Stall Ball Works For Awhile, Poor Rebounding Does In ‘Cats 69-51

Everyone is forgetting.
This coach has been here 13 years and here is where we are at. Ridiculous. And don’t tell me a great academic school can’t have a great bball team.

Only now I lay this at Carmidy’s feet, the NU administration and the board if trustees. Up and down they are all guilty for not improving crap men’s and woman’s basketball programs.

I, for one, LTP, would like to see you do an interview with JP to address the basketball program and what specific, different things will be done in the future so we can compete for Big Ten championships.

It’s time more open dialogue about this from the NU administration with alums and fans.

By the way, unlike LtP, I have no problem with stall ball and low-scoring games if NU wins them. Style is irrelevant — what’s exciting is winning and what matters is wins. Princeton won an awful lot of 43-38 games under Carrill and Carmody, and still does. Certainly that seems a lot more fun than 35-point losses at home. An “exciting” style that loses by 20-30 points regularly is exciting only to NU opponents.

Thankfully, BTN aired the Gator Bowl after the game to get the taste of this out of our mouths. That first half took basketball back to the stone ages.

When I left WR after the Cats edged Wheaton College 41-39 during Carmody’s seventh season, I knew a successful program was a long way off. It was the worst college basketball game ever played or coached.

Even with the slow down/stall game we were terrible. We got no backdoors and no one wants to shoot and when they do they cant hit anything. It wasn’t as much a stall offense as just really bad offense by both teams. Nothing was stopping Minnesota from doing what they did in the second half in the first. They sucked too. Swopshire doesn’t fit in the offense at all because he can’t shoot, Alex sucks, Demps might get better but is a little lost within the offense and is best when he just runs around and shoots, Turner is a waste of a player, Olah is a baby, Kale is on mars not on planet earth especially on defense, did I miss anyone? Reggie and Sobo are the only guys who belong on the floor within the princeton offense, and sobo needs to shoot more.

I ahve advocated for the last six years that Bill Comedy’s tenure as head NU basketball coach be summarily terminated. Here are my reasons:
1. He’s an idealogue married to a system that arguably in the short term allows that Cats to compete with other Big Ten basketball teams with substantailly more talent in both the short and long terms leads to silly situational play in time critical components of game e.g. the end of last year’s Indiana game in Bloomington, places a limit on recruiting as Comedy must recruit for his system not to match the talent level of the league his team competes in;
2. I don’t care how brilliant a basketball mind he is, how respected his judgment is, the name of the game is recruiting. Unlike football, which requires convincing 25 talented football players a year to come to NU which had a deplorable losing history like basketball, Comedy needs one star; he has yet to recruit such a star;
3. No coach should have 12 years on a job and be unable to meet the modest goal of going to one NCAA tournament.
I’ve heard all the excuses from the gym, to the facilities, to the uniforms, to the history. All excuses, the football program has produced a bowl winner and 5 consecutive bowl appearances in one of the best conferences in the country. Gues what: bad history, bad facilities, arguably bad uniforms as a matter of opinion. The difference si the coach. Fitzgerald relates to his players, is an excellent recruiter and loves NU which transmits loud and clear with his marketing pitch. Bottom line: 17 years old want to play for a leader who believes in his program. Comedy is no leader and simply sells his system for cutting passing etc. The time has come to give Comedy the boot!!.