[NU Sports] The Bill Carmody Experience ?

[cherron604 at aol.com]

95% agreement here.
 
I like almost everything about Bill Carmody, just some of those previously mentioned lapses (slow starts, shot selection issues) and his relative failure to make the Cats a post-season team (at least, not yet).
 
My only question would be - are we witnessing the classic Jerry Reinsdorf 'point A-B-C' progression ?  (Reinsdorf dumped Doug Collins from the Bulls, arguing that he was the man to get them from point A to point B, and that Phil Jackson was the man 'needed' to get them to point C).
 
If he is our point C guy, great.  If not, where is that magic cut-off, to determine when we are either still making, or no longer making, progress to the NCAA's ?
 
Chuck Herron   Tech '85
 
PS - as a Tech ween, stat fanatic and lover of Excel, I loved your post  ;-) 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: barnard.matt at gmail.com
To: cherron604 at aol.com; nwu-sports at tssi.com
Sent: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:51 PM
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] The Bill Carmody Experience ?


First of all - I agree that it is unacceptable that NU has never made the NCAA tournament.  Unacceptable.

But, I do see a positive foundation being laid and positive progress being made.  He has done an above average job working with the talent he has, but now needs to improve that talent level.

Consider:

>From 1969 (begin Brad Snyder) to 2000 (end Kevin O’Neill) the program was remarkably and depressingly consistent while posting a .319 overall winning % and a .194 Big Ten winning %.  By contrast, Carmody’s numbers are .467 and .338 respectively.  That represents a 46% improvement overall and a 75% improvement in the Big 10.  Huge. 
He is one of only 3 coaches in the past century who not only did not post a negative win/loss trend (best fit line from yr 1 to the end of their tenure) but posted a significant positive trend (I am suggesting that this is a measure of consistent improvement, learning how to succeed at the school and in the conference, etc.).  If he can keep up that consistent trend, he could be on his way to building a consistent winning program. 
However, on a purely anecdotal level (only looking at the records of a few great college coaches such as Coach K., Calhoun, Boeheim, Roy Williams, Mike Montgomery) it does appear that the great coaches have typically produced excellent win/loss results in at least one season by their 4th year at a school.  By this measure, Carmody could be destined for .450 - .550 winning percentages year after year. 
2 of Carmody’s regular seasons have had win % over .500, and 5 of them over .400 with 4 at, near or over .500.  This is after only 5 seasons over .400 in the 31 seasons before Carmody (B.C.).  That is dramatic improvement in a short time. 
He has more Big Ten wins than in the 12 seasons prior to his arrival


Carmody’s second season stood out and created excitement partly due to relative measure.  A .552 win % was quite thrilling after only 5 seasons above .400 in the previous 32 seasons (pathetic).  But Carmody is 5 for 6 producing seasons over .400 with 4 of them being at/near or over .500.  That has changed expectations (thankfully), but also made another .500 team seem quite unremarkable, unsatisfying and disappointing.

Bottom Line: I think that Carmody is right for the school and the program and has the program headed methodically and dependably in the right direction.  If the team hasn’t broken the .600 barrier (18-20 wins) in another 4 years I would thank Carmody profusely for elevating the program to the next level (from a .300 program to a .450 - .550 program) and building a solid foundation and then I would find someone to take it to the .600+ level.  For now, I think Carmody deserves the chance to take NU to .600, .700 and beyond.  He has accomplished a lot so far.

Matt Barnard



On 11/14/06 3:44 PM, "cherron604 at aol.com" <cherron604 at aol.com> wrote:

> Here's a topic -
>  
> We are hosting DePaul tonight - probably the nearest team we have to a 
> 'cross-town rival' in basketball.  DePaul is about a 5-point favorite.  Are we 
> witnessing the end of the Bill Carmody era ?  I believe it was Brad making a 
> great point last week - the kind of players we need to win in the Big Ten, 
> don't want to play this kind of offense.  We hear that the endless slow starts 
> are a result of the complexity of that offense, but the goal is making the 
> NCAA, and slow starts for Big Ten teams mean no NCAA bid.  
>  
> I will grant that Bill Carmody is very brilliant at tactics, a very engaging 
> man when he talks, and ethically pure.  I am worried, though, that he can't 
> assemble a squad that can regularly make make the NCAA tournament.  At this 
> point, it might almost be argued that he is less likely to make the post 
> season (NIT) than were his less well-regarded predecessors, Kevin O'Neill, the 
> late Ricky Birdsong, and even Rich Falk.  Right now, isn't the Carmody era 
> neck-and-neck with the somnolent Bill Foster era (I am still bitter about the 
> money Bill Foster stole from NU) ?
>  
> So who would we turn to next, in our never-ending search for basketball 
> respectability ?  It would seem that we have to recruit the urban kids who 
> make-up the rest of the Big Ten line-ups, young guys raised on the tough 
> basketball courts of Chicago, NYC, Philly, LA, etc.  Do we need a young coach 
> at one of the mid-major urban universities, or a top-conference assistant who 
> has proved that he can recruit the city athletes very well ?  And do we need 
> to adopt the NBA-style offense that these young athletes want to play ?
>  
> In the end, was the Carmody era a well-meaning experiment, to see if the Ivy 
> League success formula would translate to the Big Ten ?  If so, there's really 
> no shame in admitting that we gave it a good try with a very good coach, but 
> it didn't work.
>  
> Chuck Herron   Tech '85
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