[NU Sports] Sun Times' Columnist puts his finger onthe Ill-noise"problem"

[Dennis W. Brandt]

> You can Carmody because the 20-win seasons are based on a schedule of
> pre-Big Ten season full of cupcakes.  After 12 seasons, his Big Ten record
> (no season over .500?) cannot be viewed as a success.

All true.


> Like bowl appearances for a 6-6 team, four straight NIT appearances are 
> made
> possible by an ever-expanding NCAA field.

Also true.

> Chuck succinctly stated the problem and the solution:  Carmody cannot 
> recruit.

Well, now, hold on there, son.  Don't say that Mr. Carmody can't flat-out 
recruit.  He has recruited the best basketball player in NU history, the 
best point guard in NU history and replaced him with someone just as good 
(maybe better eventually), and Drew Crawford.  Depth has always been an NU 
shortcoming, but it appeared that he had recruited some bench help this 
season except that men six and seven spent more time in the trainer's room 
than on the court, although number eight did get a chance to shine.  What he 
can't recruit - ready to laugh, Willie? - is good big men.  That's why we 
lost this year and last and the year before that and . . .  On the other 
hand, that doesn't make him unique in an NU basketball program that has had 
exactly one good center and one good power forward since my freshman year in 
1964.  Firing Carmody puts the program back to square one, and guys like 
Sobolewski might not stay around.  The program is getting there - with 
painful slowness, to be sure - but let's not mess with even the modicum of 
success we've enjoyed.

Carmody's basketball team shares characteristics with Fitzgerald's football 
team, such as in going to a low-level post-season game because there are too 
many of them and getting there based on an occasional marquee win and wins 
over patsies (with the almost obligatory loss to one patsy).  Both the 
basketball and football teams have some good players but not enough to win 
consistently, and they lack talent at some key positions like center on the 
court or defensive end on the gridiron.  Somehow, I have little confidence 
in our transfer-from-TCU center for next season, although he couldn't play 
worse than Mircovic did this season.