A faster, better turnaround
coming on the heels of yesterday's feel-good andy katz story, today we're reminded that Craig Robinson is doing better things with a program that was even worse when he arrived. these paragraphs just reinforce Carmody's inability to win games nor recruit the right players for his vaunted style of offense:
Schaftenaar's game -- honed by his 7-2, former-professional-basketball-player father, Philip -- is ideal for the way Robinson wants to coach. Blessed with great court vision, a point guard's passing touch and dribbling skills a guard 10 inches his junior would envy, Schaftenaar is the perfect point-center.
And while the Princeton style might seem to be predicated on 3-point sharpshooters and well-timed back-door cuts, the center is the engine that makes it go. Virtually all the Princeton plays run through the big man positioned at the top of the key. He makes the reads and looks for the back-door cuts. Remember, it was a big man (Steve Goodrich), not a guard, who dished that pass to Gabe Lewullis for Princeton's upset of UCLA in the 1996 NCAA tournament.
"It's not a system; it's players and basketball,'' Robinson said of his style of play. "The thing about the Princeton offense, it's always been about player development.''
Schaftenaar's game -- honed by his 7-2, former-professional-basketball-player father, Philip -- is ideal for the way Robinson wants to coach. Blessed with great court vision, a point guard's passing touch and dribbling skills a guard 10 inches his junior would envy, Schaftenaar is the perfect point-center.
And while the Princeton style might seem to be predicated on 3-point sharpshooters and well-timed back-door cuts, the center is the engine that makes it go. Virtually all the Princeton plays run through the big man positioned at the top of the key. He makes the reads and looks for the back-door cuts. Remember, it was a big man (Steve Goodrich), not a guard, who dished that pass to Gabe Lewullis for Princeton's upset of UCLA in the 1996 NCAA tournament.
"It's not a system; it's players and basketball,'' Robinson said of his style of play. "The thing about the Princeton offense, it's always been about player development.''
posted by Fire Bill Carmody at
3:23 PM
3 Comments:
I have to keep this brief because AC has to work as he has kids to feed (actually, AC has no kids, but if he did, he is sure they would be hungry), it is now NBA season so AC is occupied with other basketball pursuits, and there are a ton of new videos on spankwire that AC has yet to properly view and rate (and AC takes rating those videos more seriously than Maya Angelou takes poetry, more seriously than NASA takes shuttle liftoffs, and more seriously than Dane Cook takes telling unfunny jokes).
That said, the two most recent posts on firebillcarmody need to be addressed.
1. The column of andy katz. Bravo Andy, bravo. I liked his NU is going to outperform expectations column much better than his column from 11/2 on how Wisconsin is going to outperform or his column from 10/30 on how Illinois and Ohio State are going to outperform. Look, I'm no genius (but I am probably whatever is the step right below genius, not sure the term, maybe "really smart fucking guy?" I don't know, I need to find a genius to clarify the correct term.), but you know what they call it when every team in a league is going to outperform????????? They call it a fucking mathematical impossibility. But Andy Katz apparently did not take stats in his glory days at Wisconsin, where the men are men, and the women are men too (though still hotter than the average NU chick walking the halls of the Tech building).
Other great predictions overheard from the Andy Katz collection:
A. "If you keep walking 1/2 the distance closer to a wall you will eventually walk into it"
B. "You give me a right angle and I'll show you a C^2 that doesn't equal a fucking A^2 + B^2."
C. "I expect a long marriage and happy nuptials for Nicole and OJ."
Hey, it's great someone with a national following is writing a preseason puff piece about Carshitty and his supposed best team ever (and for the record, I am totally drinking the Kool Aid that this is the most talented team Carshitty has ever had, though that bar is so low not even He Ping Ping could fucking limbo under it. As an aside, the Kool Aid is a nice red flavor). And I would give it a fuckload more credence if the same guy hadn't written the same fucking puff piece about every other shitty team in the Big Fucking Ten in the same fucking week. I mean for fuck sake at least spread that bullshit out so I forget your shitty inane and underresearched opinions from a month ago. Fuck, I can't wait for Katz's column next week: "Penn State to Prove They're More than Just a Football School" followed by: "Purdue: They Ain't Just Chicken."
When Carshitty wins his usual .297% of Big Ten games this year, I hope Andy Katz will sign a copy of his column for me with a big "Next Year is The Year," the all too familiar refrain of the Car-no-win-dy error.
I'd also be much more enthused about the column if the same thing hadn't been written about Carshitty 5 fucking times already (or every other year) of the 10 year Carshitty reign of error.
I got fucking cut off even though I said I was going to keep this brief, so fuck me for being a dickbag blowhard (speaking of which, if any of you ladies are going into porn, may I suggest the name Candy Blowhard). Here is the rest...
2. As for the Craig Robinson piece, the quote on this blog from Robinson ("The thing about the Princeton offense, it's always been about player development.") gets at one of my biggest critcisms of Carshitty (other than that he sucks at recruiting, he relies on shitty gimmicks on offense and defense, and he tortures cute little puppies for fun (ok, I've never seen him do this last one, but have you ever seen a cute little puppy around Carshitty? Exactly my point.)). The criticism is that none of our fucking players ever seem to get better.
Here are Kevin Coble's 3 year averages at NU:
Year 1: 13.4 points, 5.2 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.12 steals, 1.6 blocks, .494 FG%, .795 FT%
Year 2: 15.9 points, 5.4 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 1.16 steals, 1.3 blocks, .481 FG%, .813 FT%
Year 3: 15.5 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.77 steals, 1.3 blocks, .472 FG%, .768 FT%
Now look, I like Kevin Coble. He's been a good player for us, but he is exactly what he was when we got him. His performance as a Freshman was almost identical to his performance as a Junior, especially when you normalize for minutes played.
Here are Juice Thompson's 2 year stats:
Year 1: 11.6 points, 2.0 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 1.97 steals, .1 blocks, .434 FG%, .640 FT%
Year 2: 9.9 points, 1.9 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 2.19 steals, .1 blocks, .435 FG%, .704 FT%
One could argue (and by "one" I mean AC) that Thompson actually got worse in going from a freshman to a sophomore.
The only two players in 10 years who have gotten better in the Carshitty error are Craig Moore and Vedran Vukusic. If you assume 4 recruits a year for 9 years, Carshitty has brought in ~36 players and I seriously can only count 2 who got appreciably better. Hey it's one thing to suck at recruiting, but it's another thing to suck at fucking teaching those shitty recruits how to play better. But I guess the old adage is true "When you are a shitty coach, you coach shittily" (and I know that is a bit of an abstract thought, especially for our great Union College logician Bill Car-no-win-dy).
The reason this is important is because a lot of our "upside" by these great national columnists is predicated on John Shurna getting better. I am thrilled he played with the US team over the summer and thus was potentially exposed to real college basketball coaches, but based on Carshitty's player development record (which mimics FEMA's New Orleans hurricane disaster planning record or the hot chicks who like blumpkins at Foster Walker record), the odds of Shurna improving are ~.056% (2 in 36 for you Medil majors). Hey it could happen, but I could also have a torrid fling with Hannah Hilton after she wins the Nobel Prize for Titerature (and seriously, the fact that the nobel does not hand out this prize is a fucking joke and a pockmark on the entire Nobel family, even good old Olaus Rudbeck).
Look, I hope Andy Katz is right and I hope Carshitty actually teaches his players something with which to make them improve, but then again, I also hope I grow a 12 inch cock and get to stop wearing pants but that hasn't happened in my 30+ years so I'm not holding my fucking breath.
Sidenote: If you enjoy AC trying to get Carshitty fired, check out his NBA preview which he will cross the streams and pimp here this one time http://www.wagercom.com/nba-09-preview.html.
Fuck Carmody
AC
come on AC, way more than 2 guys have gotten better over their careers. Jitim Young became an all big ten player by his senior year, he wasn't close to that level as a freshman. Mohamed Hachad also got a lot better over his career. Overall I agree with your point that his player development is bad, but you're taking it a little too far.
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