[NU Sports] B-Ball status

[Eric West]

Abrahamson, Alan (NBC Universal) wrote:
> Those statistics underscore the problem.
>  Yes, this team is better than teams in past years.
>  Bottom line: so what? Still no NCAA invite this year, absent a miracle
> at the Big Ten tournament. If you'd had eight years to effect change,
> but didn't, how would your boss view you?
>   

Only eight years? :) Remember, John Wooden went sixteen years at UCLA 
before he got it right. Tom Osborne took ten years just to get his first 
Orange Bowl victory, when Nebraska had won three straight Orange Bowls 
just before he became head coach. One can claim that times have changed 
with regard to coaching expectations, but that doesn't mean it's for the 
better.

Regarding the basketball team, I guess the "change" for me is that, 
unlike with past "better" teams, there's an indication that we might be 
even better than that next year. This is the first relatively good 
basketball team that wasn't just a collection of experienced 
upperclassmen, which indicates a positive momentum that I haven't seen 
at NU before, under any coach.

Of course, this is all said knowing that this year isn't over yet (and 
therefore the jury is still out); plus, we still have to avoid another 
mass exodus in the offseason that has derailed other promising teams. 
I'm willing to revise my opinion as events warrant, but I won't fly up 
or plummet down based on every win or loss. I certainly don't see the 
point of vague and/or unfounded assertions like we just got from Mr. 
Herron; Steve Pederson tried that attitude at Nebraska, with disastrous 
results that I don't want repeated here.


Eric West
e-west at northwestern.edu