Interesting timing ...
Gragg promises Collins extension
- Thread starter JournCat
- Start date
Interesting timing ...
I would be very surprised if Collins left NU. Collins has been here for 10 years and NU has treated him incredibly fairly. Collins is very much part of the community and is well liked. He had so many people rooting for him this year for non-basketball reasons. This is where he grew up. Hard to see a top tier program selling Collins to their fans as he's had a bunch of losing seasons. At the same time, hard to see him leaving for an incremental step up versus being a legend at NU if he can keep this going.
I think most ADs are going to look at the big picture with Collins and not this “miracle year.” There is still a very strong likelihood that NU is a bottom dweller again next year unless Buie and Audige return. And his overall record would be a hard sell for any blue blood program.
Collins and staff have done a great job this year — but is there any kind of sustainability? We shall see.
Collins leaving after this year would be the most dissapointing turn of events since Barnett bolted for Colorado. I hope his hometown ties keep him around, but like Barnett, I also can't say I'd blame him for leaving
If Buie comes back, we're loaded for next season.
Barnhizer seems likely to be All Big Ten next year.
Buie will be.
Martinelli is getting better every day as a freshman and is already taking minutes from Beran.
Nicholson will be better than most Big Ten centers.
Hunger will be better than Verhoeven and a great option at the 4 and the 5.
Berry and Roper are decent players who still have upside.
And then there's the incoming freshmen.
No reason to worry - we should be better next year. If Buie comes back.
I'm getting an NIL deal for my game thread persona
(I haven't been that bad this year)
You take Northwestern to two tournaments in seven years and finish #2 in the Big Ten, you get an extension. It’s just that simple. If we could get 2 NCAA appearances every 7 years, aka 3 a decade, any one of us should sign up for that.
I agree, Collins isn't going anywhere. The way he talks, he has a strong connection to our program and it feels he looks at WR as "The House That Chris Collins Built" in a way... he had a vision and he made it a reality with the generous support of Pat Ryan and Alan Smithee. His son is the team manager, he grew up on the North Shore... there are so many ties to Northwestern. Just keep winning, Chris.
While people should be happy with that, a number were ready to run him out of town after a couple non tourney years. Reality is that we are a developmental program that has extreme limits on our ability to bring in enough talent on a regular basis. And the way we can make it depends on getting enough talent developed to the right point and working together at the same time and any injury can derail that. Throw in transfer portal and NIL and we have even more obstacles as we are usually on the short end of that. (We can only talk to about 1 out of 10 potential recruits as the other nine could not get passed admissions so we will almost always have less talent than our BIG opposition so very hard to restock). Reality is the NU program cannot be judged by the same metrics as other programs.
Collins runs a clean repectable program. It can be competitive but reality is that it is pretty hard to keep it a the top level and it will have ups and downs. People need to understand and be OK with that
Has there EVER been sustainability in NU basketball? He's given the absolute best results EVER for you guys. There's literally no reason not to extend him. Though it wouldn't surprise me if he gets an offer somewhere and leaves for a program that's more equipped to handle "sustainability".
It is interesting that you cite all the same old excuses as to why we can't win when we have just proven the opposite.
To be fair, it was more than just a couple non-tourney years. It started with a hugely disappointing post-tournament season in which basically the same team looked disjointed and disinterested. It was a series of high profile recruits that were busts. It was a series of near last place finishes in the BIG. It was the failure of the next wave of recruits to materialize. It was the most high profile of that next wave to all transfer out. It was what looked like another near last place team about which some wondered (myself included) if they would win any games in conference this year. It was pretty dire.
It wasn't as if this team missed the tourney for a couple years, but was clearly building something capable of getting back there. It looked like this team had cratered entering this season with the level of incoming recruits not nearly as touted as the previous groups. This program looked left for dead. Let's not lose site of just how improbable this season has been compared to where we thought we were when the balls rolled out last fall. There was very little reason to believe in this team as a fan (especially as an NU fan who has been beaten down for too many years). I (and many of you) am eating a lot of crow, and it tastes strangely amazing!
We got a couple key guys to key developmental points at the same time. We had a senior laden lineup and what was not Srs were upper class guys like Berry. Buie was not what he was this year till this year. Audige improved a lot as well, Behran was solid if not spectacular. And Nicholson is in his 3rd year and finally got to a point where he could do the job. First guy off bench Verhovan grad transfer. THen Roper and Barnhizer. We won because we were a mature team that had grown up together
After this year, we could lose a lot of that maturity including Buie, Audige, Behran, Verhovan and then where would we be.? Some nice pieces in Barnhizer, Berry and Nicholson (maybe Roper) but how do you replace what Buie and Audige were to this team? Do we even have a PG (toughest position for us to recruit)? Our margin for error between winning and losing is very slim and it those guys do not come back, they will be hard to replace.
I am not saying that winning at NU is not possible. Just that it is on a more irregular basis than at most other programs
The catcalls started pretty quickly and after only two to three years..... If people recall, we had a key injury to McIntosh in about DEC of that followup year and he was never really the same after that. Plus playing at Allstate Arena was pretty bad. Were there some missteps? Sure but be have such a thin margin of error that it doesn't take much. COVID did us no favors either as we started having to play against 6th year guys (what was the guy from IA that killed us)
I don't know if this is what you meant by "interesting timing," JournCat. But the cynic in me has some of the same thought.
The need to say this publicly with such a firm direction this early feels like a cya comment by someone who doesn't hold all the cards anymore.
The need to say this publicly with such a firm direction this early feels like a cya comment by someone who doesn't hold all the cards anymore.
If Collins gets a decent offer, it’s in his best interest to leave. Winning (period) at NU is difficult enough. Winning with any kind of consistency is pretty much impossible. He’s done the unfathomable and finished in 2nd place in the conference, and taken you guys to the dance twice! If he has the chance, he needs to jump somewhere with fewer handcuffs if he intends to remain at this level of competition. Coaching basketball at NU is akin to banging your head on a wall repeatedly, waiting for the wall to break.
Yes, exactly. My guess is Gragg would have wanted to wait until season’s end. I was also interested in him going to Jon Rothstein, who seems to be a Collins guy (had him on his podcast this year, gets every injury update on Roper, paid a nice bar tab after betting NU fans last year that we would make the tourney). But I also can’t criticize Gragg too much here. Even as happy as we are today, I think most of us would not want him to give another 10-year contract that could become an albatross. Part of being good is that the people who make you good are sought after.
Collins calls it "Pound the Rock" and has embraced the suck already. He's not going anywhere soon.
Collins has recruited very well and should have had some level of tournament sniffing opportunities every year. I just think he has had some bad luck with players not stepping up to their potential. Look at Nance, leaves for North Carolina which almost won the tournament last year with essentially the same team and they are probably not going to make it this year. And Nance is still underperforming for them. The last game at Duke is scored 3 points as a starter in a loss. I think the chemistry improved when he left.
Terrible take. If his primary prerogative is to just stay at the P5 level, there's nowhere easier than NU. You make one tournament and you can be absolutely completely PATHETIC for six years after that and then you're right back to untouchable with one more good year again. Nowhere else provides leeway like that.
I really only know two things about Chris Collins. First, he has gotten NU to the B1g Dance 2 times which 2 times more than anyone else. and second, when I hear him give an interview I think I would be very proud to be his friend. I like basket ball but the you guys talk about the #1 spot and #4 spot, I have little idea what you mean.
You returned the favor with your less than stellar take. Do you think we actually accept this as an athletic department? Do you for a minute think Chris Collins is looking for the easy way out and is ok with poor results? He thrives on trying to beat the odds stacked against him. And we were never a pathetic team with him; it’s a very tough league and our guys were just not quite (yet) good enough - not pathetic.
Lock him up! If I'm Collins, why wouldn't I want to be a NU legend and retire here? Great salary, cool school, new arena, basketball and football are equally focused (in other words I am not a basketball coach at a "football school" like Alabama).
If I'm CC - give me x million for 10 years - I have the best job in the entire world!
The post-tournament team was very disappointing but a lot of that was because of the expectations and injuries. On February 6, the team was 6 and 6 in the conference. Disappointing for sure but not awful. And reason for celebration in almost any other year in Northwestern basketball history. Lots of teams that have made runs in the tournament have had records like that at that point in the season. After that, McIntosh and Law were both injured and I think Law missed the last 4 or 5 conference games and McIntosh missed a few or was limited to playing only a few minutes. We lost the remaining 5 conference games after they got hurt, including blowing a 27 point lead against one of the most talented Michigan State teams ever. I'd like to think we don't blow that lead if McIntosh played. Or that we don't lose a bunch of other close games if McIntosh and Law played/were healthy. The energy with that team was not great for sure (and there was no home court advantage) but if they had stayed healthy they might have been able to salvage the season.
And they had issues after that season in large part because the 2015, 2016 and 2017 recruiting classes produced Pardon and Gaines. The rest of the guys transferred (Smith and Rap), got hurt (Falzon) or were not very good (Benson and Ash). Hard to sustain success when you get one starter and a rotation guy in 3 recruiting classes. That's definitely on Collins and his staff. They missed on a bunch of recruits and that killed any chance of sustained success. When Law and Pardon graduated, we had no upperclassmen to lead the team. Nance, Kopp, Young, Beran and Buie were all forced to play 25 plus minutes as freshmen and sophomores because we had nobody else. Pat Spencer and AJ Turner were not the answer.
Hope you got great odds. Congrats. I think he needs to add at least 3 years to the contract to get it to at least 5 and a 5 year extension (taking it to 7) might even be necessary and would be reasonable. Should not have to go to 10
If people are talking about player's positions - the 1 is the point guard, the 2 is the shooting guard. The 3 is the small forward, the 4 is the power forward and the 5 is the center. Those are the traditional positions. A lot of teams don;t play that way anymore.
If you are talking about tournament seedings, then #1 or #5 or whatever is just a ranking.
To go further - many teams run three guards with either two forwards or a forward and center. The matchup problems happen on both ends. MN can’t race down the court with that three G and two F lineup allowing fastbreak opportunities. But he gains advantage against smaller lineups on the boards and in the post, in theory.
This is an oversimplification and just one dynamic. But the 1-5 lingo is still used commonly along w 3 and D, stretch 4 and stretch 5, combo guard, etc.
The jist - in the B1G, you still see many traditional centers (more than traditional PFs) so running PN as a center gave up a ton of weight and some height (weight - muscle - really matter anytime you enter the paint or play around screens) and PN got little advantage for his outside game on O due to switches while getting thrown out of the paint on the boards regularly.
Should have been PN as a stretch 4 w Beran backing him up and running RY as the C with MN as backup with some small ball exceptions.
Why do you assume Collins is happy with struggling for several years just to get an occasional great year!?