On Mar. 16, Northwestern's basketball team fell to Washington in the second round of the National Invitation Tournament. The 76-55 loss swiftly ended the ‘Cats’ hopes for an NIT championship and brought with it both sighs of disappointment, knowing eye-rolls and calls for change.
There goes another season. And those calls for change? Unanswered.
Back when PersaStrong was faltering and the Meineke Car Care Bowl was playing out just like the last eight, there was talk that at least this would be Northwestern basketball’s year. Even though the ‘Cats had not made the tournament in any of its 73 years, this season was supposed to mark the breakthrough, where John Shurna would ride in on a white and purple horse before stopping at the three-point line and swishing in Northwestern’s ticket to the Big Dance.
Then the ‘Cats lost two overtime games (not including an overtime loss to Minnesota in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament) and four more games by five points or less. They lost four regular season games by 20 points or more. Finally, there was the season-ending blowout at the hands of the Huskies. Over the course of the season, injuries led to a six-man rotation, a freshman was playing 40 minutes a game and the ‘Cats seemingly couldn’t grab a rebound if the game depended on it – and it often did.
Yes, John Shurna broke the school scoring record, freshman Dave Sobolewski impressed in his first season succeeding Juice Thompson’s role at the point and some games had Welsh-Ryan actually sounding like a Wildcat den. But when a season is mired in such instability and the same questions of consistency and effort keep arising, it’s hard to look at this year as a complete success.
The biggest indication of the dissatisfaction with the season’s end was the controversy over retaining Coach Bill Carmody. While Athletic Director Jim Philips typically waits until the end of the season to evaluate his coaching staff and issues a decision later in the offseason, the mounting fervor over Carmody’s status led Philips to decide Carmody’s fate just six days after the team's ungraceful exit from the NIT.
Either way, Philips would have faced backlash. Firing Carmody would have meant four consecutive winning seasons and vast improvement over the cellar-dwelling years past was not enough, and that Northwestern’s AD felt the academically-driven school should commit to winning.
Keeping Carmody means that Philips believes some improvement to general mediocrity in the Big Ten and the occasional exciting game is right where Northwestern wants to be right now – despite the fact that never in Carmody’s twelve years has he taken the ‘Cats to the tournament. Keeping Carmody means that Northwestern values intelligent, well-behaved, noncontroversial athletes over purely successful ones.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having a roster full of names that are never mentioned in the apparently common college sports scandals. There’s nothing wrong with team of upstanding men following a coach they respect to a winning record. In fact, that’s pretty admirable when you think about it. It just means that maybe Northwestern should accept the fact that it will never value Big Ten success as much as US News rankings.
This year, Northwestern posted a winning record, followed a local hero’s road to school legend, made the postseason and brought back its coach in a move that shows loyalty to what we value as Wildcats. As long as we’re clear on what those values are, and what we expect out of the basketball program, we can end this season with an honest evaluation: it was not a complete success, but it was not a complete failure either.