And also
as if my frustration level was not high enough, i just read that Ed DeChellis is on a 7-1 run against Bill Carmody. it's obviously depressing any time your team loses a game that actually makes Penn State basketball fans feel good about themselves. and here is more insight on NU's unwillingness/inability to change defenses.
posted by Fire Bill Carmody at
9:56 AM
29 Comments:
I had the misfortune of attending last night's game. Penn State made defensive adjustments when Northwestern got inside but Northwestern seemed to make no defensive adjustments and they kept getting burned inside. The Penn State game illustrates why Carmody must go but don't bet on it.
Your website is a true expression of how big of a moron you are. I hope you are sterile. You know absolutely NOTHING about basketball if you want to fire Coach Carmody. You are so pathetic.
You must be joking Brent. This is Carmody's tenth season and he has one postseason NIT game to show for it. His Big Ten record at NU is 50-112 and his overall record is 137-158, pretty poor figures considering that NU traditionally has a weak non-conference schedule.
It's not all about wins and losses, but no other major university would have kept on a basketball coach with that track record for ten years. NU has been way too patient with Carmody and the result is that we see the same crap year in and year out. The team is always worn out at the end of the season and seldom wins important late season games. His substitution patters are a mystery. Players who seem to have potential somehow get into his doghouse and are seldom seen or heard from again.
It's long past time for Bill Carmody to go.
I'm amazed that there are people out there who find the idea of firing Carmody completely ridiculous. I'm not as bloodthirsty as some, and due to the team not being a complete embarrassment this year and last year, he should get another year (unless there's some other great proven coach out there available; there isn't).
However, if he can't make the field of 64 next year with by far the best roster he's ever had, then no argument can be made for him and it's time to move on.
Lorretta, what would you do differently? Love to hear it. . . John, what do you base your sub patters on? Do you attend practice regularly? What defensive adjustments do you want to run? What are your beefs about the offense when the man is regarded as the guru of the Princeton Offense? Love to hear them. What about the fact that NO ONE has ever won at Northwestern? What about the fact that only Drew Crawford is a legit, complete Big Ten Player? I actually have starting following NW hoops because I have found that Coach Carmody's system is a thing of beauty to watch. He is doing it with real student athletes in a world where other DI schools are not!
Are you related to Bill Carmody?
What would you do differently Lorretta? What's a matter? Can't come up with anything?
John made several points that you ignored, so I'll repeat them. His Big Ten record is 50-112. That is an awful record. Yes, no one has ever won at Northwestern and there are recruiting limitations. However, that record still sucks. Last year he was 8-10, which was a step in the right direction. This year he's headed for about the same. But it's unclear whether he will ever take this program to anything better than an NIT bid, and if seasons like this one and last are the best he can do, then he should be fired. If you're content to never make the NCAAs, then we share a different set of standards for what's acceptable.
As for his rotations, they have been terrible at times this year. Last year when he had more depth, they were even worse. He seems to do very little coaching during games, and just pulls guys after one mistake instead of encouraging/teaching them.
As for his defense, this has been a bad defensive team for 3 straight years. His continued insistence on playing an extended 1-3-1 trap is mind-boggling. 1-3-1 worked great early in 2009 vs Purdue, Minnesota, and Michigan State, but has been getting shredded since then as Big Ten coaches are smart and know how to adjust to it, and can destroy it if they have a smart ball handler. Even teams without a smart ball handler like Iowa and Michigan have destroyed it at times. I would try actually teaching defensive fundamentals and playing man to man defense, matchup zone, a 2-3 zone, or a more normal 1-3-1 like Ohio State. His extended 1-3-1 is a gimmick that worked at first, but the rest of the league has figured it out. It's only worked during conference play against a Minnesota team that was without their starting point guard both times, and briefly against Michigan in the first meeting before Beilein adjusted in the second meeting and shredded it in the first half.
As for his Princeton offense (by the way he's not the guru of it, that would be Pete Carrill, it's worked fine this year. I've watched almost every game, and the offense hasn't been a problem for the most part. All the shot clock violations AC talks about have finally stopped (I know it might be hard to believe AC, but it's true). The big reason for the improvement is that Carmody finally has several legit Big Ten players in Crawford, Shurna and Thompson, and a solid role player in Nash. Mirkovic is also improving slowly and may get to that level next year. I don't agree with your assessment that Crawford is the only real Big Ten player on the team. But if that's your assessment, then you have to blame Carmody for not recruiting better players, or worse, not recruiting players who fit his system. Kyle Rowley is a terrible fit for a Princeton offense, as he has no jump shot. Even if he developed some coordination and became competent in the low post, he wouldn't match the offense. Mike Capocci is another guy who doesn't fit, as he's a wing player with no jump shot, and being able to shoot threes is essential to the Princeton offense for everyone except the center, and the center should be able to at least make mid-range jumpers.
No, I'm not at practice, but I don't find the body of work Carmody has put together "a thing of beauty." Like I said, the last two years he seemed to have taken a step forward at long last, so I'm in favor of giving him one more year, but I don't blame anyone who wants him fired immediately.
The trouble is: firing him now might set back NU hoops big-time, unless you make Hardy the head coach (since he's really the force behind this good recruiting). I agree, if he doesn't make the tournament next year his seat is going to be feeling very hot. The important thing is not to mess with the flow of recruiting. Next year we get a top 100 guy in Cobb (plus maybe this Lloyd kid). The year after that we're in the mix for top 50 guys like Julian Royal and Dai-Jon Parker. Whatever Jim Phillips decides to do, don't mess with that.
1. Carmody's not getting fired this season. As I noted months ago, Coble's injury gave Carmody a Get Out Of Jail Free card. The performance of this year's team would be excused no matter what (and in fairness, it's been better than anticipated by most, including me) because the feeling is he did not have all of his weapons available.
2. Despite the number of wins, this is not the best NU basketball team ever, at least not yet. Barring a long run in the NIT (assuming we get there; NCAA dreams are fantasies), that honor belongs to the '82-'83 team, which defeated Notre Dame in the NIT (on St. Patrick's Day, no less) and had no shit-the-bed moments like Wednesday's disaster against Penn State. Going completely from memory (and I'm sure I'll be corrected if any of this is wrong), that Rich Falk team lost at home only to top-ten ranked Indiana and Iowa.
3. I'm with Loretta; while you can make a cogent argument for retaining Carmody (one I don't find persuasive), those who cannot accept that there are numerous reasons why some may want to can him astonish me. He's had exactly one postseason appearance (a loss in the NIT) in his time here. Anywhere else in the country- even at places we are constantly compared to, like Stanford, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame- he'd have been gone long ago. He may be a disciple of an interesting offense, but it's not like the Cats are the best in the country at executing it. Georgetown does it at a higher level. And excusing his lack of success because of the dearth of talent on the team just highlights how poorly he has performed in one of the most critical aspects of his job- bringing talented players into the program.
4. I'm sure the always-interesting AC will have more.
buckyor, the offense hasn't been the problem. We've got great shooters, and we're executing it very well. The problem is the defense. Not just the 1-3-1, but every defense we try to play.
Scrap the 1-3-1 (obviously), but the Cats need to do better in their other defenses (matchup, man-to-man). I'd like to see them go with man-to-man for the rest of the season (since our NCAA dreams are dead and gone) and see what happens.
Loretta, I asked for YOUR opinion, I wasn't ignoring John's comments. . . thanks for putting something together. Honestly, as one who considers himself a "Princeton Offense Geek," Georgetown doesn't run it better than NW. Chris Wright tends to play selfish, therefore it hinders execution. Carmody is the guru out of active coaches that teach the offense. That is pretty much a universally held belief in circles of professional coaches. True, Northwestern is not in the upper echelon of the conference in defense (FG% is 7th at .420) but I don't blame the zone! I don't believe that NW's talent could play M4M in the Big Ten for 40 Min and be competitive. Plus, they are in front of Michigan State in steals per game at #6, and much of that can be attributed to the 1-3-1. C'mon! How many times have you seen that guard-guard pass out front being picked off for an easy basket?? Northwestern is a good team. They have players with more flaws than most of the Big Ten teams they play. Shurna can shoot and post, but can't drive. Thompson is quick and can shoot, but he is too small and can't finish at the rim, ect. Their system is set up to beat the good teams in the league, which sometimes means it gives the teams they should beat a chance to compete. It's a double edged sword, but a philosophy I agree with.
All I am saying is, the guy is a good coach! Who are you going to get that is a better fit than him? I think it is a moot point, because there is virtually NO talk of him losing his job. I happened to stumble across this obscure website as I was googling his name to find an interview or something he has done. Bill Carmody will be your coach for a long time for your program's betterment whether you realize it or not! The best coaches are ALWAYS SITTING IN THE STANDS :)
did you really just say Northwestern runs their offense as well as Georgetown?
as for defense, Wisconsin's roster isn't filled with incredible athletes, and they manage to play man-to-man defense fine. And you are really really really grasping by pointing out that NU gets more steals than Michigan State. 1-3-1 gets steals, but also causes wide open threes in the corner and Juice Thompson getting dunked on 5+ times a game. In conference play, NU is tied for last in the league in points allowed per game with Indiana, and Indiana plays a faster paced style, so in terms of points allowed per possession, NU is dead last. No one expects them to lead the conference for anything, but last in the conference in defense is unacceptable with the roster he has.
I ask again if you are related to Bill Carmody, because no rational basketball fan could think Bill Carmody is some sort of coaching genius.
Lorretta, seriously, what do you know about the Princeton Offense? Wow me, go ahead. . . That is what I said about the offense. Do you coach? You actually seem to know something about basketball with your style of possession comment, I'll give you credit there (even though I don't really agree with the application of the concept considering how quick NW has been shooting in the clock this year.) As far as asking me if I am related to Bill Carmody is a stupid assertion. I am a professional coach that admires what Carmody does. What about you? Are you a NW grad?
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Listen, this is futile. . . You don't like Carmody and think he should be fired. You think I am some crackpot for holding to the belief that Carmody is one of the truly great minds in the game. I think you people are idiots for believing he should be fired. This isn't going anywhere at all. You are entitled to run your little blog and write what you want. Have fun! Life is too short to hate on a coach when he is about to lead his team to it's greatest record in school history! Have fun! Since you are such experts, I think they should hire one of you to coach the team!! In my final sign-off I am reminded by a great Coach Knight quote: "In basketball, everyone looks, but so very few see." Enjoy your website I will not be visiting it any longer.
Can't we all just get along?
Wow, comment-palooza all of a sudden. It's fairly obvious to me that Brent is a coach who likes some X & O's that BC runs, but also obvious to me that he has not watched any NU (not NW, thank you) games in the past 5 years, at least not in their entirety. Not sure many "coaching geniuses" have led to their team to conference seasons with 1 win or the many ugly seasons BC has enjoyed.
And even this year, with a team that is to me the best NU team I have ever seen (in 15 years of watching), it still lacks good in-game coaching. As others have pointed out, sub patterns and defense choices and as much as the offense has been better, there are still 1 or 2 5-7 minute spurts per game where they cannot get a good shot with their offense and have to survive to stay in games.
The schedule did not help this year, but need a coach to help navigate through.
I honestly believe we could get a better coach with same players and win more. Or better yet, better players and a better coach. Better players are coming, but not b/c BC.
Time for him to go was 2 years ago, now we have him through next year at least, ugh.
Well, it's true, I've never coached college basketball, or even high school basketball. And I haven't played since high school, albeit on a team that ultimately went on to the state semis in Wisconsin. And the only coach of note who ever instructed me was some short fat guy from Milwaukee, who went on to some significant success out West for a while. So yeah, I have no clue as to whether or not the current NU coach is any good (though I *can* assure you he's no Rick Majerus).
Carmody's coaching is perfect; it's the players who suck. At least that's the position of our new friend Brent. Of course, since Carmody has been in his position longer than anybody but Tom Izzo (and what has *he* done lately?), one might imagine that the lack of talented players would be something within the control of the head coach. I guess that part escapes our new friend.
Tell you what- I'd trade Carmody to Georgetown in a second in exchange for Thompson. Think they'd go for that trade?
The recruiting is starting to really heat up. We're in the mix for a lot of REALLY good players. With these guys coming in, we're going to make the tournament. It's just a matter of when. How long do we give Carmody? My main concern is what firing him will do to this flow of great recruits. We can't afford to have this program set back to where it was early in the Carmody era.
Oh, Brent. Give me another coach in any of the Top 4 sports or in all of college basketball of football that has remained after 10 years without going to the postseason? NIT and CBI and Little Caesars Bowl does not court. This guy can't even wear a necktie to the games anymore. Our teams have never leaned free throw shooting and make the same silly fouls season after season. It's time for a new approach because 9th place in the Big Ten is not good enough in 2010. Come 2012, we may be 10th when a new team is welcomed...
I said i wouldn't get sucked into this again and would simply write "ibid" from now on because there is absolutely nothing left to say about car-no-win-dy and his shittastic 10 year reign of error fueled but his gimmickry and simply bad coaching. But this brilliant coach Brent, who no doubt has led his CYO team to multiple 6th place finishes (but at least he's a coach so he knows more than any of us who watch the game and post from the basement of our local Rick's Cabaret), came and offered every fucking Carshitty excuse bandied about for the past 10 fucking years. Ugh. While I couldn't get through everything he wrote for fear of getting a cerebral hemorrhage or diarrhea of the eyes, I will go through a few of the classic points Car-no-win-dy supporters make, all of which I have excoriated in exhaustive detail before on this site (Coach Brent, go back to the archives and just read all the comments sections starting in February/March of last year, I mean you're way late to the debate here. It's like you opened Anna Karenina to the part where the train is coming, missing the whole fucking story, and yet still want to have some lame ass opinion based on nothing other than you know how to drive a train). Oh yeah, before I get to the points, for such an NU basketball aficionado, you think you would at least get our fucking initials right. It's NU, not NW. NW is a direction, NU is a fucking university. You got that Bwent (and yes, the r was replaced intentionally. You get my name wrong, I get yours wrong. Eye for an eye motherfucker, or W for an R, whatever.)
1. The low bar argument (and this is my personal favorite): No one has ever won at NU so what do you expect. ugh. I have dissected this one so many times my ass is starting to bleed formaldehyde (unclear why i dissected it with my ass, but whatever). This is the most moronic argument there is. By that logic, NU football should still be in the shitter because they had never won before either (well at least in the modern era). Well they didn't settle for that BS and hired Gary Barnett and his huge fucking balls (and his balls are so big he has to order a table for two when he dines alone). If NU can't win because they have never been able to win, then fold the fucking program and let's just watch club basketball. I mean what stupid fucking logic is that. You think Al Gore sat around and said "I'm not going to invent the internet because no one has done that before?" Fuck no. He realized that there has to be a way for everyone to watch porn in the friendly confines of their own home and thus he tried a bunch of shit to create the web. It took a while to get all the fucking tubes into place, but now it works pretty well. The point is, even if it is not possible to win at NU (which is total BS), we either completely stop trying and drop down to club league and just stop this fucking charade or we give another coach a chance since we know Car-no-win-dy can't win at NU (at least 10 fucking long years tells us so). Who the fuck knows if someone else will be successful, but you have to keep trying. Ugh.
Continued below......
2. NU has real student athletes so they can't compete: Yeah, tell that to Duke, and Stanford, and the NU fucking football team. This is the most idiotic excuse stemming from the Tommy Ammaker urban legend that when he was offered the job he showed the admissions department old high school transcripts of Bobby Hurley and Christain Laettner and both were rejected. NU student-athletes get the bar lowered just as much as the bar is lowered at other top schools who have made the fucking tournament. AC was in many classes with NU athletes and some were smart but most got in because they were tall or big just like some fucking music students got in because they could blow the shit out of an oboe. Grades don't always matter when you have one specific special skill. NU can absolutely get the kind of players in school to compete, it's just we have had a coach who sucks at recruiting like Bwent sucks at getting school initials right.
3. This is NU's best team ever!!!!!: Well whoop-de-dam. This is a derivative of the "low bar argument" but mostly has to do with our schedule which was easier than passing Professor Moskos' intro to socioogy class back in the day (and can we all pour some out for Professor Moskos? He was a man I never asked and who also never told). Sure we're 17-10, but you're missing THE CONTEXT. We have played exactly 1 team headed for the tournament in our non-conference schedule and that team BEAT US. We have the easiest Big Ten schedule in the league as the two teams we only play once are Ohio State and Purdue who just happened to have THE TWO BEST RECORDS on the Big Ten. Yeah, I know, we beat Purdue once but substitute a second game with them for our second game with Iowa or Penn State or Indiana and you get a definite loss as opposed to a probable loss. We have 17 wins and only 2 of them against tournament teams. We are 2 and 8 against teams going to the tournament (I am assuming Minnesota does not make it) which I agree is better than the usually Carshitty 0-fer but it's about as impressive as watching Lexington Steele take on all comers (no pun intended) in a cock off. We'd be 26-1 if we'd just scheduled schools for the blind and then that would be our best ever record too. It's the fucking context Bwent.
4. The Princeton offense is great: OH MY GOD! Reading this actually made my dick hurt (though it could have also been some leftover syphilis). That offense has set off more 35 second shot clocks in 10 years than the tin man sets off airplane metal detectors. Sure we get one fucking backdoor lay-up out of it per game, and that is beautiful (though not as beautiful as watching Gracie Glam getting a nice oil massage), but the other 55 plays we run are usually abortionally bad. You know how I know the Princeton offense sucks? Because no one fucking uses it. College coaches are like fucking lemmings, always trying to to what is in vogue. For fucksake, the dribble-drive-motion offense has spread faster than herpes among the Kardashian family. And yet this vaunted princeton no-offense is used by what? Four fucking schools? And only one of them is moderately successful with it (georgetown) because they have the fucking athletes to bail them out when the shot clock is about to strike 35. But to be honest, when you called Carmody the Guru of the Princeton offense I almost fell out of my ivory tower due to an apoplectic fit. Being a guru of the Princeton offense is like calling someone the master of something as antiquated as fucking morse code or the expert of something as colossally stupid as hydrogen fueled zeppelins.
Oh wait, there's more.....
5. You're not a coach so your opinion is irrelevant: This is my favorite argument which is used by small minded people when they have nothing else to say. You know what Bwent? I'm also not a proctologist but I sure as hell know when my ass hurts. Hey, next time you go to a restaurant and get something you don't like, you can't complain because you're not a chef so have no idea about what you're talking. What the fuck kind of coaching experience do I need to have to see ten awful seasons with 1 NIT loss to show for it when the two coaches prior to Carshitty each went to 1 NIT in fewer years? What do I need to know about coaching to see a guy who has finished above 7th place in an ELEVEN TEAM LEAGUE exactly once in 10 years and that was when he tied for 5th with an 8 and 8 record. What do I need to know about coaching to fear for little Juice Thompson getting whiplash from being dunked on so much when he is on the baseline in the 1-3-1 zone defense that held Wisconsin to 75% shooting in the first half? For fucksake you could have just rolled the ball out there for 10 years and have had the same non success as Carshitty.
6. But Kevin Coble is hurt. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!. Ok, I don't think Bwent brought this up but yes, Coble being hurt has not helped, especially as we won a whopping 11 big ten games in 3 years with Coble as our best player. So sure, maybe we would have won a game more, but it's not like he would have turned us into Michigan State since HE HAS NOT DONE SO IN THREE YEARS. Coble getting hurt is the best thing to happen to Carshitty because now the great logician has another excuse to not get fired.
And finally, Bwent asked what us non-coaches would like for Carshitty to do better and the answer is simple: FUCKING WIN. Remember this guy was coming off back to back 1 win and 2 win seasons before he won a career best though STATISTICALLY INSIGNIFICANT 8 games last year.
Ugh. I can't believe we are stuck with these gimmicks for at least another year. Oh well, at least we'll always have that NIT game.
Fuck Carmody.
AC
AC, the Princeton offense isn't the problem right now. If you've been watching the games, you'll see that we've actually been good offensively. The defense is the problem. Now, I'm not saying that's not Carmody's fault (it probably is), but there's nothing wrong with the offense now that we've got the athletes to run it.
Wish I could find that article comparing us to UConn a few weeks ago, and find those people saying we were actually better.
Forget everything. Just read this on the NUSports.com preview for tomorrow's tilt with Iowa...
Northwestern has reached six Big Ten wins for the sixth time in Bill Carmody's first 10 seasons as head coach. The program totaled six or more conference wins just five times in the previous 31 years prior to Carmody's arrival. NU's seven-game increase in conference wins from the 2007-08 to the 2008-09 season is the biggest jump since Minnesota went from three league wins in 2003-04 to 10 the following campaign.
I know we don't negotiate contract extensions mid-season like the Yankees, but Morton Schapiro better make the exception just this once. We wouldn't want Coach Carmody bolting for the WAC.
DeChellis is now 8-1 against Northwestern. And today's game was a blowout.
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