There are 64 teams with giddy young men and peacock-proud coaches eagerly awaiting the start of the NCAA basketball tournament.
Spurned teams of lesser regard take consolation in being asked to participate in the NIT.
And then there are schools such as Northwestern, without a bracket or a prayer, at home during the postseason, as usual.
“I just thought we had some basketball left in us,” first-year Northwestern coach Bill Carmody said after his Wildcats lost to Iowa in the first round of the Big Ten tournament last week.
“We have to get some help up front,” Carmody acknowledged.
His tallest starter, junior Tavaras Hardy, is 6-foot-8.
Carmody and NU Athletic Director Rick Taylor believe the challenge of turning around a program that never has been invited to the NCAA tournament should entice blue-chip players. After all, Isiah Thomas visited the Northwestern campus when he was a senior at St. Joseph’s of Westchester. Of course, Thomas enrolled at Indiana, but what if . . . ?
Northwestern no longer can use the lame recruiting pitch that players will have a chance to compete against Big Ten opposition.
“Northwestern is undersized right now,” Iowa coach Steve Alford said of the Wildcats’ most glaring shortcoming. “I’m sure that’s what they’re going to get in years to come.”
Carmody is not accustomed to being home during the postseason. He coached Princeton to a 92-25 overall record (.786) and an Ivy League mark of 50-6 (.893). He took the Tigers to the postseason each of his four years as head coach.
Northwestern improved from 5-25 and 0-16 in the Big Ten under Kevin O’Neill to 11-19, 3-13 in Carmody’s first season, without a senior on the roster. The Wildcats were 8-7 at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
“Some of these guys have improved and will be able to expand their games a little bit,” Carmody said. “Guys like [freshman guard] Jitim Young have never been asked to do too much. I’m hopeful that next year he’ll come out and make those three-point shots because that would help us immeasurably.”
Northwestern ended its infamous 32-game Big Ten regular-season losing streak with a victory over Iowa on Feb. 10 and added conference victories over Penn State and Michigan.
“If that losing streak hadn’t been in place, I had a sense we might have beaten Michigan at home and we would have beaten Minnesota at home,” Carmody said. “Maybe we would have had five [Big Ten] wins, and then you start moving in the direction of being competitive. Right now we are on the border.”
Which will not even get you an admiring glance as an invitee to the Big Dance.
The good word: Randy Walker and Mike Adamle will be hosts for the Northwestern Gridiron Network spring auction/dinner on April 21 at Welsh-Ryan Arena. Call (847) 491-3694. . . . Mike Ditka is expected to attend the St. Patrick’s Day Celebrity Bartender Bash Friday benefiting the Ceriale Foundation at Iron Mike’s Grille on Chestnut Street.
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Send e-mail to Fred Mitchell at kick3485@aol.com
