Friday Sips

by Rodger Sherman on Apr 9, 2010 10:00 AM CDT in Sips

A lil something a lil laid back for Friday of a week I haven't posted nearly as much as I should've, but screw it, holler at your boy!

First off, by far the most important thing - arguably ever - to hit the newstands, is Tyrell Sutton's run-in with the law. Northwestern churns out hardened criminals, the type of dudes who get into serious crap, such as fishing without a license, a crime glorified by today's hip-hop artists and video games such as Grand Theft Auto IV. You're probably saying "hey, fishing without a license isn't that bad," but the way I see it, fishing without a license is a gateway crime that leads into more serious offenses like murder, homicide, manslaughter, and double murder, so don't be surprised if Sutton has a body count in the dozens by next weekend.
Mike Kafka has been absolutely ripping nonsense up with his pre-draft stuff, and he's gotten relatively high on people's draft boards. Like, seventh-best QB high. Now, that isn't really that high in the grand scheme of things - what, maybe third round, if he's extraordinarily lucky? - but think about where you might have imagined Kafka's post-graduation plans last August, that is to say, debating whether to declare for the possibly existent UFL draft or apply for grad school. Things done changed.
I apologize for the lack of bunched panties over spring ball. Sadly, there's not really much I provide, not having been to any practices or done any interviews, and even if I had been to practices, NU isn't big on you just repeating what you see verbatim, so, we're basically limited to NU's practice reports, which are monumentally unrevealing, the Rittenblog, more Rittenblog, the profiles and whatnot coming out of spring ball for the Trib and Sun-Times. I'll get more in depth, but basically, what we need to know now is: Persa. Persa Persa Persa. The rest, it appears, is a lil bit up for grabs. I'm just not buying Arby Fields as the No. 1 all the time back, so I'm not reading much into anything revolving around him.
I read articles like this one from Deadspin - great stuff, ignited by similar articles in the Sun-Times and Tribune - and you know what happens? I cry. I friggin cry. I go to a Big Ten university, not a fifteen minute train ride from the city limits of the city of Chicago. I could conceivably walk to Chicago. If I held it in long enough, I could probably pee from my dorm room and hit Chicago. Yeah, we're "in Evanston", but Evanston is a joke. This school is in Chicago. And yet, our basketball program is completely, totally, brutally disassociated from the fantastic basketball recruiting playpen that is the Chicago Public League. If Bill Carmody was fired, resigned, or in some way offed, and his replacement was announced tomorrow as Oliver Purnell, nobody would bat their eyes as to how the hiring would effect NU's pipeline to the CPL. I'm from New York. I'm ill at ease calling any place besides my hometown a basketball area. But I look at Chicago, and I see this fantastic outpouring of basketball talent. And yet we time and time again cast our fishing rod into the suburbs - which, mind you, aren't wanting for basketball talent if that Jon Scheyer fella taught us anything Monday night - rather than the city, the big, glorious city that is essentially our home. I highly doubt Carmody has connections with any of the coaches and power brokers important in Chicago basketball. Chicago players are not important to our basketball program. Yeah, we have Juice Thompson, and seemingly no plans of acquiring anybody else. And that makes me bitterly sad.
I'm up early enough to have this posted by 10 even though I don't have class till 11. Why? Well, long story short, there's no way in hell I'm sleeping through my chance to get Talib Kweli tickets. I don't care if he's just opening, I'm going for him. Also, there's no way he plays the song below, and Talib is arguably the worst part of the song, but I advise all of you listen, especially if you think that rap music can't be beautiful.

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It’s way too early for Hail to Purple to have that Far East Kickoff Countdown thing running. I go there to check for updates and right on the front page I’m reminded that it’s about 40 million years until football starts.

Kafka projected 7th best QB in the NFL Draft. LOL WUT.

The stranger part about that article was that for all the quarterbacks rated above him (except for Sam Bradford) the little paragraph describing their draft status was like – This guy is an incompetent tool, but he had some success in college ball, maybe he’ll work his shit out.

Wouldn’t it be weird if Mike had a more successful NFL career than Brett? Although it probably wouldn’t be ideal for his career, the selfish part of me wants to see him go somewhere he could see action as a rookie.

by T.Xenophon on Apr 9, 2010 10:41 AM CDT reply actions

baz vs. mike

wouldn’t be completely surprised for kafka to have more success. just looking at playing styles, kafka seems a little bit more nfl-y, and he arguably had more success than baz here – he just had less time in the spotlight, only starting for one year.

by Rodger Sherman on Apr 9, 2010 2:31 PM CDT up reply actions

I wouldn't be surprised either.

Still, Baz had an NCAA record breaking career but hasn’t been able to break out in the NFL. Mike is in an excellent position, especially since his resume is about 16 games as a starter.

by T.Xenophon on Apr 9, 2010 3:58 PM CDT up reply actions

Uh yeah, the Chicago Public League

So how many of those kids can actually get admitted in to Northwestern? Even if a basketball player only has to get a slightly-above-average SAT score to get in, how many Chicago public school kids can manage that? I reckon less than 20%.

How come you’ve never wondered why Columbia doesn’t have a pipeline to all the great NYC basketball talent?

by AsianD on Apr 9, 2010 11:54 AM CDT reply actions

I don't think that's a fair comparison

while I’m sure a lot of top public league players can’t get into NU, there’s definitely a substantial percentage that can, and NU should be doing all they can to get those recruits. Given its proximity to Chicago, strong academics, and the fact it’s in the Big Ten, NU has a lot going for it and should at least be attempting to sell the school to Public League players.

I’m obviously not out on the recruiting trail with the coaches, but I think they could certainly do a better job in recruiting the hometown talent.

by Loretta8 on Apr 9, 2010 12:19 PM CDT up reply actions

I doubt that "substantial percentage" amounts to many players

Here’s a list of Chicago-area players who were on teams that made the NCAA tourney:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-spt-0318-list-ncaa-guards—20100317,0,4229876.story

Of the schools that are academically demanding, or at least have a good academic reputation (even if their standards for athletes are much lower), there are ZERO Chicago Public League products. (Those schools: Cornell, Duke, Vanderbilt, Cal, GTech, Lehigh, ND, Wake)

In fact, you find virtually NO CPL kids on that list (which is dominated by suburban & Catholic school grads).
Kansas has Sherron Collins. Kentucky has DeAndre Liggins. Maryland has a CPL kid, and OSU has a CPL kid (not Evan Turner). The other 19 either went to a suburban or Catholic school.

This tells me either
1. A bunch of those CPL kids can’t even meet the minimum NCAA standards needed to play college ball (much less NU’s admission standards)
or
2. the talent in the CPL is overstated.

I imagine it’s a combination of both.

by AsianD on Apr 9, 2010 12:42 PM CDT up reply actions

columbia ≠ northwestern.

i’ve been to a columbia basketball game before, which makes me more of an expert on the topic than 99.9999998 percent of human beings on the planet earth. one of the reasons i’m here and not there is because i wanted to go to a school with a division 1 athletics, one that could give out scholarships to its athletes. northwestern can. columbia can’t. columbia did try to recruit athletes from my high school, but the fact that they can only give out academic scholarships eliminates them from getting pretty much any talented basketball players. also they don’t really care about sports.

on the other hand, it’s absurd that northwestern fans don’t want nu to lower our admissions standards, not even a smidgen, to allow for athletic talent. (the fact that the cps can’t put together many students that would get accepted into nu is its own horrendous problem, but that’s for another website to deal with.) people wonder why your average chicagoan doesn’t care about nu sports, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that we make no effort do connect with them. a major way to do that would be recruiting in the cpl pool.

by Rodger Sherman on Apr 9, 2010 2:37 PM CDT up reply actions

Why the hell would you want to lower academic standards?

Firstly, they’re already lower for athletes than for the regular student population. Second of all, if you’re willing to lower academic standards to, say, West Virginia levels, then why don’t we just hire ringers (like many football programs did in the early days, and many power programs in both football and basketball still do, though surreptitiously now).

I mean, where’s the joy in cheering for a team of kids that have nothing in common with you except they wear the jersey of your alma mater? Do you really want Northwestern to become USC (recruiting scandals and all)?

If you say “well, I want NU to be USC without the scandals”, then find me another private school that has NU’s academic profile, yet has the academic requirements for athletes that USC has and manages to avoid scandal while winning.

ND and Georgetown are the only schools that comes close. Neither are at NU’s level academically (though still good schools).

However, while Georgetown seems OK with taking in barely literate kids to play basketball for them, I’m not sure why you’re OK with guys like that being your classmates.

by AsianD on Apr 9, 2010 3:17 PM CDT up reply actions

first off, i'm mad kevin coble gets better grades than me.

secondly, i see college athletics as a chance for people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to get a northwestern degree. i’d love to see nu make inroads into chicago’s public school system, rather than everybody from chicago seeing us as elitist bastards.

by Rodger Sherman on Apr 10, 2010 1:16 PM CDT up reply actions

Hey I like success stories as well

But you have to draw the line somewhere. It’s not like the line for athletes right now is terribly high, and though there are a few classes at NU whose profs give everyone A’s, we don’t have jock classes. These days, Georgetown graduates 82% of their basketball players, but 10 years ago, it was 47%. Are you comfortable with that type of graduation rate for athletes? I’m not, nor would I be comfortable with the borderline-legal “tutoring” programs big-time programs have for their athletes where you just have to memorize what the tutors fed you to pass tests.

In any case, if you don’t want to be seen as elitist, you could have gone to DePaul (or Mizzou, for journalism). I’d like people to judge me by my actions; if they label me as elitist because of the school I went to instead of what I did (or because I’d like my school to have minimum standards for all students instead of open admission for athletes), that’s their fault, not mine.

by AsianD on Apr 10, 2010 1:53 PM CDT up reply actions

Another thing is I hate the argument of "athletics as a chance for people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to get a Northwestern degree"

Why exactly should athletes be given that chance when a kid that is nonathletic isn’t given that chance? Northwestern is first and foremost, an academic institution, and if we want to give more inner city kids the chance at a Northwestern education, we should be targeting those kids who, against tremendous odds, have developed their intellect while attending Chicago public schools. The University of Chicago has a program that targets those kids, and I find it laudable.

I find the argument that athletics should be used to raise the lot of inner city kids to be disingenuous and self-serving. You’re essentially telling those kids that they should develop their athletic skills rather than their intellect, because that is what Northwestern values in inner-city kids. And why does NU value their athletic skills rather than their intellect? Because guys like Rodger Sherman can cheer for a kid who has mad ball skills, but he has no reason to cheer for a smart but uncoordinated 5’6" kid who’s life a Northwestern degree would actually help more.

Sorry if I’m a bit sharp, but this type of discrimination (which I believe to be self-serving as well) really pisses me off.

by AsianD on Apr 10, 2010 2:42 PM CDT reply actions

nobody’s saying kids spend playing basketball instead of doing homework. that would be stupid. obviously there should be some minimum standard, but we’re not talking about letting in retards here. i’m sure there are plenty of CPL players who would work hard and jump at the chance for a Northwestern education, and if the coaching staff demanded they go to class and be on track to graduate or else ride the bench (like Bob Knight did at Indiana), the vast majority would graduate.

Why exactly should athletes be given that chance when a kid that is nonathletic isn’t given that chance?

the same reason people who excel at playing a musical instrument, acting, creative writing, etc. should be given a chance. people who have exceptional skills in a specific area often go on to be very successful and famous and bring positive attention to the school, just like a great basketball player. lowering the admissions standards to let great basketball players into the school helps everyone. obviously it helps the player, and the player helps the school as well by winning more games, selling more tickets, and giving Northwestern positive publicity. yeah, that’s one spot that a more talented student won’t get, but every year Northwestern turns away thousands of applicants who are more than qualified for admission and capable of doing the work, because more people want to go to NU than NU can accommodate.

you’re acting like it would be a crime against humanity if someone who didn’t get a 75th percentile SAT score were admitted into your beloved Northwestern, where only future pillars of the community are allowed the privilege to attend. get over yourself. no one’s advocating cheating, but plenty of fine schools are able to bring in top basketball recruits, get those recruits to graduate, and win games.

by Loretta8 on Apr 11, 2010 2:40 PM CDT up reply actions

I'm quite certain a basketball recruit with a 75th percentile SAT score would get in to Northwestern

. . .so that’s kind of a strawman.

Now if you want to castigate NU for not being able to convince that 75th-percentile-SAT baller to come to NU instead of Stanford or Duke, that’s legitimate, though I’d argue it’s an uphill battle for Carmody because Duke & Stanford have built up more of a tradition.

Still, I’d rather fight that battle with our standards rather than lower our standards. I’d rather that Northwestern stays Northwestern rather than become a USC (or even a Georgetown). Again, if people don’t like our standards, they could always decide to root for a USC or Georgetown instead. Nothing wrong with that. I grew up cheering for the Illini and I still do when they’re not playing Northwestern.

Popularity isn’t everything, and it certainly isn’t worth sacrificing who you are.

by AsianD on Apr 12, 2010 10:45 AM CDT up reply actions

let's start this over.

this ended up about a million miles from where it should be. what i’m trying to say is: it’s really sad that for a variety of reasons, nobody connects northwestern basketball to cpl basketball. people like you don’t connect the two because cpl basketball players tend to come from poor socioeconomic backgrounds, therefore, they probably aren’t very well educated and don’t deserve to come to northwestern. people in the cpl don’t think about northwestern because we perennially ignore them, and therefore, chicago’s basketball talent has gone to places like depaul and illinois. therefore, nobody from chicago really cares about northwestern basketball, and we average 4,000 fans a game or so, and we’ve never been to the ncaa tournament.

i’m not fully sure why college athletics exists. it started out about a hundred years ago with groups of students enrolled at one school playing against a group of students enrolled at another school, like club sports teams nowadays. now we have recruiting, and most schools use college athletics as a shameless money grab: the students playing the sports live in different dorms and take different classes from most students, and graduate at much lower rates. at northwestern, we graduate most of our athletes, which leaves our sports teams looking about as homogenous as the rest of our student body. we care about our athletes, and get them all degrees – and that’s great. problem is, kevin coble probably could’ve gotten into northwestern without being ballin.
sports can be an instrument of change, and i feel like northwestern has a chance to help out people – and ourselves. is it fucked up that what we value in people is biggie’s proverbial wicked jump shot? yes! of course it is! tremendously, in fact. it’s also not a good thing that a city like chicago has a school system that leads to more murders than northwestern students, and that most people from chicago have to send their kids to that school system.

but neither of these things – people liking sports, and people from poor socioeconomic backgrounds getting shafted by the education system – will change anytime in the near future. so why not use sports as a way to make a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny bit of change? if northwestern can help out three or four guys who didn’t get 1500’s on their sats, but are willing to come to nu for four years, take classes, and get those dudes degrees – and also, they play basketball! – i’m sorry if it means three or four smart unathletic kids like me and you would have to go to johns hopkins or vanderbilt or brown or some other elite university.

that’s all. i’m done. reference all future posts/comments on this topic to this comment, because i feel like i’m not going to get any better than this.

by Rodger Sherman on Apr 11, 2010 4:39 PM CDT up reply actions