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player ready...Kevin O’Neill brought the actual money figure up. Two million. Dollars.
“I’d hang glide naked off Mt. Everest for $2 million,” he said.
That is to say, if there is another job out there, one that doesn’t drain the blood nightly, one that doesn’t exasperate O’Neill into pulling out his hair while he still has enough to pull, say as an assistant on an NBA bench or, well, jumping off a mountain, O’Neill might just take it.
This calls to mind the offer to a lady of virtue who finally said she would kiss a stranger for $500. Agreeing on a price established what she was; everything else was just negotiations.
We have known what O’Neill is since he came here three years ago. He is a basketball coach, typical of the breed, not the Northwestern type as much as the Northwestern hired help. He’s the guy who fixes things, or drives the limo or generally runs errands for pay.
He fits Northwestern like a lugnut in the creme brulee, and he just coached his team to 17 consecutive Big Ten losses in a single season. This is rebuilding.
So will O’Neill stay at Northwestern as its basketball coach? How long will Northwestern want him to? And at what price?
These questions seemed more vital than how another absolutely horrid, yet typical Northwestern basketball season would end Thursday night. It ended in a loss, of course, this one to the hulks of Wisconsin, who may or may not go on to the NCAA tournament. Clubbing Northwestern will have no effect on that. Northwestern has little effect on the power ratings of teams that beat them.
The Big Ten sent two teams to the Final Four last year, and has ambitions to do it again. Ohio State. Michigan State. Purdue. Indiana. Illinois. When will Northwestern ever be included in the ambition of those programs?
“You know the best thing about this season?” O’Neill asked. “It’s over.”
How many Northwestern coaches have thought just that? How few have actually said it?
“This had to come,” O’Neill said. “At some point it had to happen. I told these guys in December, cowboys, we may not win many, we may not win any.
“We were realistic, and the kids were great. A lot of days I was down or feeling bad, but the players got me through it. Our team will be a tough team next year.”
Here’s how bad Northwestern was Thursday night: It lost the tip to Wisconsin and went downhill from there. Its first four possessions were air ball, turnover, air ball, air ball. A successful trip down the floor was getting a jump ball with the possession arrow in Northwestern’s direction.
This is as ever for Northwestern. Other teams have been just as awful as this one.
“But with freshmen?” O’Neill asked. “These are true freshmen, 18-year-old kids.”
That’s the out and the tease, of course. This Northwestern team is the youngest in the nation. One junior played two minutes. Otherwise, every moment belonged to underclassmen. But does that mean they will grow into the kind of team that will win a tournament game, or conference game, for that matter?
O’Neill believes they will. Maybe without him. He left that possibility open with his $2 million comment.
“I’m not going to die anywhere,” O’Neill said. “I’m never going to stay anywhere for 18 years.”
I hope he does. I hope O’Neill settles into the occasional collision with adequacy, which is as much ambition as Northwestern can have. If O’Neill is right about the team he suffered with through this season, in two years it might be good enough to be the last Big Ten team picked for the NCAA tournament.
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“Not many teams have gone 0-16,” O’Neill said, “but others have gone 1-15 or 2-14 and become good teams. Ohio State was 1-15 a couple of years ago. We add to guard play, meet a couple of needs, who knows?”
I think I know. I think anyone who bothers to follow Northwestern knows. Northwestern is not structured to compete in modern college basketball, not when the academics are more important than the game.
Gary Barnett found out in football how hard it was to maintain the excellence other schools take for granted. O’Neill has not won the Big Ten as Barnett did. O’Neill has one NIT appearance to show for his three years. If Northwestern ever wins the Big Ten basketball title under O’Neill, or any other coach, I will hang glide off Mt. Everest. But not naked. And I’ll have to see the $2 million up front.