No matter where his career heads in the future, Northwestern basketball coach Chris Collins will always be “the guy that did the thing.” He led the program to their first and only NCAA Tournament berth. But his current winning percentage is just .468, and when you consider that the program itself is at .418, it’s just not very impressive.
That’s because Northwestern basketball is regarded to be a program with little or no real history, and Collins was brought in to change all that. However, he hasn’t done so, and this season may indeed be headed off the rails inevitably.
And we’re saying this, after a WIN no less. At least the Wildcats are substantially favored this weekend, with the lines at Betway showing them backed at about -6.5 at Nebraska on Saturday. May the best NU win. While Nebrasketball is a much bigger mess than what’s happening in Evanston, you can can’t feel good if you watched the game, or at least saw/heard what happened at Welsh-Ryan Arena last night.
NU blew a 24 point second half lead at home to Rutgers, a team that has been atrocious on the road this season.
Yes, they did eventually win it in overtime, but this marked the fifth time in six conference home games that they blew a second half lead. The “Cardiac Cats,” well maybe, but they’re certainly not the “Closing Cats” as it took this long to get a home league win.
Like they say in Glengarry Glen Ross, coffee is for closers only, so this team must be decaffeinated. It’s impossible to say what the specific problem with finishing is- do they not have a true alpha dog?
So they don’t have a “closer” with “ice water in his veins” who can be “cold-blooded” and “hit the big shot?” Can I put any more shopworn cliches into the same sentence?
Is it a mentality/performance anxiety thing? Is it coaching?
They gave good pieces, both Tom Izzo and Brad Underwood have said that.
Pete Nance looked unstoppable, at times, against the Illini, a top 20 ranked team. He’ll have a nice pro career somewhere. The Wildcats won at #10 Michigan State, and they had very opportune chances to get signature wins at home versus three ranked teams in MSU, Illinois and Wisconsin. But close only counts in bocce ball, not basketball.
And on top of that, they didn’t take care of business against Penn State and Maryland at home, two teams comprising the soft underbelly of the Big Ten.
This quote below is from Saturday..
Tonight Northwestern blew a 24 pt 2nd half lead over Rutgers!
Omg!
This is total tragicomedy for Chris Collins as they head to overtime https://t.co/6QbGNPXmuZ— Paul M. Banks (@PaulMBanks) February 2, 2022
Since the banner year of 2016-17, when the Wildcats went 24-12 overall and 10-8 in Big Ten play, the program reverted back to its usual form. The Cats went 15-17 (6-12) in 2017-18 (when they had the same core nucleus, and played their home games in Rosemont), 13-19 (4-16) in 2018-19, 8-22 (3-17) in 2019-20 and 9-15 (6-13) last season.
He’s only had two winning seasons in eight, and his overall winning percentage is below that of his predecessor, Bill Carmody (.476).
And his Big Ten winning percentage is just about the same. Carmody finished at .318 while he’s currently at .321.
Collins only has one winning record in the league and that mark was only 10-8.
Right now they’re 10-10 and 3-8 in the league, sitting in 12th place. But this is the first season in which Collins has a new boss, in Athletic Director Derrick Gragg (who took over in June). Often times, new regimes mean new faces replacing those who are sputtering in their respective positions.
If Northwestern finishes with yet another losing season, and finds themselves a double digit seed yet again in the conference tournament, then Collins cannot claim any progress.
The newsroom reacts to another Chris Collins Masterclass™ pic.twitter.com/SJarjl0HL3
— Nathan Ansell (@nathanjansell) February 2, 2022
This was supposed to be the year- he always kept on saying that. Just ride with us, we’re young, and rebuilding. We will take our lumps for a couple years, but just wait until this new core is seasoned, and experienced playing together, everything will change.
Well here we are, and it’s the same old song. I am not advocating either way for him to stay or go, but I have certainly seen and heard the clamor from Northwestern basketball fans for his dismissal.
It gets louder with each week, as all the poor decision making he does leads to additional Ls. Collins has shown an inability to make halftime adjustments effectively, and there was absolutely no excuse for Nance not to be on the floor last night in crunch time.
Just inexplicable.
However, before you go thinking it’s sacking time, take a minute to think about who you could get as a replacement.
According to the Tribune, Collins’ deal runs through 2024-25 and his salary is in excess of $3 million per. When he was signed to an extension in 2017, he became one of the top 15 best paid coaches in college hoops.
And thus the school would have have to buyout three years and over 9 million in salary. What would that cost exactly? It’s a private institution and the buyout clause hasn’t been made public.
At the end of the day, this Northwestern basketball team is vastly underachieving, not getting results, and that’s on Collins.
Yes, he’s an adept recruiter, but what’s the point of assembling a lot of talent if you can’t really do anything with it.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Bank (TheSportsBank.Net) and author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” as well as “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune, and co-hosts the After Extra Time podcast. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.