[NU Sports] Basketball recruiting

[Jeff Beamsley]

I think that it all comes down to recruiting and the recruiting approach for
the basketball team can't be that different from the football team.  We've
got to find smart kids who value education and can shoot the ball.  In order
to do that, Northwestern has to cast a much broader national net than
schools like Illinois or DePaul who are going to depend on strong recruiting
from the Chicago playgrounds.  

Carmody seems a good coach in all other respects, so it is hard to believe
that he is recruiting-impaired.  Even if he was recruiting impaired, most
head coaches depend on their assistants to do most of the recruiting.  But
I'm sure the best recruiters are probably well compensated for their
efforts.  

The only conclusion I can come to is money.  Carmody isn't getting the same
quality smart kids that other programs are getting because he doesn't have
the money/staff to mount the sort of national recruiting effort required to
find them and convince them to come here.

If anyone has any inside information to support or debunk this speculation,
I'd love to hear it.

Jeff
 

-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of NEONRye at aol.com
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 1:53 PM
To: nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com
Subject: [NU Sports] Northwestern State

Is it just me, or does anyone else on the List get annoyed seeing that that
well-known academic and athletic institution of higher learning,
Northwestern State, located in Natchitoches, Louisiana, in the NCAA
Brackets, while our obscure alma mater, lingers in the netherworld of
college hoops?  As much  as I respect Bill Carmody and the way he seems to
handle NU hoops, I think I  have reluctantly reached the conclusion that we
need a change--perhaps in the nature of hiring a high-visibility former NBA
player who wants to coach in college.  I look at BC's success with Al
Skinner (whom I remember as a  teammate of "Dr. J." on the NETS) as perhaps
a paradigm for the direction  NU may have to go.  We need a dramatic move to
break the cycle of  consistency (i.e., never making the NCAA's) that is the
sad hallmark of our  basketball program.  There is just no longer any excuse
for our abjet  inability to show up--for at least one year--at the "Dance".
March Madness  to me is the frustration I feel at seeing one of my
colleagues at work reveling  in his George Washington team's run this year.
Just once I want to see us  among the 64 teams that make it and to take off
from work and go to a  "regional".  And when I see Seton Hall (whom I, along
with President  Bienen, saw the 'Cats beat in their own house in
NJ) make it, and then go  out with a whimper, it just adds to my
frustration.
 
Paul Levinson
_______________________________________________
nwu-sports site list
nwu-sports at tssi.com
http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/nwu-sports