Seriously. Just FML.

I wonder if the foot isn’t healing well? If so, I’m so sorry to hear that.

But still, FML. We couldn’t just make ONE damn NCAA Tourney? Particularly with what was going to be (on paper) the most talent we’ve EVER HAD? In a year where they EXPANDED THE TOURNAMENT?

There is nothing worse than being a Northwestern basketball fan. Nothing. Seriously — find me a worst experience than rooting for the Wildcats in basketball? Just when they get close, and all our talent lines up, and our guys are playing well….WHAM.

goddammit

who exactly is this hack surgeon who can’t heal a broken foot in 9 months? Those quotes make it sound like he’d like to be able to play, but can’t.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDWJGslOf70

First, let me say that I’m disappointed that we won’t have Kev back for his senior year. I was salivating at the prospect of him and Shurna on the court at the same time. Sheesh, with Thompson-Crawford-Coble-Shurna, you had four All-Big Ten First/Second/HM candidates. When was the last time we could boast that?

That being said, I gotta think this was the best advice he’s getting from his doctor. If the recovery time doesn’t line up smoothly with the season, then why do this? In fact, he might be doing the team a favor in that they now know that they won’t have “How Will Kevin Mesh with the Team?” hanging over their heads. At this point the team knows the roster, and they can spend that precious European vacation getting their rotation sorted out. (Even though Jeff Ryan probably won’t be running full by that time, I’m less worried about him meshing as I had him pegged as an 8-10 minute guy to give Juice a blow at most this season. I’d rather have Juice averaging 30 mpg than 36 mpg.)

I’m also reminded of another story — actually a blog post from Craig Moore’s awesome, but short-lived blog on his pro career. Craig had answered a reader mail question about “What if someone offered you 100K to play two on two with Coble, Juice and Ryan?” Craig offered that the first reaction to the offer would be Jeff Ryan being sensible saying, “Let’s split the 100K four ways, and just have fun.” Then Juice would say, “Screw that, let’s play for the 100K straight up. I don’t care who is on my team, we’re gonna win.” Finally, Craig predicted that Kevin would shrug and say, “What’s the big deal? Why do we need money to motivate us to play?” To which Craig and the other three would roll their eyes.

What I got from that funny little hypothetical is that while Kevin probably loves the game, it’s not the only thing in his life. Especially after having to help out his mother in recovery, I’m guessing kid Coble definitely has a grasp on the long view. Why go through all of this difficult recovery, and put pressure on himself to heal- – and then when he does come back, not be guaranteed that the team would be better off with him (again, they’d have to adjust to this new player), or not be guaranteed that his fracture would not relapse.

Finally — from what I read in Wilhite’s blog at Daily Herald — Carmody has been well aware that this has been a possibility. Probably what’s making this less painful for him is the notion that Jershon Cobb may be as good as advertised, and that the kid may have a Drew Crawford like frosh-performance in him. If that’s true, then the lineup is:

JUICE – Ryan
COBB – Marcotullio, Fruendt, Ryan
CRAWFORD – Capocci
SHURNA – Peljusic
MIRKOVIC – Curletti, Peljusic

Again, pending those dudes stay healthy…that’s still our deepest lineup in a generation.

All said, i think the college basketball community at large will do the storyline, “What will the Cats do?” However, in their camp, they’ve got 2 months left to gel and sort it out. I think they’ll be fine.

when I first heard about this I was really depressed, but after thinking about it a bit, I still really believe in this team and really believe we can make the tournament. We still have Shurna, Crawford, and Thompson on one team, Mirkovic will (hopefully) be one year better and one year more confident, and I think (/deeply hope) Cobb will do really well. If Marcotullio (who will hopefully be tougher this year) and Ryan play well enough as our most reliable backups, we still might be okay.

Key to this is Curletti/Peljusic (one or both) playing well, but that’s always been the case — even before Coble wasn’t coming back. Our center position was always going to be an issue for us, so let’s hope that those three guys and the coaches focus on that, the entire team focuses on defense, and everyone stays healthy.

I know that’s a whole lot of ifs and hopes, but I’ll take it. We’re still a good team. We still have three all-out badasses playing for us, and a bunch of other good players, too. All is not lost.