So what's the best course of action? Burn it all down? Not even try?
If we are doomed, hire a coach who makes $250K a year. Do not renovate buildings unless they pose a risk, don't build new ones. And collect the sweet B1G TV money.
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If we are doomed, hire a coach who makes $250K a year. Do not renovate buildings unless they pose a risk, don't build new ones. And collect the sweet B1G TV money.
From NU's side: Change our approach to academic "standards" or join the Patriot League.
From our side: Demand the school go all-in on winning or stop caring all together.
What's gonna actually happen? The school is gonna keep pocketing the money and we're gonna keep fielding mediocre teams at best because we CANNOT get the players we need to win. What am I gonna do? Find myself drifting closer to not caring any more (and I'm sure I'm not the only one).
1) I have stated my opinions on this. I'm actually on the side of those who believe there should be changes to admissions. However, did you know that the NU roster has an average of recruiting rankings higher than Rutgers or IA? While I don't think rankings are a tell all, they are an indication.
2) Patriot League, enormous fallacy.
If you switch conferences, you stop competing for the players you were competing for in the B1G. Do you think any of these players come to NU if NU was in the Patriot League (does not matter what mine or anyone's feelings of the quality of the player)
1) Nance #88 rank - had offers from Michigan, Purdue and Ohio State and several others
2) Kopp #115 - Texas A&M. Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt...
3) Beran #110 - Boston College, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, WI, Louisville...
4) Young #348 - Maryland, Penn...
5) Roper #154 - WI, IL, AL, IA, Ohio State...
6) Simmons #103 - Boston College, Gerogetown, Pitt, Texas, Xavier...
7) Hunger #255 - Boston College, Miami, Ole Miss, Pitt
They don't. You are now competing for a new set of players. Which % wise, most, will not get through admissions either. Sure, the value proposition of education is now more attractive as more of these players will care about a better degree. Maybe your winning percentage goes up.
However, now you're in a league that admits one team to the tournament. Even if your academic proposition is a better value, you have to win your conference tournament. No 9 teams getting bids. I can't even imagine how anemic the fan base at NU would be.
If you go to the Ivy, not that they'd ever accept us, the playing field is leveled, no schollies. Tough admisstion standards for everyone. Great. But not so great.
Is it a coincidence that Harvard, Yale and Princeton have dominated the Ivy league? One can debate if Penn or Columbia are just as good schools. But they do not have the brand recognition of those 3. Leveled playing field at admissions leave academics, or perception of, as the distinguishing factor.
So what is NU's brand name compared to Harvard, Yale or Princeton. A disadvantage. A big one/ Maybe that explains Amaker being successful at Harvard, but not at MI.
For as many insightful things you have to say, Gato, I cannot understand how you can say CCC is not even a decent coach, and yet he can take NU to its first NCAA ever. To downplay all that goes into that achievement is just unbelievable and implies that your only logical conclusion is that CCC just hit lightning in a bottle? The likelihood of that being true, with CCC having come from a pro basketball family and been an assistant to the second greatest coach in NCAA history, is so low as to make the. validity of your argument hinge on similar odds of winning a lottery. Is that what you want your thinking to equate to?
He didn’t recruit those players, and he was the assistant on that team for years.
I truly believe, based on his entire body of work at NU, that Collins is a below average coach and that yes, he did capture lightning in a bottle in 2017.
His record in close games, his bewildering lineup and substitution patterns, his inability to even get into the NIT and his long BIG losing streaks all shout “below average” coach to me. I know your position Gordie, so don’t feel compelled to respond to me. I know you don’t agree, or at least you’ve talked yourself into such a corner that you could never admit you agree.
And it doesn’t really matter what I, or any of us NU fans believe. Only two things really matter here: how will NU fans respond to what they believe about Collins (I.e. will they continue to buy tickets and give $); and what do potential recruits think about Collins and will they continue to come to NU?
That’s it — all that matters. Crappy coach, good coach, doesn’t matter. Support and recruiting— all that matters.
What is the argument that he did not “catch lightning in a bottle” and is, in fact, a good coach?
Since he caught lightning in a bottle, his teams have gone 60-89 (.402), and 26-71 (.268).
His recruits
Nance / Kopp / Greer / Young
Buie / Beran / J Jones
Berry / Nicholson
Simmons / Roper / Barnhizer
Hunger
So, that’s one all conference honorable mention, zero all freshman team members, zero sixth man honorees, zero all defensive team members.
What’s the case that he’s built a program?
(“The Big Ten is HAAAARD” is not a good answer.)
Buy tickets? What makes you feel NU cares if you buy tickets? They get the bag at the end of the season either way.
My personal instinct is that CC's ineptitude was saved by the leadership of BMac. Impossible to verify, just the impression I have. No one outside the team bubble could ever have any informed opinion on this. Just a gut feeling.
And it was not necessarily just because BMac was a classic PG/floor general type of guy. That helps, but I think the "floor general" is needed mentality is ridiculous. There were zero "floor generals" in the B1G this last year. And usually there are no more than 2, tops. It was more that he was a true leader, before and during games.
After we made the tourney, some jealousy and attrition ensued and his leadership status was undermined. Then he banged his knee. And we won what, 6 games with basically the same team. Pathetic.
We know what happened after. Even for NU standards, some truly atrocious seasons. Year after year.
Because there is more revenue there than many of you give credit. Tickets, concessions, ad revenue, merch revenue and opportunity to solicit donations from successful alum during these ‘fun’ games. Make it all go as close to zero as possible.
Then add nothing but opposing colors at games, zero student support which might even lead to difficulty getting volunteers for the pep band. Suddenly game day is very very embarrassing before the team even warms up.
Which ask leads to zero B1G level talent or even close. The cupcake preseason actually lends to several losses to the ‘cupcakes.’
At this point, good luck getting anything from Ryan or anyone that cares about the program. I’m sure the anti-sport faculty will grow louder in complaints about how much ccc makes compared to them. Essentially MBB becomes very very uncomfortable that NU is forced to restart or resign.
The big money might be good but if it starts costing then faculty members, money for football and general embarrassment… well, the admin might not be Kellogg smart but hopeful not complete idiots…but who knows…
I agree it is a strange situation, but for me, whatever respect I gained for CCC as a coach for getting this team to the tournament was partially lost after the following season when he had essentially the same team and they were terrible. That was one of the worst coaching/leading-of-men I've ever seen. His "legacy" was further tarnished this year when he still couldn't get out of the bottom 4 of the league with an incredibly veteran, experienced team.
I agree that the NU job is one of the toughest in the land and there is a good chance the next coach will also fail, but you have to keep trying. CCC has had plenty of time and the momentum is going in completely the wrong direction.
It's silly to discuss as NU will never leave the BIG, but.....
I can't help but wonder if it would actually be more fun as fans to be in a lesser conference where we compete for conference titles and play, good, close rivalry games that we win sometimes, as opposed to constantly finishing near the bottom of a really good conference.
Average attendance in 2017 was 7,000. Showing that if we have hopes of winning, perceived momentum, fans show up. It dropped to 5,500 pre Covid. I assume these are numbers of tickets sold, even if, in many instances the arena looks empty.
So let's get some numbers out of my butt, for exemplification purposes:
1) 5,500 tickets/home game
2) $30 average seat (really unsure about this one and understand there are fees, etc)
3) 16 home games (number we played this year)
That's ticket revenue of $2,640,000. Operating expenses for game day are, I assume, fairly low seeing that so much is done by "volunteer" students.
No one is going to walk away from $2.6M. Plus concessions stands, plus parking. Attendance might be dwarfed by TV money but it's still relevant.
I understand what you are saying. Personally I really don't mind not winning a few years in a row (that's not saying it's OK to win 3 games, in any year).
As long as I believe we are building towards something I find it fun. I think that is the big reason most schools (actually it's not most, it's all of them) are not as patient as we are. You get the fan base restless or, in our case, apathetic, as they start believing we just stopped caring. Most people don't buy that a program has the right coach at the helm if more than 5-7 years have gone by and you keep losing. And 5-7 years is on the upper end of what fans tolerate. Depends on school.
I stopped believing we were building towards something after the Ryan Taylor season. We had squandered the post tourney season. Fine, one bad season, it happens even if the All State reasoning and all was ridiculous. You follow that debacle with 6 wins while having a pretty decent roster? Nah, something is wrong, very wrong. Turns out I am, today, more certain that feeling was right, than ever.
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Concessions, merch sales, ad revenue from all the print and other promotional stuff. No way MBB only draws $2.5mm in revenue.
Plus, there is a reason they built that club. To wine and dine the wealthy alum and grease more donations.
As they try to raise stadium money, I hope a lot of their calls include the alum asking what are the plans for the MBB team. Wonder what canned response they offer to an successful, educated alum.
Right. I left other revenue streams out, really no clue how to estimate those and probably the point is made. Just like I left expenses out. And I am confident the other revenue streams far outweigh expenses.
What I am also confident about is that expenses don't change much with attendance. Revenues do.
CC played and coached at Duke, a school with an academic ranking on par with NU. He has inside information on how to get the best recruits in the country admitted to a prestigious university with stringent admission standards. The NU administration clearly understands how athletic success enhances the reputation of the university and the donations that flow in because of it. It took Coach K a long time to build Duke into a powerhouse, and in the early days his critics were all over him. Maybe CC can be the guy or Gragg hires a seasoned replacement. We have a lot going for us as Chicago's BIG team but it will take time to build success. Patience is tough but necessary.
The problem with this comparison is the Duke administration actually sees the benefit to the University that a National Championship caliber team brings to the university. The admissions requirements are not the same and haven’t been for about 50 years. The old story that circulates is that NU brought in a Duke assistant to interview for HC ( I think it was Amaker) and he gave them two academic resumes to reviews for admission to NU, neither got the thumbs up. They were Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley. Very few revenue sports athletes primary reason to come to NU is for the degree. So, we need to get off our high horse and either make a REAL effort to win or we can go back to jangling our keys at the opposition.
Duke was also smart enough to put the students in the best seats. The Cameron Crazies were behind Vitale’s bald heard for decades. NU puts the fat Cats there. I won’t even touch on NIL.
IMO, it will take much more than a seasoned Coach and a stale slogan to actually entice the quality of players here that you need to consistently win. Players win games. You either have them or you don’t.
You don't need to rely on old and potentially apocryphal stories. There is empirical evidence to prove this. I say it every time: Sean Dockery was admitted to Duke AS A PARTIAL QUALIFIER! He could not meet NCAA minimum admission standards and Duke accepted his commitment anyway when he had a 2.3 GPA and 15 ACT. He eventually scored an 18. An 18! And all he did was contribute to a Final Four appearance during four NCAA runs, two ACC titles and two conference tourney titles. Oh, and he GRADUATED.
I know you agree with me on the admissions issue, but I'll say it for the people in the back who still don't realize what's happening: Duke. Does not. Care. About. Academics. For. Basketball players.
Now, surely this means the school has crumbled as an academic institution, right?
Yup. They're now situated at No 9 on the US News rankings. Tied with Cal Tech, Johns Hopkins and... (Checks notes)... Northwestern.
Meanwhile people are still sitting here like idiots saying "maybe the next coach will find a way to do what literally every coach has failed to do... save for the one I want to fire." We will not compete until we level the playing field.
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Duke has a university and a basketball program. If you get a guy admitted that is the caliber of Zion Williamson, you know there is absolutely no way he is going to say long enough to graduate. He might later, but the point is he was a guy serving his pre-NBA time. I have no idea what his qualifications were. He might have been a 5.0 GPA and a perfect SAT/ACT. Doesn't matter. Duke doesn't recruit/select the one-and-done players to be students. They just don't. The kids only have to stay eligible for a single semester and then skip classes all Spring.
I don't condemn Duke for this. It is what they have chosen to do, sort of a sideshow to running a university. It appears to have helped them, the basketball program provides international notoriety and is a real draw to students. To a limited extent, our modest success in football has had some positive effect on the university as well.
I generally don't support the (now) mercenary athlete model. What's the point? I get excited when our team wins, but if it's just a bunch of guys that we hired to wear our uniform, it's just less interesting. I don't expect the model to change. There is too much fandom in this country, too many grads and t-shirt fans that deeply care about their "team". It's fun - don't get me wrong. But let's not pretend that the situation is the same for some poor slob that had to get in on his/her/whatever academic merits vs someone that is good at chasing a ball around. Shouldn't be. The slob doesn't generate the money to pay for coaches and skyboxes.
By his ninth season, Coach K had only been to two Final Fours.
Mike Krzyzewski - Wikipedia
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so, on the day of the Iowa/Shawshank game, this friend of mine who is a Duke fan called me. Like, right after the game. He knows I like NU football but...anyway. He says something like "are you a college basketball fan?" I thought he was being a jerk but was actually watching an exciting ACC tourney game. So we get to talking and it occurs to me that Duke is arguably the best P6 program, certainly in my lifetime, and one of the best ever. Meanwhile, we are quite possibly the worst P6 program. with, I believe, the most losses ever of a P6 school and, by far, the worst win%. Weird. Two comparable schools, we could argue that our FB program is stronger, and it certainly for the last 27 years, but in bball, we are talking about BEST and Worst. How weird is that?
No one said we need to be a team of one and dones like Kentucky — nor would they even come here. But 70+ years have shown that NU cannot field a team that can compete for the B1G, let alone a national championship, with current restrictions. It’s entirely possible to remove restrictions and fill a roster with players who project to stay and graduate and who also give us a realistic shot at winning.
I don’t think it is weird at all that one is the best and one is the worst. One cares enough about winning Natty’s that they made the changes ( a lot of them) to get good. One doesn’t seem to care in the least bit and if it wasn’t for one generous doner would still likely be playing in a barn. You reap what you sow.
Chris Collins did coach NU to the NCAA tournament in his 4th year at the helm.
It is really not difficult to understand how that happened.
He came to NU as the next great coach, a prodigy, a coach K-sponsored savior. There was a lot of excitement around NU basketball. I was on board.
McIntosh, Law, Lindsay and Skelly all bought into the dream. They were Collins' first recruiting class. By NU standards it was a great class. Collins had absolutely no record as a head coach to make anyone question the success he was promising. Even Carmody's incoming freshmen Taphorn and Lumpkin honored their commitments to NU and stuck around. Olah, Demps, Sobolewski and Cobb ALL stuck around.
The first season didnt go so great on the court. 14-19, 6-12 "Not my players, just wait"
The 2nd recruiting class was Falzon and Pardon. Not nearly the level of the first recruiting class on paper.
The 2nd season, Collins played all his freshmen with Olah, Cobb, Demps, Lumpkin and Taphorn. It was a deep, talented team, though the freshmen were inexperienced. 15-17, 6-12.
In the offseason we signed recruits Benson and Brown, another step lower in the recruiting battle.
The 3rd year we had a very strong roster. Olah, Demps, McIntosh, Skelly, Lindsay, Lumpkin, Taphorn, the immediately useful Pardon, the overused Falzon and the productive transfer VanZegeren. Vic Law was injured and missed the season. We started out 13-1 but finished 20-12, 8-10 in the Big Ten and somehow didn't get invited to the NIT. We went 1-9 against the Top 50 teams. "If we had only had Vic Law, we would have been great."
Gaines and Ivanauskas committed to NU.
The 4th year Olah and Demps had graduated, but Vic Law was back. On paper we were probably not as talented as the previous season. But we made the NCAA tournament with 8 productive players who complemented each other. Lindsay, Law, McIntosh and Pardon all played over 30 minutes a game. Lumpkin played 28 minutes a game. Everybody knew their role. Taphorn was lethal from 3. Skelly was productive off the bench. Benson logged 7 minutes a game and was okay. The NCAA appearance energized the program.
In the offseason, Collins landed commits Ryan Young, Miller Kopp, Ryan Greer and Pete Nance. A big improvement sparked by the tournament appearance.
The 5th season we lost 2 of our productive players (Taphorn and Lumpkin). The chemistry dissolved. Our depth suffered. We had no home court. The bench (Falzon, Gaines, Brown, Benson) was subpar. It was over.
Collins built the team that made the NCAA. He improved it every year from BMac’s freshman year.
I am more than happy to end this discussion based on your (and almost everyone’s except mine) very low-probability (especially over a 3-year timeframe) belief that Collins caught lightning in a bottle.
The Iowa game was a horrific ending to what was otherwise an improved season over last, whixh was improved over the prior. I recognize it’s a lower bar from which to start, but it’s flat out not trending in the wrong direction (we’ll see about Young’s loss and if any others bolt). We are frustrated with being a losing program, and many don’t give any credit even if we are trending to be less of one.
What doesn’t happen? Nobody likes to talk about Valpo, Butler, St Pete, even Gonzaga before it was Gonzaga. Not that they had admission challenges but they were bball destinations. And they all have had bball success - some short, some repeated. But not with 4 star, 5 star talent. Heck, not much for 3 star talent.
But they all found talent, developed it, created good systems and coaching. And found success. And NU can’t do that? Guess we aren’t that smart.
I don't see how this season was any sort of meaningful improvement over last season. We improved our conference record by a whole 0.5 games (6-13 to 7-13), we were seeded 12th instead of 13th in the conference tournament, and we barely won one conference tournament game over a horrendous opponent. Sure, that's technically better, but so what? Or are we going to go back to the "we didn't get blown out quite as often when we lost every single game but one against an opponent with a pulse" well?
If you count games against bad and meaningful teams, we actually performed worse than last season. We can thank the schedule for that. Last year we won 5 games against meaningful teams, this year we won 4. What an achievement.
2020/21
-1 wins against awful teams. That’s Nebraska. There was only one awful team
-5 wins against “proper” teams
. MSU
. IU
. MD
. OSU
. MN
2021/22
-3 wins against awful teams. That’s Nebraska and MN. Mercifully there were 2 awful teams
-4 wins against “proper” teams
. MSU
. IU
. MD
. RU
I appreciate the data, @GatoLouco and @CappyNU , but did you consider how many of those losses were *close*, year over year?* Progress!
*Please don’t research this. Close losses are just losses.
*Please don’t research this. Close losses are just losses.
This, I agree. I simply don't aspire to have the team hire a bunch of one-and-done players so we can, as Seinfeld put it, "root for laundry". But - as Bob says, these other small schools have coaches that work within limitations and systems and win games and make the tourney. Not every year, but more than once in a century. Will it work at NU? Maybe not - it's exactly the Carmody model, which eventually hit a ceiling. It did, however, work in football**, where Fitz gets "system" players that play team football and want to graduate. Some go to the NFL, some don't.
**All bets are off for Bball AND Football until the portal/NIL sort themselves out. If college sports simply become a clearinghouse of player compensation, the "small ball" model will have limited success. Players like, say, Ryan Young won't ride the bench for 3 years while they develop into a starter for dear ole alma mater.
Also read hundreds of times, last year, that the conference was just so strong. I developed disdain for the word "gauntlet". And yet, a less experienced team, won one more meaningful game than a more seasoned team in a weaker conference. It's almost like you can attribute that to bad coaching.
This is a single data point that I found yesterday on college basketball reference. If you sort by Strength of Schedule for all-time, you will find that to top 10 teams are all Big Ten, all pre-1994 teams. You can explain away some of that as reputation, cannibalization, etc. But ALL TEN?
However, I agree that the B1G was weaker this year, and I think Collins has lost it. Gragg did the right thing to put him on notice.
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Phatcat:This is a single data point that I found yesterday on college basketball reference. If you sort by Strength of Schedule for all-time, you will find that to top 10 teams are all Big Ten, all pre-1994 teams. You can explain away some of that as reputation, cannibalization, etc. But ALL TEN?
However, I agree that the B1G was weaker this year, and I think Collins has lost it. Gragg did the right thing to put him on notice.
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Collins had an image or aura that was based on hope. He was never a good head coach. So if he has "lost it" as you say, it is really the image that is gone. Sort of like the Wizard of Oz.
I'm not sure that I agree with you that putting him on notice was the right move for Gragg. It may have been his only (allowed) move.
My concern for the immediate future isn't so much that the team will be terrible - Nicholson will be alright if he stays. Roper and Buie should be pretty good if they stay, Hunger is going to get thrown in right away because we only have Beran, etc. Simmons may improve... Barnhizer may improve... We need a transfer "forward..."
My concern is that a "do whatever it takes" Chris Collins hits the transfer portal hard and NU ends up with NCAA violations that further damage the program and the university. I'm not saying I'm sure this will happen - it just concerns me that a man in his position won't have the same approach. As it is Gragg has made Collins' recruiting position (for high school seniors) very difficult.