The Wildcats have been thin on the court all season, using only eight players in their rotation. And now they appear to be getting dangerously thin on the bench.
Northwestern coach Bill Carmody said Monday that freshman forward Casey Cortez left the team Jan. 12, three days before fellow freshman forward Harry Good also left the program. Carmody said both players cited personal reasons.
Players have a two-week appeal period to challenge the university over the terms of their departures, an NU spokesman said. That period ends Friday for Cortez and Monday for Good.
Because of the appeal period, Carmody said he has only one scholarship to offer for next year. That could change if either player decides not to appeal.
“Both have left the team,” said Carmody, who added that both are still at NU. “It isn’t done yet. They still have a chance to appeal these things if they care to, but they’ve left for personal reasons.”
Cortez and Good declined to comment.
Cortez had been labeled as “suspended” until Carmody confirmed his departure Monday. The freshman missed a team meal before NU’s first game against Purdue on Jan. 6 and has not dressed for a game since.
Neither player made large contributions on the court. Good played only four minutes in two games all season, and Cortez saw 11 minutes on the floor in six games.
NU now has only 10 players available — freshman guard Drew Long is academically ineligible for the year — and guards Jitim Young and Ed McCants and forward Patrick Towne are the lone remnants of the six freshmen that started the year on the team.
Towne said he and Cortez are good friends, and that he was disappointed when Cortez left the team. No one holds Cortez’s departure against him, Towne said.
“(Good) had personal reasons why he wanted to leave,” Towne said. “Other things were conflicts off the court. There were plenty of reasons why he wanted to leave, and I think he just finally realized he’d be happier not with basketball right now.”
TALL ORDER: With the departure of Good and Cortez, the Cats have only two players taller than 6-foot-6. Junior center Tavaras Hardy stands at 6-foot-7, and sophomore center Aaron Jennings is listed at 6-foot-11.
Since the Big Ten season began, the two have played together much more, with stronger conference competition forcing the coaching staff’s hand.
“With the Big Ten having so many big players and us being so small, to be able to compete sometimes they’ll have to play together,” assistant coach Craig Robinson said. “It just evolved rather than being a predetermined idea that we had. Aaron’s been playing well offensively, and we needed a little spark on offense, and Tavaras isn’t doing anything to be taken out.”
But Jennings remains the Cats’ sixth man despite starting last season and part of this campaign. Carmody said bringing Jennings in as a starter and moving Hardy back to power forward — where he played earlier this year — was an option, but not a necessary one.
The two began the year in the starting lineup with ugly results, namely the 53-43 season-opening loss to Arkansas-Little Rock.
“I don’t care so long as they get the minutes,” Carmody said. “The other day Aaron would have played a lot of minutes if he hadn’t fouled out (with more than nine minutes to play).
“They started the first game, remember, and the first game was a disaster.”
