Northwestern basketball coach Chris Collins seems triggered by the media coverage of his team this season. Meeting the media right after NU’s biggest win of the season, 61-52 over #20 Michigan, one would have expected the fifth year head coach to be in a bubbly mood.
Instead he was extremely sarcastic and a bit prickly. Although he did not name any single outlet or individual media professional by name, he spent a substantial amount of his time at the podium focusing on coverage which he found to be unfairly negative. Interestingly enough, this was not even the most bizarre press conference that Chris Collins has held this season.
That was back December 3rd, but here’s what he had to say last night, after the most triumphant victory of the season for the Wildcats.
“I think it’s amusing that we’re .500 in (league play) and 15-10 (on the year) and it’s a disaster of a season,” Collins told a room of assembled reporters.
“I’m not sure how many Northwestern teams have been 6-6 after 12 (B1G) games in the program’s history, but it’s quite a disaster whatever is going on.”
Obviously, Collins doesn’t care for some of the things that have been written or said about this Northwestern basketball team this season. He’s not wrong when he, in a snarky manner, points out that five games above .500 and .500 in league is not a disaster. It’s blah and mediocre, but definitely not disastrous. However, Collins still had more to say on the 2017-18 season #covfefe.
“I know we’re dead, I know we’re bad and I know we have all these problems, but we’re going to keep playing our games,” Collins said.
“Everyone is writing our obituary, but I’m not quite sure I’m seeing that.”
Northwestern is currently 1-8 against the RPI top 100, with that one win coming tonight. They are currently #99 in RPI, #53 in Sagarin, #72 in KenPom. With metrics like these, obtaining even a NIT berth, let alone a NCAA at-large, will require lots of work, and there’s only six games left.
Chris Collins also managed to throw in some more snark during a sequence when he was praising his own players. After lauding some of the things that his roster has accomplished in their careers, Collins said: “they have accelerated the program to where 15-10 is a disaster.”
Clearly, this is meant to motivate his team, which has won four of the last five, with the classic “us against the world” kind of mentality.
He added: “You see a lot of teams that want to crank it up and make a push, and you see teams counting it down until the season ends. We’ve talked about it with our guys: What do we want to be?”
And to the credit of Chris Collins, he did end the session on a very positive note, by telling reporters: “thanks for coming out!”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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