[NU Sports] Tommy Amaker

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

> If you took the Amaker and Michigan associations out
> of this e-mail, you
> could use the same descriptions almost word for word
> for our coach.

True to a point, I guess ... but I'm at a loss about
Carmody, as I've said. I'm not pleased where we are in
his tenure ... but I'm not sure it's comprable to
Amaker in Ann Arbor. I guess selfishly I'm just
relieved a bit that he didn't turn out to be the
second coming of Coach K and we didn't get miss the
boat.:)

> But I think that it is interesting that Michigan,
> even with it's
> suspensions, loss of scholarships, disqualification
> from post season, an old
> cavernous arena, and other associated challenges

Well, their arena isn't all that different from
Carver-Hawkeye, Mackey or Champaign's Assembly Hall
... so not sure about that. Though I'd rather have an
old barn or box than one of those 70s cookie cutter
circles anyway.

As for the rest, Michigan actually DID use that as
"mitigating factors" to keep Amaker around longer. But
the scholarships were all back, time was given and the
program still wasn't back to the tourney. He had
chances.

Granted, Carmody's had chance after chance too ... but
NU does not have the basketball tradition, recruiting
pipeline or name brand of Michigan. Not even close.
Plus, Carmody didn't leave Princeton in a lurch like
Amaker did to Seton Hall either.

> doesn't get into the NCAA tournament.  Who do you
> think is going to appear
> in the NCAA tournament first, Michigan or NU?

Michigan - but not because they held someone
accountable or anything like that. Michigan will be
back because they're Michigan -- yes, it's a football
school, but it's a basketball school as well with a
big name, pipeline to Detroit and national bran
recognition, Fab Five tradition - off the books or not
- and a large and generous alumni base.

The sanctions may have given Michigan a black eye
(they're certainly not as used to them as OSU or SEC
schools), but it's really not much more than a slap on
the wrist for their hoops program. A lost scholarship
or two for a couple years won't change much if you
have a rich tradition like they have with a national
title and three final fours in the past two decades.

I'm not saying this to excuse Carmody or NU's program
in any way from recent disappointments -- just to
point out the obvious -- UM won't make it back to
March Madness because they held someone "accountable"
while NU did not - they'll return to the dance
because, well, they're Michigan.

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

BTW - We didn't exactly underachieve like the ACC
(three Sweet 16 seeds but only one Sweet 16 team, and
UNC needed that home court to hold off a game Spartan
team), but not the best of weekends overall for the
Big Ten. Yes, Indiana, MSU and Purdue all gave #1
seeds (UCLA is practically a #1 team and have
home-state courts to the Final Four) a scare ... but
all folks will remember is OSU's lucky escape and
Wisky's collapse in Chicago. Ugh. I'd say that the
future looks bright at least, but in the "one and
done" era, who knows?

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


 
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