could do it the way Duke did it but while he could get better players, they were not at the level of what Duke was able to bring in. It had to be done differently here with more focus and glue guys than what could be done at Duke. He learned from his mistakes and he has built the program differently and he is again finding success. There will likely be a dropoff again next year but now he has a different template to build a team around. Hopefully the drop off will be nowhere near as severe but the damage done to recruiting by Gragg's actions may have something to do with that recovery
Speak for yourself. I don’t thank him at all. Carmody sucked and there’s no defending his mediocrity. How anyone can say we aren’t so much better off I have no idea. That dude had 13 seasons of mediocrity which was probably 8 seasons more than he should have gotten. Which means he is responsible for holding back this program by 8 years. Good riddance. Don’t miss him or his gimmick offense and aversion to rebounding defense and recruiting in the least.
Don’t get me started or I will really unleash how strongly I feel about this.
Not sure about that. Jake’s offenses were rated even lower than JON’s defenses. It’s just that JON’s craptastic performance came off the heels of the brilliance of Hankwitz while Jake had the benefit of following somebody who wasn’t all that good either. So it just seemed like JON was worse. They both sucked almost equally. And they should have both been replaced. Harbaugh was on the verge of getting fired and then ended up replacing both his coordinators and then goes on to win 3 B1G titles and the National Championship. Why this ******** that you can’t fire two coordinators at the same time if they suck?
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He did not hold the program back by 8 years. Nobody that did not want to have their career destroyed would touch NU prior to BC and a huge part of that was his last few years. Prior to those last 5 years, there was no white knight coming in to save us
I think it's clear to say now that the (vast majority) of posters who thought CCC should have been fired in 2021-2022 were wrong. We know that now. That said, it was not at all a ridiculous position to take in 2021-2022.
It certainly begs the question as to why so many were wrong, and I hope, gives people pause the next time they advocate firing someone. It’s not like this was predicting whether it was going to rain the next day; it’s (should be) a big decision to have enough solid information to advocate firing someone. I would hope many do not just move on and say - “oh well, we would have concluded the same thing now as we did before anyway”. That would be an unfortunate rationalization.
It’s not really a big decision for a message board chump to advocate for someone to be fired. Like, it doesn’t even matter a little. The firee will get paid and maybe my team will be better.
If somebody had said that Collins would bring in a defensive guru and stop subbing out his presumed top player in the first four minutes of game time, and if someone had said he would give Boo the ball and let him cook, and that he would give Nicholson minutes because defensive presence matters, then perhaps things would have been different. Collins has improved as a coach. It’s good!
(What would have happened last year if Young *had* stayed? Maybe no Nicholbombs. A significant threat gone from Boo’s driving game.)
It’s also not expected for a coach to become better at his job in year 8 or whatever.
To my credit, my final conclusion was that last season should have been CCC’s last chance, simply because Boo started to look the part of a star late in his junior year, and the two deserved a chance to do it together.
CCC would have been gone at 90 percent of P# programs prior to last season.
I still don’t understand this Duke thing. As I have pointed out, the only guards he recruited after McIntosh over a four year period were Ash, Brown, Gaines and Greer. All well below the top 100. That’s what killed the program’s momentum. He recruited lower rated guys because he had to. I think he is more focused on recruiting more wings and guards with more of an overall game than earlier in his career but I guaranty you he will happily recruit top 100 guys again if he thinks he has a chance. Most 2-stars don’t develop like Martinelli.
So easy to just dismiss it as board chump talk - if no one wants to think / care about what they say here, then why discuss anything?
Back to the OP, Collins is getting interest from other programs but he ain’t going anywhere. In the pre-BTT interview, he said:
"My focus has always been being here," Collins said. "For me, I came here with the intent of being here a long time. I love Northwestern. I love what we're building through the thick and thin.
"My family loves it here, my son is a student here. So, for me, it's about focusing on the now and coaching these guys. I haven't given any thought to any other situations because I love what we're doing here right now."
"My focus has always been being here," Collins said. "For me, I came here with the intent of being here a long time. I love Northwestern. I love what we're building through the thick and thin.
"My family loves it here, my son is a student here. So, for me, it's about focusing on the now and coaching these guys. I haven't given any thought to any other situations because I love what we're doing here right now."
Because we have opinions on the teams we support, and like to share those opinions with others, because we have nothing better to do?
I don’t expect anything I say here will, like, *influence* anyone involved in the program. Do you?
Influence the program? Of course not. But I like to think what people say on the board has meaning, even if it’s a gigantic waste of our time.
Do you think it makes someone a bad person if they advocate for the firing of an individual in a public position (and who has no risk of loss of income because they have a guaranteed contract)?
People wanted him fired because they thought other alternatives that may be on the market could do a better job. This is entertainment, and double-digit losing steaks were not entertaining.
Never said anyone was a bad person. Dismiss prior arguments all you want. I’m done here.Do you think it makes someone a bad person if they advocate for the firing of an individual in a public position (and who has no risk of loss of income because they have a guaranteed contract)?
People wanted him fired because they thought other alternatives that may be on the market could do a better job. This is entertainment, and double-digit losing steaks were not entertaining.
Martinelli and Hunger also don’t really fit the “defense first” mentality. Both have higher upside on offensive end. Collins has been recruiting the best players he can and still is. This is what pretty much every coach does. Collins will continue to recruit the players he thinks are the best without regard for stars. Coaches don’t pay attention to the recruiting websites and rankings, they watch the tape and listen to their networks. There wasn’t some massive change in philosophy.
Jake’s offenses consistently were ranked lower than JON’s defenses… and that’s saying something. Landing a capable QB is job 1 for an OC. Was some of it driven by an insistence on running a ball control offense from 2014 and hoping we could win the turnover battle? Yes. But looking at Jake’s body of work and seeing anything but a complete failure is a… unique take.
“It’s really hard to replace both disastrous coordinator hires at the same time so we had to decide which one was less disastrous” is not a good place to be.
I have to say I agree with NuCat on this one. There is a big difference between some nobody like me saying it on a message board and someone who is actually in the position to do the firing. The frustration at the time and the lack of a clear direction led to message board fans wanting to try something new. Of course, if we were the AD who had to make the actual decision, it would be a more thought out decision with a lot more information.
(That was not invitation for more Gragg hate, please)
Give yourself more credit, @TheC! You have a lot to offer. Why diminish (and dismiss) your own thinking on a board? (Btw - I also used actual information to support my thinking).
It's a good thing that Gragg sucks at his job or Collins would've been gone. One instance where i'm glad he has no idea what he's doing.
Actually, ccc is the one thing he has handled perfectly. If we are results driven, then the proof is in the pudding
I just mean that expressing an opinion on a board doesn't carry any real weight and so we don't go through an extensive thought process when making a declaration on here (god, at least I hope not after reading the stuff around here).