[NU Sports] Carmody and substituting

[Herman Wang]

I'll concede that NU basketball is pretty poor, but it's not as bad as it's 
been before.  I remember 8 or 9 years back, when we scored just 30 points in 
a lost to Evansville, of all teams.  Carmody's system has been able to level 
the playing field to a certain extent. Whereas before, we'd usually end up 
far below .500, we now hover somewhere around that mark consistently.  We 
just haven't had that final push to get over the hump, like we have in 
football.

We went 10-3 in our non-conference games, with one more against Texas 
Pan-American, which should be a win.  If we can go at least 5-11 in 
conference (which I know right now seems like a big IF), that should be a 
solid 16-14 record, and stealing one game in the conference tourney could be 
enough to get into the NIT. That would be something solid for our 
underclass-laden team to build on.

So, while I'm certainly disappointed in our lack of basketball success (a 
"real" BigTen team doesn't beat the likes of Division III Wheaton or North 
Florida by two points, nor does it lose to Tennessee Tech), as a matter of 
context, I dont' think things are as bleak as they were.

For some historical perspective, this is from Carmody's bio on the 
NUSports.com Web site, which paints a pretty rosy pictures, but the 
statistics are statistics--

During the past six years the Wildcats have won 82 games, the best six-year 
win total in the program's history, and the 2005 senior class graduated with 
57 victories which is more than any other class in the first 100 years of 
the program. Northwestern has won at least 11 games in all of Carmody's 
seasons, a program first and the first time the 'Cats have reached double 
figures in the win column six straight seasons since 1938.

In Big Ten play, Northwestern has won 30 regular-season conference games 
during the past five years, the most over a five-year period since 1966-70 
(32). In Carmody's six-year tenure, the Wildcats have won 33 Big Ten 
regular-season games; prior to his arrival, NU had 28 conference victories 
in the previous 12 seasons.

Best,
Herman




>From: "Dennis W. Brandt" <tbng at comcast.net>
>To: <nwu-sports at tssi.com>
>Subject: [NU Sports] Carmody and substituting
>Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 10:46:20 -0500
>
>NU's basketball team is lacking in talent in every possible category, just 
>as it always has been.  It's amazing that Carmody accomplishes what he does 
>given that all he has are supporting players.  I doubt there are more than 
>one or two players on this team who would be more than a seventh man on any 
>other top 30 NCAA team.  As to blaming him for not substitutin, I am going 
>to assume that he knows his deep bench players' skills better than anyone 
>on this list.
>
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