no one really knows what the answer is

ok, so let's just say they Fire Bill Carmody. who replaces him? which hot coaching name, big or small, is the answer? it's not bob knight. it's not any of the big names that the Daily Northwestern suggests, because WVU, Xavier and SIU are all infinitely better jobs than NU. Chris Collins is an interesting suggestion, but there is no reason to think he won't turn out to be another rotting limb from the Mike Krzyzewski coaching tree (think Bob Bender, Tommy Amaker, Quin Snyder, David Henderson; the jury is still out on Mike Brey; and Jeff Capel doesn't count since he never coached at Duke).

if you really think about it, you realize what a crapshoot it is. there are certain qualities you can look for in a head or assistant coach, but there is a lot of luck involved too. for example, one of the hot names out there recently is Tom Crean of Marquette. i'm sure he's a fine person and he's done a nice job at Marquette, but does he really deserve a shot at leading Kentucky, one of the top 5 programs in the country? (the others are UCLA, Indiana, Kansas and North Carolina. that's it. that's the list.)

anyway, my point is that Tom Crean was a well-regarded assistant under Izzo, and he has been to the tournament 4 times in 8 years at Marquette. but 2 of those years were with Dwyane Wade, who Marquette was lucky to get because many big schools stayed away due to academic concerns. Wade was also recruited by Illinois State, who at the time was coached by Tom Richardson (i've never heard of him either). but let's just say Wade goes to ISU and leads the RedBirds to a first-round upset or two. Richardson becomes a hot name and gets a bigger job and Tom Crean is probably fired by now. so how do we really know who is the better coach?

Bill Carmody was 92-25 at Princeton in four years. John Thompson III was 68-42 at Princeton in four years. i don't know anyone that would argue Carmody is a better coach, but maybe NU really is just a black hole program who will always be in the bottom 3 of the Big Ten. sounds depressing, but we need to be damn lucky with the next hire for NU hoops to be anything else.

the league gets better by subtraction, addition

well, bill carmody just moved a lot closer to the bottom of the rankings of big 10 coaches. (and let's be honest, he was pretty close to the bottom anyway.) the woefully inept Steve Alford is wisely staying ahead of the Iowa City posse and moving on to The Pit. meanwhile, Tubby Smith is taking over in Gopherland. Iowa/Michigan's choices of hire are still pending, but right now we have a group of solid coaches with concrete resumes (Ryan, Weber, Sampson, Tubby), a couple of youngish guys who look like they could be superstars (Matta, Painter) and a possible hall of famer (Izzo). seriously, that list is all you need to explain why PSU and NU battle each other every year for the conference tournament 10 seed.

Season gets worse even though it ended eleven days ago

we already knew that the big ten sucked this season, so this is not a surprise. only the Luckeyes remain, and even they had no business winning on saturday. of course, all of this makes NU's lack of success even harder to stomach. going 2-14 in the league is understandable if NU were playing in the NBA's western conference, but in fact they're getting beaten soundly and repeatedly by very, very average teams.

tommy amaker just got fired for winning 57% of his total games and 45% of his conferences games. and he SHOULD have been fired. he stinks. in one more year than amaker, carmody has won 46% and 31%. i am not crazy enough to compare goals and expectations of Michigan vs. Northwestern, but my point is that amaker was let go for the same reason carmody should be let go: lack of (perceived, real or otherwise) progress.

when you combine the fact that the big ten sucks and quality academic institutions like Georgetown and Vanderbilt (they don't even have an effing athletic department!) are in the sweet sixteen, we get a painful reminder of how far NU has to go.

7 seasons, 95 wins, 113 losses

i was originally going to title this post: "I hate you Jeremy Nash." but after watching the replay too many times, it wasn't (all) his fault. he is a freshman who is never on the court in those situations. there were less than 15 seconds left, and we all knew he wasn't going to attempt the game-tying shot, so he was just trying to get it out of his hands as fast as possible. moore should have been looking for the ball instead of to the sideline. but i won't blame him either. i'll just blame the coach because that's the whole point of this stupid blog.

nice sparty, fag

checking in live from our first-round matchup in the conference tournament. for a while it looked like Coach Carmody had drawn up his best Roderick Wilmont defense for Drew Neitzel, but the 'cats cut it to 9 in the waning seconds of the first half. they can stay in this game if they make and defend from the three point line, although they did throw a whitewash at msu for a while, so that's not real promising.

James is going to be disappointed, but...

... i think this is my first non-angry post. watched pretty much the whole IU-NU game last night, and i have to admit, at least they competed. made a couple runs when they could have packed it in and kept the meager crowd somewhat interested. even lil' timmy doyle made some great plays down the stretch with what seemed like 3 sets of steals/layups in about 45 seconds.

when the refs made that terrible jump-ball call after the cats had cut it to 2 with 9:09 remaining, i thought they would run out of steam. IU went on a run but NU game back and had their chances at the end. it's still inexcusable that you don't come out of (or at least adjust) your zone defense when Wilmont is on his way to a school-record nine 3's, but overall i was not disgusted.

in other good news, penn state won at home against iowa, hopefully ended any of this ridiculous talk of the shitty big ten getting 5 or 6 bids. i don't see how they get any more than 3 or 4, but at the same time is Purdon't really any worse than Alabama or Clemson?

anyway, i'm all fired up for March after watching Acie Law IV vs. Kevin Durant I last night. and in exactly two weeks from today i will start destroying Tjioe in the tourney challenge.