Imrem: Suffer no more, Northwestern hoops fans

First the Chicago Cubs last year and now Northwestern this year.

Be still Chicago's collective heart.

If you're wondering what took Northwestern so long, we'll get to that in a moment.

First a much more compelling issue: Did Cubs fans or Northwestern fans wait longer for a mind-boggling drought to end?

The answer isn't as obvious as it seems.

The Cubs went from 1908 to 2016 without winning a World Series. Northwestern basketball went from 1939 until 5:03 Sunday afternoon without being selected to play in the NCAA Tournament.

The Wildcats had to wait until the pairings in the West, the fourth of the four regions announced, to learn officially that they are in and will play Vanderbilt on Thursday.

But who was counting the years, months, days, hours and minutes anyway?

Do the math: The Cubs went 108 years without a championship and Northwestern's 78 years without an NCAA tourney bid represent a mere blink by comparison.

So Cubs fans had to wait longer by 30 years, giving them long-suffering bragging rights, right?

Not necessarily.

The first NCAA Tournament wasn't played until 1939, reportedly in a broom closet at Northwestern of all places.

So the Wildcats never have played in the NCAA Tournament … as in not ever.

While Cubs fans waited for more than a century, Northwestern basketball fans waited essentially forever.

Never trumps 108 years, making NU fans the winning sufferers among losers.

Imagine the fans who had season tickets for decades to both Cubs and Northwestern games.

No, don't, your head would explode.

Now for what took Northwestern so long, especially since its football team ended its own drought by making it to the Rose Bowl way back in the 1995 season.

Northwestern basketball has been like the last used car on the lot, the last knickknack at a flea market, the last kid picked in a pickup game.

(I know how uncomfortable that can be. How do I know? You don't want to know how I know.)

The common belief is that it's easier to build a winner in basketball than football.

In basketball, all a coach has to do is recruit a stud or two and his team can contend in the Big Ten. In football, a coach has to recruit a village.

One reality invalidates the football-basketball theory: A football team can win with a system, like Navy beating Notre Dame with the triple-option and Northwestern competing in the Big Ten with the spread offense.

In basketball, there's no substitute for players. The Princeton offense might get lucky occasionally, but Northwestern learned under Bill Carmody that isn't the answer.

NU became a contender under Chris Collins because, as an ESPN analyst noted earlier this season, the Wildcats have three players who can play anywhere.

Presumably he meant Bryant McIntosh, Scottie Lindsey and Vic Law, and NU has at least a few more to go with them.

More recently, an analyst added that Northwestern has Big Ten athleticism.

So it's uncomplicated … the Wildcats are good because Collins recruited good, athletic players to Evanston.

Nothing is forever unless it turns out that way, and these 'Cats made sure it didn't.

The last kid waiting on the playground finally can tie his sneakers in the NCAA basketball tournament.

mimrem@dailyherald.com