A decade later, Carmody comes home

At halftime of Sunday's game against Manhattan, the men's basketball team will honor the 1997-98 Tiger team that went 14-0 in the Ivy League and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament before bowing out against Michigan State. With that in mind, the 'Prince' caught up with the head coach who led that Princeton squad: Bill Carmody.

Men's basketball head coach Sydney Johnson '97 has a particularly vivid memory about Bill Carmody dating back to Carmody's time as an assistant to the legendary Pete Carril. At some point during Johnson's freshman year, the young player trudged back to the bench during a lull in the action and asked for a breather. Carmody's response has echoed in Johnson's mind in the years since that moment.

"He looked me dead in the eye and said, 'You can't get tired,' " Johnson said.

According to Johnson, Carmody's words taught him an attitude with which to approach athletics — one that he now wishes to pass on to his own players.

"Sometimes you can dig a little deeper," Johnson said. "You have it there to draw on, and you're just not acknowledging it. A great coach helps you acknowledge that you have a little more to give."

For his part, Carmody agreed with the attitude but was eager to defer the credit for Johnson's accomplished playing career.

"In Sydney's case, he was one guy who really pushed himself," Carmody said. "Of course, one of the biggest responsibilities of every coach is to get the most out of each guy. No one really knows until they've been pushed to some kind of limit."

There is little doubt that Carmody knows how to get the most out of his players. In his four years heading the men's basketball program, the Tigers' overall record was a staggering 92-25, with a 50-6 mark in the Ivy League. Carmody's first two seasons at Princeton were particularly stellar, as he led the team to consecutive undefeated Ivy League seasons.

After the 1999-2000 season, Carmody left Princeton in search of a new challenge. He found it at Northwestern, a school that competes in the Big Ten — one of the nation's tougher basketball conferences. Carmody was frank about the difficulties he has faced in his new position.

"The biggest challenge is the fact that there's not been a tradition of basketball success here," Carmody said. "And that's been harder to overcome than I expected."

Nonetheless, Carmody's time with the Wildcats has produced marked improvement in the program's prospects. In the 12 years before Carmody's arrival, Northwestern had won 28 conference games. It took Carmody less than six seasons to compile the same win total within the Big Ten.

Overall, the Wildcats' 95-113 record hardly appears exceptional. Ninety-five wins does represent, however, the largest seven-year victory total in Northwestern basketball history.

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"He's carried the Princeton model to a Big Ten environment," Johnson said. "[And] he's made them a program that people actually talk about. People have certainly recognized Northwestern, our unique style of playing, and ... they've been able to be giant-killers in that league."

In many ways, the Princeton model continues to link Carmody to today's Tigers. The team still runs the famed Princeton Offense that Johnson learned from luminaries such as Carril and Carmody, and one of Johnson's favorite mantras — "Make shots" — is a legacy of his time with Carmody.

"He sent me a note at the beginning of the season," Johnson said. "It said the same thing he told us as players: 'Make shots.' "

The aphorism sounds almost too simplistic, but Carmody is so fond of the saying that he had it printed on the Wildcats' practice shirts.

"You know, they talk about the Princeton Offense and all these different kinds of offenses," Carmody said. "But no matter what offense you run, someone's open four out of 10 times. What happens at the end of the day — at the end of the shot clock — is someone has the ball and has got to put the ball in the basket."

Carmody, himself a brilliant offensive strategist, ultimately believes that it is execution on the part of his players — not tactical genius — that wins basketball games.

"When we'd diagram plays, [former Princeton head coach] Butch van Breda Kolff used to ask me, 'Well, who's the X and who's the O?' " Carmody said. "It just depends on who those guys are, and you have to get players who can execute."

It is precisely that off-court ability to recruit players who are not afraid to execute — and his skill in putting them into positions to succeed on the court — that has made Carmody one of college basketball's most accomplished coaches.