Bill Carmody is back. The 2004 Big Ten Coach of the Year and the most successful Coach in Northwestern basketball history will be named special assistant at Fairfield.
According to Hearst Connecticut Media:
“This is going to happen this week,” Fairfield head coach Sydney Johnson confirmed Monday.
“He was the runner-up for National Coach of the year in 1998, he was Big Ten Coach of the Year (2004) and he’s been wanting to get back into coaching, so I spoke to him about working with us.”
Johnson played under Carmody at Princeton, where Bill took over for the legendary Pete Carrill in 1996. His 1998 team was ranked #8 in the national polls heading into the NCAA Tournament that year. Princeton earned a #5 seed and they lost to #4 seed Michigan State in the second round.
In his four years leading Princeton, Carmody went 92-25, setting a new Ivy League career winning percentage record. In 2000, Bill Carmody brought the bounce pass and back door cuts of the Princeton offense to Northwestern, where he led the team to four straight NITs (2009-2012), but could not get over the hump to bring NU it’s first ever NCAA tournament berth.
He was fired and replaced by Chris Collins during the 2013 Big Ten Tournament. However, rumors swirled that NU was looking to replace Carmody with Collins in 2012, a year prior to his dismissal. One could assume that the rumors regarding his job security affected the ability of Carmody to do his job that season. There’s no doubt that all the injuries the 2012-13 team suffered, as well as the suspension of Jershon Cobb, had an adverse impact on Carmody and his team.
Also, the timing of Carmody’s termination was questionable. In 2007, his team went 2-14 in conference; followed by 1-17 in 2008. He kept his job. His 2013 team went 4-14 in league play; but it was after four straight years in which NU went either 7-11 or 8-10. Something seems a bit off there.
In ’04 Carmody led NU to their first non-losing in Big Ten play in 35 years. In 2009, he led the Wildcats to their first national ranking since 1969. Bill also guided Northwestern to the first 20 win season in school history in 2010, and followed that up with the second 20 win season in 2011. Only Dutch Lonborg won more games at NU than Bill Carmody.
However, none of Carmody’s teams finished higher than fifth in the league, and his best record in league play was only 8-8 in 2004.
The Fairfield Stags are a division I program competing in the MAAC. They play their home games in Bridgeport, Connecticut. They have four NIT and NCAA berths in their history. H/T to Greenwich Time for this story tip.
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