[NU Sports] Basketball

[Dennis W. Brandt]

>From Jonathan Hodges

> For one, NU's best basketball player, Coble. . .  is out

Coble is a rather talented player but hardly good enough to carry the team. 
Bring in the next
Wilt Chamberlain and you can make that statement.

> What you see year in and year out is a result of the Princeton
> offense. . . The Princeton offense relies on the outside shooters
> The system also lends itself to being outrebounded. . .
> The fact is that the Princeton offense. . . can put NU at a mediocre level
> and give it a few big upsets any given year, but it has never been able to
> propel NU to the top of the league given the level of talent NU has.

That NU uses a Princeton-style offense because it lacks talent is PRECISELY 
my point.
Give Carmody talent, and the pure Princeton approach will go the way of the 
dodo.
The question is why we continuously fail to bring in talent when other 
academically-
oriented schools do an excellent job.  Compare Cameron Indoor Stadium to 
Welsh-Ryan,
and you'll have one answer.  You don't think a new basketball arena would 
work?
Then what do you suggest will?  Don't say coaching.  Not one coach in the 
school's
history has been able to recruit.  The reasons are surely deeper than that. 
Perhaps
it's because Welsh-Ryan looks little different than it did my freshman year 
43 years
ago when we called it McGaw Hall.  Back then, it was a typical arena.  It 
long ago
lost any luster.

> Regarding the facilities: I don't think building a new arena would 
> suddenly
> solve NU's basketball woes, and I am completely against it. . .
> some improvements in the existing Welsh-Ryan arena would be welcomed,
> but it is a more than serviceable facility.  Regarding the call to build a 
> brand
> new football stadium - that is completely ludicrous.  Ryan Field is in 
> relatively
> good shape. . .Building a new stadium would be just plain dumb given the 
> cost
> for a new one and the fact that the current one is more than sufficient. . 
> .What I never
> want to see is NU pushing academics or integrity under the rug to get 
> highly rated
>  players in for football and/or basketball.

You sound like my grandmother.  Her philosophy was to "make do," 
understandable
since she was reared in a poor family and then struggled to rear 10 kids 
herself.  To her,
a successful day was seeing the sun come up again.  She had neither time nor 
basis for
grand thoughts and long-range plans.  What's Northwestern's excuse? 
Maintain
second-class facilities, and you get second-class athletes.  And we do.  It 
is you
who used "suddenly."  I did not.  I'm talking about a long-range 
committment.

> I know that NU will never be a "semi-pro" type of school. . .  What we'll
> see is a competitive program that can break out every few years, but
> generally will have to work to be successful.  I believe NU football has
> continued to be competitive in the conference, with an obvious setback 
> after
> the loss of Walker; and the basketball team has regressed in the past 
> couple years.

I don't recall that Barnett's slogan was "Expect competitiveness."  That's 
like
graduating from Kellogg with the goal of becoming a stringer on a rural 
newspaper.
Set the bar low, and your only skill be doing the limbo with the resulting 
back ailments
as you age.  It is a loser's mentality that no Northwestern graduate should 
be proud
to call his own.

> I never want to see NU turn into a school that fires its head  coaches 
> every 3
> years and goes outside the bounds to get highly rated recruits in.

Your words, not mine.  I don't want the men's basketball program to continue 
in
endless futility.  In football, I want to reach the point where we no longer 
manufacture
special tee-shirts when we finally defeat an opponent we haven't beaten in 
three decades
because we have a 50-50 chance of kicking Ohio State's ass every season. 
The spirit
of '95 has to transform itself into new action for the future.