Photo by Daniel Hersh / North by Northwestern
Jahlil Okafor is widely expected to be the first overall pick in the upcoming 2015 NBA Draft. The 6’11” stud has taken the NCAA by storm in his freshman year, posterizing defenders with monstrous dunks and dominating opponents on defense. Even though he’s only 19, he’s the best prospect in college basketball, and some front offices in the NBA have undoubtedly begun to discuss “tanking” to try and nab him with the first pick.
Here’s something you may not know about Okafor – he’s from Chicago. Even more, he played high school basketball less than fifteen miles away from Northwestern, at Whitney Young on the Near West Side. And he’s not the only highly touted NBA prospect to come out of the Windy City in recent years. Last year, fellow Blue Devil Jabari Parker (Simeon) was selected with the second pick in the draft. Two years prior to that, New Orleans snatched up Kentucky’s Anthony Davis (Perspectives Charter School) with the first pick, who has since blossomed into one of the best players in the NBA. And then, in 2008 the Chicago Bulls drafted hometown hero Derrick Rose (also a Simeon graduate), who became the first Bull to win the NBA MVP since Michael Jordan.
Of the 14 players selected either first or second overall since 2008, four grew up in Chicago (Parker, Davis, Rose and Evan Turner), and next year that number will likely be five of 16 barring a catastrophic injury to Okafor. The only other city to produce more than one top-two pick in that time is, weirdly enough, Toronto. (Hope you’re happy, Drake.) Clearly there’s a huge amount of talent emerging from the 312, and it just keeps coming.
Here’s a question: Isn’t Northwestern supposed to be “Chicago’s Big Ten Team?” And if so, why haven’t they been attracting a talent level anywhere near that of their neighboring city?
Let’s take a step back. No, I’m not saying that Northwestern had a reasonable shot at landing any of the aforementioned guys. No, I’m not saying that anyone would turn down offers from coaches like Kentucky’s John Calipari or Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski. (Fun fact – Krzyzewski was also born in Chicago.) And yes, if I were Jahlil Okafor, I would want to play where I’d have a good shot at winning a championship – not for a team that has never even been to the NCAA tournament.
But it’s almost as if Northwestern was a complete afterthought. Parker had one of the more publicized college searches, and even tweeted out a list of his final choices. But neither Northwestern nor Illinois were among the ten schools he considered – the only one in the state was DePaul. DePaul! A team that hasn’t won more than 12 games since 2007. A team that plays a half hour away from their campus at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont. A team that heard a public outcry from just about everybody when the city finally decided to fund a new arena.
It wasn’t the first time those pesky Blue Demons tried to recruit a Chicago high school superstar. In 2010, before Okafor was even in high school, DePaul offered him a scholarship, committing an NCAA infraction in doing so. Of course, that eliminated them from the running, but they showed interest, albeit in an unethical manner. Northwestern was completely absent.
There are reasons that Northwestern struggles to attract top tier talent. The university prides itself on its athletes’ strict academic standards, and a lot of times that means some of the top talent gets eliminated from the recruiting pool right away.
“Certain individuals on the coaching staff do their due diligences ahead of time,” said Nick Brilowski, Associate Director of Athletic Communications at Northwestern. “A lot of times, the coaches don’t think it’s worth their time to recruit certain individuals if they don’t think there’s a reasonable chance of them getting into school.”
Jabari Parker was an excellent student at Simeon, however, and according to Brilowski, he had the academic credentials to warrant consideration. Northwestern did reach out, specifically through Tavaras Hardy, a former player for the Wildcats who became one of Bill Carmody’s most successful recruiters. Parker visited campus and met with the staff, but at the end of the day, he decided that the only school in Chicago he would consider playing for was DePaul.
Why was everyone looking at Northwestern as the nerd on the playground that no one wants to play with? Was it the rigorous academics? The perception that Northwestern lacks a real Big Ten culture? The fact that the Wildcats remain one of two power conference teams to never make the NCAA tournament?
No, Northwestern’s biggest recruiting problem lay in the hands of the guy that coached the team from 2000 to 2013, and the system that he brought with him. I’m speaking, of course, of Carmody and the Princeton offense, a system that Chris Emma, a reporter and columnist for 670 The Score and Wildcat Digest, believed to be the ultimate talent deterrent.
“There’s no doubt that the Princeton offense was a deal-breaker,” said Emma. “It required people to essentially fit into a puzzle, and didn’t really allow players to play free. For guys like Jabari, setting screens and doing backdoor cuts wouldn’t help his NBA stock. The system really discouraged superstar talent.”
To be fair, Carmody did land John Shurna and Drew Crawford, who both not only happened to be from the Chicago area but are also two of the best players in Northwestern history. He also brought in Jershon Cobb, who many considered to be a top recruit. But apart from them, the best players didn’t see any appeal in playing basketball for him. And it wasn’t just his system. He was also reportedly quite lax in the recruitment process, letting his staff (guys like Hardy and Fred Hill) do all of the schmoozing and socializing that make coaches like Krzyzewski, Calipari and Kansas coach Bill Self so successful.
For example, when current Wisconsin superstar Frank Kaminsky visited Northwestern during his college search, Carmody didn’t even show up, even though the Chicago native had multiple ties to the university. Granted, Kaminsky wasn’t a highly touted recruit, and the Wildcats ended up signing his Benet Academy teammate Dave Sobolewski (considered a higher-caliber prospect at the time). But in hindsight, Carmody and his staff probably should have made a bigger push for a guy who turned out to be a star, and the head coach himself should have been a lot more active in the recruitment process as a whole.
The Princeton offense kept the ‘Cats competitive, and almost led them to the tournament in 2012. Northwestern did have Shurna and Crawford during the Carmody era, along with a pair of 20-win seasons. But at the end of the day, Carmody’s unorthodox ways drowned the team, and they remain without a NCAA berth.
“Carmody was an X’s and O’s guy,” said Emma. “His system definitely maximized the roster he had, and he got a lot out of one of the weaker rosters in the Big Ten. But his system and inability to recruit talent was very costly to Northwestern.”
Enter Chris Collins, who replaced Carmody in 2013. A former Duke assistant and the son of coaching legend Doug Collins, he was a sea change in every sense of the word. Collins had won two national championships on Duke’s coaching staff. He had experience coaching star players. Most importantly, he had the recruitment skills that Carmody so clearly lacked. And within three months of his hiring, he brought in perhaps the best recruit in Northwestern history – Chicago native Vic Law.
“[Chris] is very ambitious, has an outgoing personality, and brought a staff with him that is very interested in recruiting,” said Brilowski. “Coming from the background of Duke, he has that track record of success, which is why he’s already been able to bring in some strong recruits in his time here.”
Instead of sticking to a strict clipboard strategy, Collins lets his players play free, which has been a huge point of emphasis for potential recruits. Instead of passing off the schmoozing duties to his assistants, he embraces them and devotes every drop of his energy to selling Northwestern to young players. Law and his family have both gone on the record saying that they wouldn’t have even considered playing for Carmody, not only criticizing the Princeton offense but also calling the former coach “arrogant.” But with Collins, the best players are giving Northwestern the time of day. Law turned down an offer to play for VCU, a team that’s made the NCAA tournament four years in a row (and made it to the Final Four in 2011).
“[Collins] is a natural recruiter, and a terrific salesman for Northwestern basketball,” said Emma. “A lot of his mystique comes from the Duke background, the championships. He can go into the living room of a kid like Vic Law, sit there with his championship rings and say, ‘come here to Northwestern, and let’s build something together.’ He’s very smooth, very personable, someone kids what to play for.”
And the best part? Collins is from the Chicago area. He played his high school ball at nearby Glenbrook North High School, where he was recognized as Illinois’ Mr. Basketball in 1992. He knows the importance of attracting local stars, because he once was one. It’s why he immediately set out to grab Law, as well as Oak Park’s Scotty Lindsey.
This isn’t a tournament team yet. Law is still raw, and his skills haven’t developed to the point where he can carry a Big Ten team. It’s going to take some time for Collins to turn this program around. But it’s hard to deny that huge steps have been taken. For 2015, Collins landed another ESPN top-100 recruit in Aaron Falzon, a stretch-4 who can shoot and drive to the basket. He got another local in Jordan Ash, a shooting guard that can hit from all areas of the floor. In terms of this season, yes, Northwestern has lost a lot of close games to good teams. But they’re competing, and they’re proving to the Big Ten that they can hang with the best.
Northwestern still isn’t a school that can land a big fish like Parker or Okafor. But they’re attracting local talent like they never have before, and the program is heading in the right direction. Only under Collins has Northwestern started to really look like Chicago’s Big Ten Team. One can only hope that he continues to scoop up talent from one of the best basketball cities in the world – the one that happens to be in Northwestern’s backyard.