Kevin Coble opts for rest of life
by KJ@theonlycolors on Jul 27, 2010 10:20 PM CDT
in Michigan State Spartans Basketball
8 comments
You don't often get major Big Ten basketball news breaking in July. This qualifies: Northwestern's Kevin Coble has decided to end his college basketball career, foregoing a potential final season in purple and white. Coble missed all of last season after injuring his foot in preseason practice. He had averaged 14.9 points and 5.1 rebounds per game over the first three season of his career.
The Wildcats were only scheduled to lose one major contributor going into next season (Jeremy Nash). With Coble's return to the lineup, the team seemed primed to finally end its since-the-program-was-formed NCAA Tournament appearance drought. His departure, for whatever reason, strikes a significant blow to those hopes.
I'll take a somewhat contrarian position here, though, and say that Coble leaving doesn't necessarily spell doom for the Wildcats' 2011 postseason prospects. The team still returns 5 of the top 6 players from a team that won 20 games this past season. Michael Thompson, Drew Crawford, and John Shurna form a pretty potent offensive trio, with Alex Marcotullio (outside) and Luka Mirkovic (inside) as solid role players.
Further, as I've previously observed, the way Shurna blossomed this past season, he effectively replicated Coble's precise role and level of production in the offense. Having two talk, lanky forwards (both were listed at exactly 6'8", 210 pounds) who can score from all over the court would certainly be an asset, but how much would their roles overlap and end up negating each other? (Of course, the last time I invoked this line of thinking, I invoked it to argue that Northwestern wasn't an automatic lock for the NCAA Tournament. Still, you get my meaning.) If Shurna can continue to build on his breakout sophomore campaign, the rest of the team should be able to fill in nicely around him on offense.
Which brings me to a final point: Ultimately, Northwestern's success in 2011 will hinge on whether they can start to play effective defense more consistently. And, as good a player as Kevin Coble was, he was much more of an offensive threat than he was a defensive difference-maker.
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Defense
I definitely agree with you here. The emergence of Shurna last year was kind of spooky. He was so similar to Coble in build, style of game, how he moved on the court and even how he lit up MSU’s defense that I thought maybe Bo Ryan had felt sorry for Carmody and loaned him his big-man cloning machine. All Carmody had to do was replace Joe Krabbenhoft’s DNA with Coble’s and come up with Shurna as a replacement. With Shurna, Northwestern’s offense was terrific, and I don’t think it would have actually improved by replacing the minutes of Jeremy Nash, who used fewer possessions than any other Wildcat regular and was the closest thing they had to a defensive specialist, with another 25%-possession-using guy exactly like Shurna. They need more D – and badly.
Great post and comments
All is not well in Purple Nation, but I agree with you that this team doesn’t need more offense. Here’s kenpom.com’s adjusted Defensive Rating for the past 5 years
’06: 95.9 (80th)
’07: 98.3 (112th)
’08: 104.5 (206th)
’09: 97.9 (106th)
’10: 101.0 (169th)
Blech. If they could get close to ’06 numbers, they would be Tourney bound.
This may be wishful thinking — but I’m ok with having an athletic 18 year old Jershon Cobb out there with a fresh motor, then a tentative Kevin Coble.
The other brightside: Our offensive rebounding rating has improved steadily, and conversely the opponent’s offensive rebounding rating has declined:
’06 NU Reb%, Opp Reb%: 22.7, 35.0 (-12.3)
’07: 24.1, 39.1 (-15!)
’08: 20.6, 37.5: (-16.9!!)
’09: 27.5, 36.0 (-9.5)
’10: 30.4, 33.6 (-3.2)
So with Coble out last year, we actually had our best rebounding year (which was sub-par). That’s due to the emergence of the taller Shurna and Mirkovic (who was like 4th best rebounder in B10 play last year), as well as more athletic guards like Nash and Crawford helping out with backcourt rebounding. If we could improve those numbers for ’11, again, I think the ’Cats will be in good shape.
Keep up the great work here.
www.massivecreativity.com
by macarthur31 on Jul 28, 2010 11:10 AM CDT reply actions 1 recs
Interesting stuff
Fight for The Only Colors: Green and White!
by KJ@theonlycolors on Jul 28, 2010 11:20 AM CDT up reply actions
My take
It seems to me that Koble knows that he isn’t fully healed at this point and probably won’t be by the time practice begins. If he wanted to take the chance, he could play this year and maybe survive the pounding of practice and Big Ten play, operative word being “maybe.” His other option would be to sit out, get his degree, continue with rehab, become healthy, do some workouts for the NBA in the spring after he’s healed, maybe even play in Newport, then head to Europe for a few years of fun, money, and hoops before immersing himself in the real world. Or law school. He could see a lot of the world before he’s 30 if his foot heals completely.
Wish him the best
Sure hope some of those opportunities open up for him. Seemed like a great player/person and wish him the best.
Intellectually
All of this makes sense. But as someone who was at the Breslin Center for that 2009 game when Coble dropped 31 on us, I won’t mind him not being in the lineup against us. That really sucked.
That said, I hope he didn’t make this decision because of injury. Don’t wish that on anyone. If he is really just ready to move on, good for him.
Good Stuff
I hadn’t even seen this before I posted my longer view from the Northwestern side of things over at Chicago College Basketball, but you’ve really hit the nail on the head. Kevin Coble wasn’t going to fix what hurt Northwestern last season. That’s up to Shurna/Mirkovic mostly and Carmody to not play gimmicky defenses that can be beat by high-quality teams.
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