If you were hoping for the LTP perspective on the passing of Joe Paterno, scroll down two posts for a quick snapshot from yesterday. We’ll be spending tomorrow on some Paterno memories and a purple perspective on what will indeed become one of the more complex legacies in recent sports history. Today, we’re going to segue in to something that while important to this readership, has a little bit of perspective in the wake of yesterday’s news.

Here’s the good news. The Patriots-Ravens game was so darn entertaining perhaps only Minnesota and Northwestern fans were subjected to the misery that was a 75-52 beatdown to put another nail in the ‘Cats 2012 NCAA Tourney hopes. Northwestern dropped to 12-7,2-5 with the embarassing effort in “the Barn”, which offers up all kinds of silly sports puns, but the most applicable one involves the broad side of said arena and Northwestern’s inability to hit it. The ‘Cats found themselves once again in a (Gopher) hole from the get-go going nearly eight minutes without scoring. The ‘Cats were a miserable 0-for-15 to start the game. It was a game you can deduce they were never in.

You’re going to have nights when you can’t hit shots, but good teams find ways to get points. However, the ‘Cats lacked heart in this one and were sloppy with the ball, hit “the usual” button on their rebounding effort and were uncharactersitcally lethargic on defense watching stealable passes float past them time after time. When David Sobolewski, who seemingly makes a bad decision as often as Ben Jarvis Green Ellis fumbles, throws the ball directly in to an opponent’s hands, you know you’re in for a long day.   Compounding the sloppy play and poor all-around effort was abysmal free throw shooting. Northwestern shot an inexplicable 40% (8-20) from the not-so charity stripe. For the day, Northwestern shot 32.7% from the floor which was heavily padded by garbage time points. John Shurna somehow bested his 19 ppg average with 21, although it seemed about 80% of those points came when the game was in garbage time. Drew Crawford was held to just five points, while David Sobolewski did not score. When the ‘Cats muster 26 points between those three it is a surefire equation for a loss. You knew that if you managed to muscle through your masochist ways and read the recap of the drudgery.

It is almost inconceivable that just eight days ago, the NCAA Tourney fire was burning brightly after the incredible home win over Sparty. Now, a week later and three horrific halves of hoops in a row, and the drumbeat of fans calling for a change is going to be cranking up in volume. Barring an improbable 7-4 run from here on out, Northwestern will finish under .500 in conference once again and likely miss out on the NCAA Tournament. At this point, the NIT is far from a sure thing.  While road losses are nothing to be ashamed of in the B1G, especially this season, not being competitive is indeed cause for grave concern. One of the pros of Bill Carmody’s teams has been the respect factor. As fans, while we may come to expect the worst, we have been treated to a team that you feel has a chance to win every game we play. That confidence has been tested this week and with home dates with Purdue and Nebraska on deck, we’ll need some Welsh-Ryan home cooking to turn this thing around.

But Monday morning is for quarterbacking and in the wake of this loss, with the recaps of the minutiae of the massacre complete, I’m trying to pivot to the bigger picture. I felt a lot of empathy for Bill Carmody when we were down 18-4 halfway through the first half. There was a timeout and the camera isolated Carmody. At this moment I realized how fortunate I am that I don’t have my livelihood dependent upon 18-22-year-olds. Carmody went silent as if to protest by not acknowledging the team. Then he ripped in to the team and said what most of us were thinking at that moment. I was instantly catapulted back to 1994 when then head coach Ricky Byrdsong infamously walked off the bench and in to the stands to fraternize with fans.  He was at a similar frustration point with a similarly talented team that was having a bad effort on top of a bad day. The images for those of us that followed the team then are forever etched in our minds. Some thought our coach had lost it, others questioned the extremity of the motivational tactic. At this very moment yesterday, I thought Carmody might pull a similar tactic in The Barn. Instead, he went in to complete adult mope mode, sitting on the sideline expressionless. When this happens at the unique raised court of Minnesota, it seems so much more pronounced. It feels like a stage or a monologue. The show I saw yesterday said “giving up hope”. Where is the passion and the animation? Where is the exhortation and leading by example? On the football field our head coach gets criticized at times for having TOO much emotion. Fitz’s basketball counterpart goes 180 degrees the other direction and goes from brand ambassador to statuesque.

You get the sense, that we’re stuck in hoops purgatory. We’ve come a long way from being an embarassment in the conference to a respectable (read: mediocre) program. However, it’s as if we don’t have enough momentum to propel us to the next level – a winning conference season.  Thanks to our ignominious hoops history, we as fans have a tendency to overreact to losses, but really get manic about blowout losses. Each time we can hear the collective thought bubble of our B1G brethren snickering “same old, same old”. It’s a nearly 20-year battle in football, that despite tremendous leaps in perception change, we still must fight the “it’s just Northwestern” reflex from opposing fans. 

I have not given up on this team quite yet as there is a lot of basketball to play. A three-game winning streak and spirits will rebound. However, name the last time we had one of those in conference. The end of January tends to be when the post holiday girth seems to trim down a bit. Such is the case with the large middle section that is the Big Ten standings. As things shake out, the upper tier and lower tier are becoming a little more clear. Minnesota  seems to be at the bottom part of that middle section and with teams like that you’ve got to at least split games with them, or find yourself behind them looking up from the bottom tier of the standings.  Style points in wins – and losses – do matter. Northwestern now has back-to-back blowout losses, but that’s nothing newsworthy in the past century of Wildcat hoops.

I try my very best not to perpetuate the mentality of the ‘Cats as lovable loser. It doesn’t do any good for the present or the future.  I always want to promote the positive in hopes that the fan support, future players and current Northwestern family can achieve greatness together. But, even the most positive parts of my passionate purple soul get tested on days and weeks like this. You get the sense it has been NCAA Tournament or bust for Coach Carmody this season. The team not coming close to making it makes it a foregone conclusion he will not be returning.

I expect the questioning of head coaching changes to start taking up more space in the comments section, which is beyond fair after 12 seasons of the same coach in a sport and era where that is borderline unheard of – especially for a team that has not gone even one game over .500 in conference during said coach’s regime (in fairness, no one has done that NU in 43 seasons). I’m trying my best to not contribute to that conversation and cause even more distractions during a basketball season. There is still a lot of hoops to be played, but you get that sinking feeling that we may not have enough juice to turn this thing around before it’s too late.

Survey Says…

You’ve spoken and hopefully we’ve listened. It’s clear that men’s basketball, facilities updates and recruiting are the lion’s share of what you’d like us to track, so indeed we will. Here are the results to the most recent LTP reader poll:

Polls