Northwestern's Basketball Program Looks To Take The Next Step

Chris Collins has spent the past 13 seasons with Coach K
and the Duke Blue Devils. Now, he has his first
opportunity to be a head coach, and turn around a
struggling program.
Picture Courtesy: Yahoo! Sports

Since the 1933 season, the Northwestern men's basketball program has yet to clinch a regular season conference championship. That stretch also includes zero NCAA tournament appearances since the tournament's establishment in 1939.

Following a 5-25 campaign in 2000 for Northwestern, in which they went 0-16 in the Big Ten, it was time to fire third year head coach, Kevin O'Neill. Following O'Neill's firing, came in Bill Carmody, the head coach of Princeton who was nearing 50 years old at the time. Carmody would go on to have quite a successful career in Evanston, leading them to their fourth NIT appearance in 2009. Carmody would lead the Wildcats to four NIT tournaments in a row in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 until a highly disappointing final season in Evanston this year, going 13-19 and 4-14 in the Big Ten, which would ultimately lead to his firing.

Just a couple of weeks following Carmody's firing, Northwestern had found their next head coach. Chris Collins was their selection. Collins, a 38 year-old Duke assistant had spent a lot of time in the Chicago area during his father's (Doug Collins) tenure as the Chicago Bulls head coach from 1986-1989. Collins found his way into coaching in 2000 as an assistant under Mike Krzyzewski at Duke, and had been there ever since. Now, Collins gets his first opportunity as a head coach, and it's at Northwestern to take over one of the few struggling programs in the Big Ten.

Collins will take over a team recovering from a 13-19 overall record, and will learn quickly that nothing comes easy in the Big Ten, college basketball's most dominate conference. Northwestern may have an opportunity to knock off Penn State, Iowa, and Nebraska in the upcoming season, but we need to be realistic for the first couple seasons in Evanston.

However, Northwestern has a chance to be great in upcoming seasons. Recruiting will be the key in Evanston, but it shouldn't be difficult to get high school recruits to buy into Collins and Northwestern. After all, city kids love the Chicago suburbs as well as the lake shore campus and Lake Michigan beaches on campus. With Chris Collins' background in coaching and basketball knowledge, he'll look to turn the Wildcats program around from the past 80 year drought.

Overall, I see it as a great hire. This isn't a coach nearing the end of his career, or a coach with many different jobs in his past where this would just be another stop. Instead, Northwestern went and got a first year head coach with several years of assisting one of the best coaches, and best programs in the country. Collins, who is just 38 years of age, will turn Evanston into his home for several years down the road, and will look to turn the program around. In Northwestern's eyes, it's not going to be a one year turn around, so they went with the younger, and maybe inexperienced hire, but eventually, I see Northwestern making the NCAA tournament within the next few seasons for the first time in school history.