[NU Sports] Butler

[Eric West]

I will answer your questions, even though you did not quite answer mine. 
[Caveat: everything always looks ruder over the internet, but please 
believe I intend no rudeness in my arguments.]

On 3/27/2011 2:46 PM, Alan Abrahamson wrote:
> Carmody has had 11 years.
> He was hired to get Northwestern to the tournament.
> Has he done so?

I would put it to you that he was hired to coach the basketball team, 
but I must concede he has not got NU to the NCAA tournament (yet).

> It's not unreasonable after that many years to ask why, and to ask why 
> not.

But it is not exactly reasonable to ignore the obvious answer why not: 
the combination of our history and our membership in one of the toughest 
conferences in the nation makes it a prohibitively and unprecedentedly 
difficult task. This would be true no matter who was coaching our team.

> And to ask the next question -- if we're going to keep him, why should 
> all of us who are invested in the program reasonably expect next year 
> be any better than the preceding 11? To say that we have all been 
> patient would be -- gentle.

The biggest reason is that *this* year was better than the preceding 10. 
As for patience, I submit that we have tried the "fire after 4-5 
seasons" approach, and we have also tried the "keep for 11+ years" 
approach. Which approach has led us to more success? Why go back to a 
system that has led us to significantly less success? I've asked these 
questions on this list before; I have yet to see an answer to them.

> Also, to be hard-headed about it -- if the athletic department is 
> undertaking a major facilities push, and that means raising mucho 
> dinero, is Carmody an asset? Just asking.

Why wouldn't he be? Most national, non-alum media coverage I've heard 
about NU men's basketball (granted, not a large sample) is that they're 
doing better than ever before, and Carmody is a main part of that. So 
why wouldn't he be viewed as an asset? You say you have no inside 
information, but there must be a reason why you ask that question.

> Let's just play what-if for a moment. If Brad Stevens were the 
> Northwestern coach, do you think we would be waiting 11 years to take 
> Northwestern to the NCAA tournament?

If we hired him today? Perhaps not. But that's primarily because we're 
in a much better place than in 2000, thanks to Carmody. You simply can't 
ask that question in a vacuum. If Stevens had been hired back then and 
brought the same level of improvement, we might well have kept him the 
same amount of time. Certainly, no hard evidence exists to suggest 
otherwise.

As for the Fitz analogy, of course it's ludicrous. I was pointing out 
the flaw in the simplistic "he hasn't done what he was hired to do" 
approach that completely ignores the entire picture.

Bottom line: the "how long" question can't be answered. It couldn't be 
answered three years ago, and it can't be answered today. I can't prove 
that it "should" take 18 years to get unprecedented results, and you 
can't prove that it "should" take only 5 or 6. There is simply no 
concrete data out there to support any number, because the story of NU 
is just that unique. The only concrete data right now is that we are 
closer than ever. To me, that makes a much stronger point than an 
unanswerable "how long" question, or a comparison to a school in such a 
different situation that it defies comparison.

[Sidenote to Stephen: if we could find alumni with very deep pockets who 
wanted to help the basketball program, I'd guess there are plenty of 
ways that money could be spent that might be more effective than hiring 
the latest "It"-Coach. But if that money could only be spent as a 
package deal, that might be the best reason to lose Carmody I've yet 
seen. It's a big if, though.]

Eric West
e-west at northwestern.edu