[NU Sports] Recruits

[Mike Nolan]

> Finally, our football program has demonstrated that it can graduate kids
> into the NFL.  Our basketball program hasn't demonstrated that it can
> graduate kids into the NBA.  So why would a smart kid with NBA potential
> choose Northwestern over Duke?  The only reason that comes to mind is
> that they would like to play close to home.  That's exactly why Mark
> Aguirre went to DePaul and put that program on the map.  

I think it's a slight stretch to say that Mark Aguirre put DePaul basketball
on the map.  DePaul had 8 NCAA tournament appearances before their
Final Four trip in 1979, Aguirre's freshman year, including a Final 
Four appearance in 1960, and they won the NIT in 1945, back when the
NIT was a far more meaningful tournament than it is now.  
 
> There aren't many (maybe not any) north shore or suburban kids playing
> in the NBA.  There ARE a lot of Chicago Public League kids playing in
> the NBA.  So I would suggest that our basketball future is going to be
> tied inextricably to our ability to identify and recruit some very
> special kids out of the Chicago Public league and that may take a while.

Yeah, it'll be tough to put Northwestern basketball on the map.  It
takes a breakout season (if not several) by a great coach working 
with unheralded athletes who didn't get recruited by the bigger name 
schools, like what happened with NU football in 1995, with players 
like Fitz.  As Fitz said on ESPN.com recently, "I went from a zero-star 
prospect to a two-time All-American.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it."

And maybe Carmody isn't the coach who can pull off that miracle like
Barnett did, but finding that coach will not be easy.  In many
ways it may be a harder challenge than the one Barnett faced.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a superstar, though, Gary Barnett 
wasn't exactly the hottest coaching prospect in the world when Northwestern 
hired him in 1991.  
--
Mike Nolan