04 December 2009

On Oregon State and the First Brother-in-Law

Coach Carmody's critics have often criticized Carmody for how long it has taken him to right the ship. This criticism is not completely from out of left field as Carmody himself has said that he didn't expect it to take this long to turn NU around. We at Carmody Court maintain both Coach Carmody's and his critic's expectations were unrealistic as they did not fully appreciate just how much work was required to overcome the program's sorry history.

One example that Carmody's critics used last year as evidence for why "it's too little, too late" for Carmody was the turnaround engineered by Craig Robinson, First Brother-In-Law and former NU assistant under Coach Carmody, at Oregon State last season. Robinson in his first year as head coach took a winless Oregon State program from the prior season and used the Princeton Offense to lead OSU to a 7-11 conference record and CBI championship. If Coach Robinson could do that in one year at OSU then how could it possibly take nine-plus years for Coach Carmody to do so at NU when using the same system? Carmody's critics even went so far as to say that NU should have fired Carmody and retained Robinson to get NU to the holy grail.

Fast forward to this year and we hear nary a word from Carmody's critics about Craig Robinson. Why? For one thing NU's performance to date has left little room to open fire on Coach Carmody so this probably explains why they've kept their powder dry so far. Oregon State's 2-3 record including a 24 point home loss to TAMU Corpus Christi and a loss to Sacramento St probably also has something to do with their amnesia.

Carmody Court wishes nothing but the best to Coach Robinson (except if he meets up with NU on the court) this year and beyond. However if Carmody's critics are going to use his season last year as reason for criticizing Carmody then it is fair game to point out that Robinson isn't doing nearly as well as Carmody this year.