Four years ago today
- Thread starter lou v
- Start date
Our @mikefitz77 ran the numbers today. Since the Big Dance, Northwestern's record is:
46-76 (.377) overall
18-58 (.237) Big Ten
That's, uh, not good.
I shouldn’t do this with someone apparently so negative, but...3 very solid recruits (plus chance at PBJ) added to a team with no seniors, and you see no possible optimism?
I have seen absolutely terrible basketball for the last few years, so i have a pretty large body of evidence. We are not getting PBJ and I see player development as a huge issue. Recruiting does not solve our issues.
Informed BB analysts say otherwise (that we are close to being quite good). I think we are closer to gelling as a team than what our record indicates; a better initiator would help a ton. And we have two-three more candidates for this role coming next year.
And do you remember going into every Carmody era game and thinking we would lose? I do. I don’t think that nearly as much now. That’s a sign of progress in and of itself - even though we don’t have as much evidence as we’d like quite yet because we have too much inconsistency from our initiator right now.
And yet, if you compare winning percentages, we are just as likely to lose in this era.
No unfortunately not much. I’ve been optimistic for like 20 years. What I’ve seen the last few years is really awful.
Carmody...
2007-08 8-22 (1-17) Terrible, small team. Juice Thompson plays PG as freshman.
2008-09 17-14 (8-10) NIT Shurna, Mirkovic play as freshmen. Kevin Coble 15 ppg.
2009-10 20-14 (7-11) NIT Coble quits team before season. Crawford plays as freshman.
2010-11 20-14 (7-11) NIT Solid team, but only 7 deep. Cobb plays as freshman.
2011-12 19-14 (8-10) NIT Mirkovic injury in mid January wrecks the season.
2012-13 13-19 (4-14) Shurna, Mirkovic gone. Olah and Demps play as freshman.
Collins
2013-14 14-19 (6-12) Olah, Demps, Crawford, Cobb provide core of team.
2014-15 15-17 (6-12) McIntosh, Law, Lindsey support Olah and Demps
2015-16 20-12 (8-10) Falzon plays 24 mpg as a freshman. Olah 24, Pardon 16.
2016-17 24-12 (10-8) Falzon misses season. Law, Pardon, Lindsey step up. NCAA!!!
2017-18 15-17 (6-12) Skelly replaces Lumpkin. Falzon and Gaines are the 6 and 7.
2018-19 13-19 (4-16) Mac gone. Turner, Taylor and Gaines 3,4,5. Nance, Kopp ineffective.
2019-20 8-23 (3-17) Spencer transfers in. Buie, Beran, Young play a lot as freshmen.
2020-21 7-14 (4-13) Audige transfers in. Nobody improves.
Carmody had 4 straight competitive NIT seasons, followed by a bad season and they fired him.
It is worth pointing out is that the 2015-16 team had a lot of good players, with Collins's recruits Lindsey, McIntosh, Pardon and Skelly joining Carmody guys Lumpkin, Olah and Demps. Collins was enamored with 6'8" 225 lbs freshman Aaron Falzon, who started 29 of 32 games, and played more minutes than everybody other than McIntosh and Demps. He had the worst FG% on the team at 38.3% and did not rebound well for a player of his size. (Robbie Beran prototype) After starting the season 15-3, that team incredibly managed to lose 8 of the next 10, before righting the ship with 3 wins, followed by a heart-breaking 72-70 OT loss to Michigan in the Big Ten tournament. Shockingly, there was no NIT invitation.
Trying to decide if this current team has anyone nearly as good as Coble, Shurna, Juice or Crawford. I think the answer is no. Despite the talk of improved recruiting, it really hasn't panned out.
Looks at the star ratings. Shurna is like the 28th best recruit since 2000. Beran and Nance blow him out of the water. LOOK AT THE STARS.
(I reopened this thread hoping for “where were you when...” stories... didn’t get those!)
For what it’s worth, I watched most of the games that season on the DVR, on my couch. Hadn’t seen the score. Screamed like a crazy man when it happened. And, watching two hours after live, the good highlight videos had already been made, so immediately segued to those.
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Sorry... let me contribute. I was watching the game at the kitchen table on my laptop. It marked the second time in my life I can clearly remember jumping up and shouting out loud after watching something happen in an NU-Michigan sporting event. The other clear memory, of course, were the multiple plays in the 54-51 game.
Nice summary. In a couple of places, though, there is some interesting spin in your analysis. Mirkovic injury wrecked our 2011-2012 team. Really? I liked Luka. Very nice guy. But if we couldn't replace his 7.5 points and 5.2 rebounds, then you might want to consider that like with almost all Carmody teams, there were some depth issues. I actually think the team played about the same with and without him during the conference season (we lost to Illinois with him and beat them without him, lost to Michigan in overtime with him and without him, etc.).
And if you are going to suggest that losing Mirkovic wrecked that season, I would think that you might want to point out that Vic Law missed the entire 2015-2016 season, which is one reason why Falzon played so much in the first place. And Falzon shot 35% from 3 and averaged 8 points and 3 rebounds a game from the small forward position. That seems ok compared to 5 rebounds from your center. In retrospect, Lindsey should have gotten more minutes (he averaged 18 minutes a game) but I can assure you that Lindsey was not a popular player on this board until his junior year. And he was more of a 2 than a 3.
And I should add that Carmody got fired after 13 years of not getting the team to the tournament. I actually was hoping he would get another year but it seems pretty reasonable.
There is a rather large age difference for Matt and I to be cousins... however, I admit it would make my day if Nicholson actually got to play in a game. On that point I just can't imagine what Collins is thinking. Even is he gets dunked on three straight trips down the floor, so what? Have some fun! Who wants to practice every day and never get in a game?
Oh and you know where is PBJ going to end up ? Also recruiting is an important half toward a winning program.
There is no doubt that Carmody's NU teams always had depth issues, especially when it came to rebounding and frontcourt players. There were seasons when we just got punished under the basket. Mirkovic was a big body who helped slow down our opponents around the basket. His junior year he scored very little. His senior year he seemed to be playing somewhat better on both ends of the floor and then he got hurt, forcing Carmody to get creative. We had so little size back then, it was just unfortunate to lose him. We lost 4 games by 2 points or less in the Big Ten that year. Flip 2 of those losses and we're 21-12 overall, 10-8 in the league and possibly an NCAA team. (the 6 teams ahead of us all made the NCAA)
Like many NU people, including the coach, I had high hopes for Falzon because he had range, but he wanted no part of the physical stuff under the basket. A taller but lesser version of Nathan Taphorn, playing a lot of minutes as a freshman.
I was not a huge Falzon fan, even in his freshman year. He was pretty one-dimensional offensively and limited defensively. He was never going to be a star but he was never the same player after his injury. It's very unfair to say he wanted no part of the physical stuff under the basket. Or that he was a lesser version of Taphorn. Take away the injury and I think he would have been a valuable rotation player. He could get his shot off quickly and had deep range. Like Kopp, he created space for his teammates because you had to guard him past the 3-point line. When he got hot he could carry the team for stretches of games. He scored in double figures in 7 conference games as a freshman, including 20 points against Minnesota. He averaged more points his freshman year than Luka did in any season. And again, he only got those minutes because Law missed the season. If Law had not gotten hurt, that absolutely would have been the deepest team we have had in the past 50 years. McIntosh, Demps and Lindsey at guard. Law and Falzon at the 3. Lumpkin and Skelly at the 4. And Olah and Pardon at the 5.
And your memory is a little fuzzy on Mirkovic. He scored 3, 4, 4 and 2 points in the 4 conference games before he got injured his senior year. In 28 minutes against LSU that year, he scored no points and had 1 rebound. That's hard to do. He was our center and it was his senior year. If you don't like Robbie Beran, I am surprised you look back on Luka fondly.
And your memory is a little fuzzy on Mirkovic. He scored 3, 4, 4 and 2 points in the 4 conference games before he got injured his senior year. In 28 minutes against LSU that year, he scored no points and had 1 rebound. That's hard to do. He was our center and it was his senior year. If you don't like Robbie Beran, I am surprised you look back on Luka fondly.
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Falzon almost singlehandedly beat Indiana in his last year with the team with a great string of 3s.
It shouldn't have been shocking at the time because our RPI was horrendous for a 20-win team (thanks to a very easy schedule) and that was the primary basis for selection. That said, that team was fun to watch and you could definitely see the path to the NCAAs with those players.
Luka raised the roof at Assembly Hall, a top 10 moment in my Wildcat hoops fandom. Everything else is excused.
Well I never said I don't like Robbie Beran. I just think he's on the court too much! That is the coach's fault, not his. I do wish he would play more physically. As for Mirkovic, I couldn't stomach his play for much of his career. I distinctly recall considering him a "total waste of space" early in his NU career. I'm just saying he was playing better as a senior, then got hurt and we really needed his size. It meant Shurna had to guard the post too much, battle on the defensive boards and then go score most of the points.