Yes, you suck

http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/picture-day-bill-carmody-100286

For NU, more like Midnight Apathy

kentucky takes an interesting approach to Midnight Madness. personally i think schedule flexibility to maximize fan support is a great idea. i miss the days when Midnight Madness was a huge deal and was actually televised on ESPN. but i'm guessing for Bill Carmody and the NU sports marketing department, it won't be a major concern whether fifteen students show up at SPAC on Oct 10, Oct 17, or any other date.

Failure and irrelevance, redefined

this little article ranks the D-1 hoops programs in the state of Illinois. here's a teaser: NU is closer to Chicago State than to Bradley.

Crawford chooses NU

after a summer in which Drew Crawford saw his stock rise, he narrowed his choices to Wake Forest and Northwestern. last night, he decided on NU. Crawford is a 6-4 wing from Naperville Central who isn't afraid to have the ball in his hands at crunch time. when was the last time we had a player like that?

here is some more detail about his recruitment, giving more props to Tarvaras, who continues to make great headway in Chicagoland. Crawford is a big get, not only from a talent perspective, but also in terms of NU being able to play with the big boys. the fact that Crawford turned down a visit to an ACC school who put together a top-5 class in 2008 is beyond encouraging. it shows that Tarvaras has done a fantastic job of establishing relationships with young players. and in the cases of Crawford and Kyle Rowley, those players stick by the relationship with NU even when the players get better and bigger schools come calling.

of course, the potential downside of all this is that barring an absolute disastrous season - which is not impossible - i don't see Carmody getting fired after this season. not that college AD's are above firing a coach and letting the replacement win with his predecessor's players, but the timing would just not seem right. i guess at this point the best we can hope for is that Tavaras has an eye for talent and these guys can actually play. otherwise Rowley and Crawford will join the ranks of recent high-touted newcomers who didn't pan out: Collier Drayton, David Newman, Adam Robinson, Ed McCants, Michael Thompson...

9/10 update - hopefully no one tells Drew that Northwestern has no UG business school. at least not until after he signs that NLI.

08/09 schedule is out. and it's not pretty

the first thing that struck me when looking at the new schedule is the lack of easily winnable games. yes, Central Arkansas finished last in the Southland Conference last year, and yes, UMKC, SMU and UC Riverside were all terrible. but road trips to Stanford and Butler have the potential to be monster defeats, and we all know that NU is just 2-9 in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. even TAMU-CC made the dance in 2007 and played Wisconsin very tough as a 15 seed. the Brown game has no buzz now that Craig Robinson has left, but this is still a road game against an opponent that made it to the postseason last year. and remember that the Bears picked up a win in Welsh-Ryan last November.

one of the things that has allowed Carmody's teams to hover around .500 has been the ability to rack up wins against small schools in December. that way, when we go 6-10 in the conference (in a good year) we can still cross our fingers for the NIT. with this year's schedule, i'd be surprised if NU owns a winning record heading into 2009.

for those of you without the BTN, you will only have to suffer through four games on national TV. there is the ACC Challenge game at home vs. FSU; a weird pre-January conference opener in State College @ noon on New Year's Eve; a Thursday night home game in January vs. Purdue (who figures to be the best team in the league); and another home game vs. the Illini in February. the fact that this team gets three home games on national TV is further proof of the number of NU/Medill alums working for the WorldWideLeader. seriously, that's the only possible explanation.