Is Stanford Basketball Instructive about the Challenge for NU in Bball

[torque-cat]

20 years ago Stanford was a top 10-15 program with elite 8 and final 4 appearances. 10 years ago it was still pretty good. Over the past decade it has only made one NCAA tourney and has been barely better than NU overall.

Stanford is always an interesting analog because as far as I can tell both schools maintain high standards even in revenue sports--much lower than overall student body, but still pretty high. (Would be great to get data on this if anyone has it). Stanford has the most dominant athletic department in the country, numerous director's cups, national championships everywhere, recruits olympians like it's a school major, arguably the most prestigious degree outside of Harvard, tremendous wealth, great weather and location and legendary sports alums like Elway, Woods, Luck and McEnroe.

Stanford even had a storied Duke alum with NBA experience as HC until recently but really was not able to re-establish itself as a top 25 or even top 50 program. Is this just a bad spell, are they doing something wrong, or is it instructive of the challenges of college bball landscape that maintaining high standards and being a top program are nearly impossible even for a university that has every conceivable advantage?

Would love to hear people's thoughts as I think this helps us understand the road for NU to become a top 25-40 program that regularly gets into the tourney and sometimes makes some real noise.

 

[mikewebb68]

Stanford plays in a FAR, FAR, easier conference (embarrassingly bad for a Power-5), a fact that is unlikely to change any time soon. If we played in their conference this year, we would be playing for a championship!

 

[hdhntr1]

20 years ago Stanford was a top 10-15 program with elite 8 and final 4 appearances. 10 years ago it was still pretty good. Over the past decade it has only made one NCAA tourney and has been barely better than NU overall.

Stanford is always an interesting analog because as far as I can tell both schools maintain high standards even in revenue sports--much lower than overall student body, but still pretty high. (Would be great to get data on this if anyone has it). Stanford has the most dominant athletic department in the country, numerous director's cups, national championships everywhere, recruits olympians like it's a school major, arguably the most prestigious degree outside of Harvard, tremendous wealth, great weather and location and legendary sports alums like Elway, Woods, Luck and McEnroe.

Stanford even had a storied Duke alum with NBA experience as HC until recently but really was not able to re-establish itself as a top 25 or even top 50 program. Is this just a bad spell, are they doing something wrong, or is it instructive of the challenges of college bball landscape that maintaining high standards and being a top program are nearly impossible even for a university that has every conceivable advantage?

Would love to hear people's thoughts as I think this helps us understand the road for NU to become a top 25-40 program that regularly gets into the tourney and sometimes makes some real noise.

Back then they had twin towers (Lopez brothers) who are still in the NBA. And as of now, PAC12 has trouble getting anyone other than their conference champion into the dance

 

[torque-cat]

Stanford plays in a FAR, FAR, easier conference (embarrassingly bad for a Power-5), a fact that is unlikely to change any time soon. If we played in their conference this year, we would be playing for a championship!

All the more reason to wonder when Stanford can’t succeed with an easier path. They are successful across nearly all sports including football and women’s b-ball. Which is why I ask whether Stanford’s difficulties over a decade speak to the challenge of winning men’s b-ball while maintaining high standards—academic and recruiting clean.

 

[IGNORE]

Stanford plays in a FAR, FAR, easier conference (embarrassingly bad for a Power-5), a fact that is unlikely to change any time soon. If we played in their conference this year, we would be playing for a championship!

This is simply untrue but impossible to improve. If only we played some non-cupcakes non-conference games like some pac games would we know.

 

[Catreporter]

This is simply untrue but impossible to improve. If only we played some non-cupcakes non-conference games like some pac games would we know.

Stanford lost at home to Utah so there's that.

 

[eastbaycat99]

A good sportswriter could make a pretty good book of the somewhat bizarre demise of PAC 12 basketball over the last decade. It has had probation and kickback scandals among some of the historically top teams and a number of coaching meltdowns and defections. In the era of one and dones, it also suffers from being buried in the Pacific time zone, getting less national exposure. It has generally been one of the weakest if not the weakest power conference in that time. The last few years the WCC with Gonzaga, St. Mary’s and BYU has been a stronger basketball conference out here.
From the standpoint of whether NU would have thrived the last few years in the PAC 12, I think without a doubt their record would be better. Paradoxically, the Cats’ one tournament year was also the PAC 12’s best, with 3 of their four tournament teams reaching the sweet 16 and Oregon in the final 4. Assuming the Cats were in the conference instead of Stanford, and the conference had 4 seeds, the Cats would have had to beat out a 26-9 USC team for the 4th bid. I do think the Cats would have had a better record than the 23-11 they compiled in the B1G, and would have edged SC for the bid, but a lot would probably have ridden on the theoretical conference tournament performances.

At this point, I think it might be hard to recruit top 100 players into the conference because of the issues it has.

 

[catsattackfor3]

After Montgomery Stanford has hired bad coaches or bad fits. Their current coach is from UAB??? Yea that is a great training ground for a school like Stanford!

 

[eastbaycat99]

After Montgomery Stanford has hired bad coaches or bad fits. Their current coach is from UAB??? Yea that is a great training ground for a school like Stanford!

You can certainly question whether Jerod Hanse was a good hire or not, but there is a logic to each of their 3 head coach hires since Montgomery stepped down.
Trent Johnson had been a Stanford assistant and had led Nevada to the sweet 16 right before he was hired. He took Stanford to the tournament 3 of his 4 years and was hired away by LSU. Hard to argue with that hire.
Johnny Dawkins was very similar to Collins, down to a long stretch as assistant HC at Duke. He did get Stanford to the Sweet 16 one year, and won the NIT twice in the 8 years he was there. His credentials were pretty much the same as Collins’ and so I would say he was a reasonable hire.
Jerod Haase played at Kansas and was an assistant at Kansas and for 9 years at North Carolina before going to UAB for 4 years. He did take UAB to the NCAA round of 32. The AD thought Dawkins was not getting it done and fired him. Whether that was the right move remains to be seen.

 

[Catreporter]

Won the NIT twice and yet AD didn't think he was getting it done. So much for equating NIT runs with anything in the NCAA tournament. That NIT title last year doesn't seem to be doing much for Pat Chambers at Penn State either.

 

[NJCat]

That NIT title last year doesn't seem to be doing much for Pat Chambers at Penn State either.

Well, it got him a nice contract extension.....

https://www.si.com/college-basketball/2018/05/03/penn-state-pat-chambers-contract-extension

 

[IGNORE]

Stanford lost at home to Utah so there's that.

We beat Indiana who just beat #9 MSU, so there's that too.

 

[hdhntr1]

This is simply untrue but impossible to improve. If only we played some non-cupcakes non-conference games like some pac games would we know.

Meanwhile around half of the BIG gets invites each year. The PAC 12 is by far the weakest of the P5 conferences over the last few years and this year looks like no exception. And as far as playing non conference games against the PAC12, we did when we played Utah

 

[techtim72]

To be really, really good and consistent in basketball, with the exception of a few programs, you have to sell your soul to the devil and damn the admissions standards. Happened in Maryland where the administration put in an honest effort to improve the quality of their admissions and Gary Williams got tired of groveling in front of recruits and their handlers. Didn't feel he had enough assistant coaching positions to hand out. Now the Duke's, Kansas' and Kentucky's of the world operate in another stratosphere. My guess is Stanford won't sell out to bring a recruit in and there are only a few good academic kids that can make a difference in a program. If they are really, really good they are pretty much only giving lip service to academics waiting for the professional payoff. It is a very limited field of players that make a difference at the championship level.

 

[freewillie07]

To be really, really good and consistent in basketball, with the exception of a few programs, you have to sell your soul to the devil and damn the admissions standards. Happened in Maryland where the administration put in an honest effort to improve the quality of their admissions and Gary Williams got tired of groveling in front of recruits and their handlers. Didn't feel he had enough assistant coaching positions to hand out. Now the Duke's, Kansas' and Kentucky's of the world operate in another stratosphere. My guess is Stanford won't sell out to bring a recruit in and there are only a few good academic kids that can make a difference in a program. If they are really, really good they are pretty much only giving lip service to academics waiting for the professional payoff. It is a very limited field of players that make a difference at the championship level.

This seems right and really shows how small NU's margin for error is. At this point in the program's history, NU's ideal class would be players ranked roughly 75-150 in the nation who are academic fits and project to have the upside of being one of the five best players at their position in the Big Ten as upperclassmen. When things work out, like BMac at PG, Lindsey and Law at wings and Pardon at C, the team can finish in the top half of the conference. When you have misses in Rap, Brown, Ash, and arguably more (Benson will not project to be a quality Big Ten center), this season is what happens.