[NU Sports] bill carmody

[Brad Wilson]

(this was, it should be noted, 99 percent written
before NU's delightful defeat of evil DePaul Tuesday.
YAYYAYYAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DePaul can't lose
enough for me.)

I like Carmody as a person -- I worked with him many
moons ago -- and there's no question he's a good coach
who knows his basketball. He's a 100 percent quality
man who will always do the right thing. In other
words, there's every reason for NU fans to feel good
about him ... 

... except the win/loss record. 

(BTW, Chuck, it wasn't me who suggested top players
won't play his offense, though that may well be so. It
was not so in the Ivy League, but, of course,
different kind of "top" players.)

I was appalled to read Bill's recent comments in the
Trib (or maybe S-T, I forget) to the effect that "we
never get any rebounds" so he wasn't worried about
rebounding.

It is true that the Princeton system, with its stress
on high-percentage shots, does not stress offensive
rebounding. California once outrebounded a Pete
Carril-led Princeton team by 30 and still lost by 25,
which led Carril (Carmody's mentor) to say, "There
aren't any rebounds if you make your shots." Watch a
Princeton-style team play and often they won't even
try for offensive rebounds.

But one of the Achilles heels of the Princeton system
has always been defensive rebounding (really quick
guards cause it problems as well). Carmody's system
preaches good, tight, physical defense -- but the kind
of players he recruits and the system demands can be
outphysicaled and outmuscled on the boards. Often the
defensive system takes them away from the boards, and
they tend to be willowy 6-8, 6-9 shooting types who
get trampled by Big Ten forwards and centers even if
they are in the right place.

Given the way things work in the Big Ten, a team that
gets crushed on the defensive boards had better: a)
get some rebounders or b) score tons of points (in the
Ivy League Carmody's teams didn't get mauled on the
boards). Carmody's NU teams don't do the latter, so
they have to do the former. I would suggest there's
nothing wrong with NU that a banger or three to
rebound and pound with the tall trees wouldn't fix ...


... except that they are highly unlikely to fit in the
NU offense. 

Sigh. 

So as long as Carmody stays, expect teams that will
pull the occasional upset on nights when they shoot
well, esp. from 3-point range. Expect pretty good
defense, at least on the first shot. Don't expect any
offensive rebounds. Expect to be physically mauled
inside. Expect to be battered on the boards. 

This adds up to about what we've been seeing: seasons
like 12-14, 13-15, 14-13, etc., etc. 

I suppose this may be considered adequate, given the
past disasters that have afflicted NU hoops. Carmody
is so much better in so many ways than the
foul-mouthed creep Kevin O'Neill it's not even close.
He's a much better game coach than Ricky Byrdsong, God
rest his soul.

But what I have not been able to understand about
Carmody's NU teams is their lack of smart basketball
and their lack of focus. The slow-start excuse is
simply a fantasy; Princeton usually plays well in
December and so do other teams using the system. I
cannot understand how Carmody's teams can lose so many
games like the Cornell game due to lack of intensity
and focus. One mark of Carril's Princeton teams was
that they always, always, always beat the bow-wows.

And the stupid basketball -- most notably awful shot
selection and unforced turnovers, which defeat the
whole point of the Princeton system -- NU displays
occasionally is even less comprehensible. It goes
against everything I saw from Carmody for years. (This
is as frustrating to me as the football team's
continuing inability to execute the simplest of
special teams plays.)

I guess what we see at NU is what we're going to get
from Carmody. Is that good enough? Chuck would seem to
say no. I still think, with the right kind of
recruits, he could win 20 games on a regular basis
(cutting out losses to Cornell and the like). I grant
you we have not seen that kind of consistency or
recruiting yet and those who might say we never will
may, sadly, be right.

If NU dumps Carmody and starts hiring the kind of
hotshot young assistants Chuck talks about - and I am
unsure any of them would want to come to a team with
such academic restrictions (and one THAT HAS NEVER
BEEN TO THE NCAA TOURNAMENT [just imagine the negative
recruiting THAT fact allows]) - then you have to be
prepared for the revolving door, the 21-9 season
followed by the coach going to Stanford, Cal, etc.,
and NU starting over.

Or hiring a D-II or low D-I head coach who may be a
hoops genius but overmatched in the Big Ten (some
might say, though I would not, that that's what we
have now). 

I don't see many good options. I thought Carmody was
the perfect fit for NU. I may have been wrong. But can
NU do better? That, I submit, is the question. If the
answer is no (which I don't know), well ... Bill
Carmody's a class guy.

Meanwhile, I'll be watching wrestling and our top-10
ranked team, and keeping an eye on the hoopsters and
hoping for the best. 

Brad Wilson   

     



 
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