[NU Sports] Butler

[Alan Abrahamson]

No rudeness of any sort received here, Eric. Just the opposite. I appreciate
your point of view.

Obviously, we disagree, and that's fine. My aim in writing was to provoke
discussion, as I said at the outset.

Let me -- again -- stress just one thing. I do not have any inside
information ...


On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 3:22 PM, Eric West <e-west at northwestern.edu> wrote:

> 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
>
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