[NU Sports] butler

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

> Smith's estate. Or,
> more to the point: why can't Northwestern field a
> winning basketball

I'm not going to jump in to the hoops discussion too
much because I do like Carmody and understand that
it's a huge task to bring winning basketball to
Evanston. I am disappointed with NU's basketball
performance recently ... but Butler isn't exactly the
same thing.

> team? Butler, ladies and gentlemen. You're telling
> me that the weather
> is better near Indianapolis than Chicago? That
> Butler doesn't have
> recruiting standards?

Well, not exactly *NU* recruiting standards ... and
yes, the heart of Hoosier Hysteria is a bigger hotbed
than suburban Chicago ... and they have this place
called Hinkle Fieldhouse that's so magical that they
filmed Hoosiers there. :)

But seriously, the whole college landscape seems to be
a bit topsy turvy in recent years - George Mason last
year was just a culmination of the rise of the mid
majors from Gonzaga to Valpo. Part of it is the
benefit of playing in a mid-major league, but a lot of
it is also how these teams are able to keep a group of
players together 3-4 years while the powers now only
get folks like Oden and Durant for a year before they
reload ... and yes, UNC and OSU get far better talent,
but that team chemistry means a lot.

You'd think that would help NU, and I'm not sure why
it hasn't. Maybe it is time for a new coach - the
suggestion earlier this week of ex-Stanford coach Mike
Montgomery is intriguing. I dunno why he ever left for
the NBA (particularly Golden State!), but he certainly
has experience building a long-term winning program at
a school with tough standards. Maybe he can find some
of those twins Stanford seems to have such great
success in recruiting.:)

>  Switching topics: for some reason, the TJ Maxx
> outlet near us in Palos
> Verdes, Calif., was stocked a couple weeks ago with
> Northwestern gear.

Always cool to see some purple on the shelves ... no
such luck here, though I was at the beautiful new
Westgate City Center plaza with stores, restaurants,
etc. that's building up around the new Cardinals
Stadium and they have a LOT of scarlet and grey OSU
gear left over from the BCS game.:)

On one up note with our hoops team - looking back on
our NC slate this year, I know we caught them early
but the close loss to Stanford and win over DePaul
look better every week. Now if we just had some
rebounding and clutch scoring to take advantage of the
weak Big Ten this year.

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

* * * * * * * * *
STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!!


 
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