The Clock is Ticking for Bill

Illinois’ 70-37 destruction of Northwestern last night left coaches, players, and fans alike searching for answers.

From the outset, this game was heading in Illinois’ favor. A raucous crowd was behind them, and they were flying all over the court. They had three highlight reel alley-oops in the first ten minutes. Everything was going their way. But that wasn't surprising. Assembly Hall has always been a house of horrors for the Wildcats. However, on Sunday night, the ‘Cats’ play dropped to a level that the program has not seen in years. The ‘Cats loss to 10-11 Illinois wasn’t even competitive.

In previous years under Bill Carmody, Northwestern would usually give elite teams in the Big Ten good games at home. The Princeton Offense would give opponents fits on the court, as NU’s slow pace, good spacing, and tricky backdoor cuts allowed the ‘Cats to stay in most games. Well, those days of happiness and satisfaction under Bill Carmody and the Princeton Offense are coming to an end. The traditionally apathetic student body and fan base have started calling for change, and longtime Carmody supporters, such as myself, are struggling to defend him.

During games this season, the team is often lost on offense and overmatched on defense. Carmody typically waits too long to make adjustments and even when he does, they rarely seem to have an affect on the game. Their consistently terrible starts to both the first half and second half indicates that the coaching staff is not making any adjustments to whatever gameplan they have put together. This came to a boiling point last Thursday when the ‘Cats hosted Michigan State. They opened both the first and second halves with shot clock violations and finished the game with five of them. Carmody’s refusal to adapt his schemes to the personnel and stubborn substitution rotations haunts this team every game.

In addition, the ‘Cats defense and rebounding has deteriorated from terrible, to atrocious 2 ½ months into the season. The 1-3-1 wasn’t working against Brown on November 24th, but they continued to employ it until recently, despite obvious personnel problems. However, when the ‘Cats finally switched to the 2-3 matchup zone, new problems arose. Last night, the Illini were able to take advantage of the ‘Cats inexperience in the 2-3 matchup zone by feeding the ball to Shaun Pruitt in the post and finding soft spots on the wings to hit 3-pointers.

Heading into this season, no one had postseason expectations. However, all fans expected this team to be competitive, especially after the return of Kevin Coble. The ‘Cats got a free pass through the non-conference schedule because of Coble’s absence, but the recent lack of competitiveness in Big Ten season is disheartening. Coach Carmody needs to salvage what could have been a year of growth for an improving program, or it could signal an end to his time at NU.