The Dream is still alive

Now that we have still not calmed down from the win in Bloomington last night we need to talk about what will be the #1 Big Ten Hoops story in 2008. No, not Sampson, not Purdue, not the Badgers. No, the BIG story this year is the pending perfect season by the Northwestern University Wildcats.
Right now the Cats sit dead last in the conference at 0-11. Out of those 11 losses, 11 (11!) have been by 10 or more points. While NU has been competitive in some games for 20-30 minutes they have ended up getting torched in every single Big 10 game.

And, of the 7 games remaining there are 2, maybe 3 games they would even have a chance at:

Purdue: Boilers are white hot, this will be another NU loss

@Iowa: Could be their closest game this season, but they aren't winning in Iowa City

Indiana: Who cares who is coaching the Hoosiers? IU rolls

@Michigan: One of those 2-3 potential chance games. But I can't see them winning on the road unless Michigan is terrible on that night

@Purdue: Boilers will be battling for a Big 10 title, they aren't losing this one

Iowa: Their best chance for a win. If they go 1-17, this will be the 1

Wisconsin: Of course, Badgers might have a chance to win the BT title and send the Cats to 0-18. Of course the only thing standing in the way is a Badger game at Welsh-Ryan arena. Chances I get any sleep the night before the game: 0%


Right now you have to give the Cats at 75% chance at completing the perfect season and if that happens I cannot see Bill Carmody keeping his job. Sure Carmody has struggled in his tenure in Evanston, but his teams are usually good for a memorable upset or 3. And while this team is young, they still have Kevin Coble. Also, don't young talented teams get better as the year goes on? So either this team has been poorly coached or poorly recruited. I'll go with a little bit of each.

The bigger question might be, what is the matter with this program?

I have not researched this at all, but my recollection has NU playing one whopping game on the BT Tourney Friday and never being seeded higher than #8. Save for the 98-99 season when the 7th year senior Evan Eschmeier was on the team the Wildcats have enjoyed a decade of futility- oh and things were not much better before the BT tourney era.

Northwestern has been consistently pathetic in a sport where that is increasingly difficult for big name programs. To prove this point- take the 5 other BCS conferences and name the worst program in each of those leagues: Oregon State, Baylor, Auburn, Virginia Tech, and South Florida would be my picks. However, in 99 Auburn was actually a #1 seed in the NCAA tourney, Va Tech was a #5 seed last year. Baylor has a great chance to make the tourney this year and is headed in the right direction. Only OSU and USF can come close to matching the consistent levels of futility that Northwestern has experienced and USF deserves a break because they have only been in the Big East for a few years and did have moderate success during their time in C-USA.

What makes the the problems with the NU program even more puzzling is the peaks of success that the football program has experienced over the past 15 years. In 15 years the football cats have experienced One Rose Bowl, 3 shared Big 10 titles and a handful of bowl games. One would think that being able to succeed with a football program would be more difficult than being able to finish 6th just one season in basketball. Afterall, football has more players, and costs more money to lure the big name coaches and create top notch facilities for the players.

So once again, what is the problem with NU hoops?

I believe that most of the problems with the program are self-inflicted. While Bill Carmody seems like a nice man and from what I have heard, a solid teacher of basketball, he is not a big time baskeball coach. He has not been able to recruit good talent to Evanston and save for a couple of exceptions he has not been able to harness the talent once it arrives on campus. In addition, his Princeton style seems to keep some of the good local talent away from the north suburbs.

More self-inflicted wounds involve the poorest facilities in the Big 10. First time fans who enter Welsh-Ryan arena feel like they have entered into an over-sized high school gym. I cannot imagine players from East Aurora or Downers North are impressed when they realize that their potential college gym is just slightly larger (and probably more quiet) than their current gyms.

NU apologists seem to always want to point at the high academic standards as a reason that good players cannot attend Northwestern- but these same players have no trouble attending schools with equally rigorous standards like Vanderbilt. While Vandy is certainly no power in the SEC they are good for an NCAA bid 2-3 of every 5 years.


While the Northwestern administration has stood by Carmody during his tenure in Evanston this season SHOULD be the breaking point. Northwestern will be hard pressed to finish in the top 7 under Carmody. While I am skeptical that Northwestern will ever be able to have consistent 8-10 win seasons in conference they should be able to compete for an NIT bid 2 of every 5 years and receive an NCAA birth sometime in the next 6-8 seasons. But the Cats will need to find a coach who has proven that he can recruit solid players, can win with programs that are traditionally at the bottom of their conference, and be able to excite the NU supporters and win over the attention of high school recruits in the fertile Chicago suburbs.

Oh, I guess this is the time where I am supposed to throw out some names but it is Thursday night and I am stumped. What is Paul Westphal doing these days? I'm sure he'd love Evanston after working in Malibu.