As we enter the B1G Tournament, Northwestern basketball will be looking to solidify their position in the NCAA Tournament, and improve their seeding by winning as many games as they can in Washington D.C.
Off-the-court, the local and national media will be producing lots of content surrounding what Jim Nantz deemed “the story of the year in college basketball.”
That story of course is Northwestern basketball making their first NCAA Tournament in the entire history of their program; ending a 78 year drought.
Of course, when everyone across the country is doing features on the same exact topic, it can get real repetitive real fast. Especially so when you have a story where the sports mainstream media is much more excited about it than the average fan. (Really, this will be a fascinating case study, for you business majors, maybe some Kellogg types, in coverage supply and demand, which are way out of equilibrium) In order to distinguish coverage, watch for a couple of creative angles.
One will analogize NU to the Chicago Cubs, and what they achieved this past November. The other will synergize this Northwestern basketball team with the Duke Blue Devils. There are some valid points, but also some limitations in both.
Northwestern hosted a national CBS game for the first time in their history today. The presence of the network which is home to March madness provided an electric atmosphere in Welsh-Ryan Arena, in which supporters of both sides were boisterously loud.
The crowd was (and this is a very rough estimate) about 65-75% Northwestern fans, 25-35% Purdue supporters. Both coaches noted what a wonderfully raucous environment it truly was, as Purdue, the reigning B1G champs, won 69-65.
“To have it on this stage is a huge deal for our program, I’m just disappointed we couldn’t close the deal,” said Northwestern basketball Coach Chris Collins.
“That crowd… It’s everything I’ve dreamed of.”
LOUD "Boiler Up" chants breaking out in Welsh-Ryan. Tons of #Purdue fans here at #Northwestern
— Paul M. Banks (@PaulMBanks) March 5, 2017
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/838524344422785025
“They have had great atmosphere, but this is the best, and they have earned it,” said Purdue basketball coach Matt Painter.
“They have played good basketball and they have put themselves in the NCAA Tournament.”
Chicago Cubs and Northwestern Basketball Comparisons
The Chicago Cubs analogy is a natural one, and there is some merit to it. The Cubs’ drought was 108 years while Northwestern is currently at 78. The Cubs and NU have several business ties, with the school’s Athletic Director Jim Phillips literally neighbors with Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts.
Northwestern is located in the heart of hard core Cubs territory too.
Also, the 2016-17 Northwestern hoops team is similar to the 2016 Cubs in that you don’t have a ton of interesting and colorful characters on the roster. While both teams will make Chicago sports history, neither team is anything remotely close to the ’85 Bears in terms of fun, entertaining public personas.
Then again, so few teams in any sport have ever had personalities like that. Sports is a world in which individuals are trained to be corporate and bland, at least in the eyes of the public. Who they are as people could be very interesting and entertaining, but what they choose to present/are instructed to present is dull and vanilla.
That’s almost every athlete in almost every sport.
That’s really sad though, as the Cubs would have been an even bigger story than they already were if they had more colorful personalities on the team. Manager Joe Maddon is pretty much the only one. While NU will be a huge national story, it would take off even more so if they had players with captivating back stories.
The NU-Cubs analogies have limits when you look at the history of Northwestern basketball. They haven’t come within inches of the pinnacle, and then snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, ever. There are no Leon Durham 1984, Steve Bartman 2003, black cats in 1969, billy goats etc. in Northwestern lore.
Also, they haven’t made their imprint in pop culture as a star-crossed franchise like the Cubs have. Even non-sports fans knew of the Cubs hard luck and elongated suffering. Can’t say the same for NU basketball.
Duke and Northwestern Basketball synergy
Exactly like Duke, Northwestern is an incredibly expensive, upper-tier, elite-class private school (as Leitch put it) that is totally different from the rest of the universities in their conference.
Although Wake Forest has some Dukeness to it, as it’s a school built on tobacco money and populated by the children of plantation wealth. Getting back to Duke, their architecture is synonymous with gothic archways, just like NU.
With Chris Collins having served as Coach K’s right-hand man for many years, and the similarities in high academic standards for players, the Duke-Northwestern analogies will be coming fast and furious as March madness progresses.
You also have the old, tiny, over-cramped home arenas in common. As of Wednesday night, NU even has the Christian Laettner style signature moment to boot. I seriously would not be surprised if the NCAA selection committee does whatever they can to set up a Duke-Northwestern second round match-up.
Of course, as is standard, the NCAA will deny that they consider “narratives” when they set the brackets.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times and NBC Chicago.com, contributes to Chicago Tribune.com, Bold, WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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