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Knight said:
What has happened to the soccer team? Once NCAA Champs.
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When their top assistant and recruiter Jeff Mateo left SJU for Seton Hall, their program has not gotten the top tier athletes. In their glory days, they relied on a combination of players from England, Italy, Poland and the Caribbean with a small group of Americans. The top level players have gone elsewhere.
 
Alumni Hall said:
When their top assistant and recruiter Jeff Mateo left SJU for Seton Hall, their program has not gotten the top tier athletes. In their glory days, they relied on a combination of players from England, Italy, Poland and the Caribbean with a small group of Americans. The top level players have gone elsewhere.
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I believe that Champagne's father was on that National Championship team. I may be off by a year or two, but there were many local players on that team with Coach Masur.
 
Beasts of the East said:
I'm not so sure. I'm OK with Pitino giving the thumbs up or thumbs down, but Pitino's interest is myopic - what his program needs. This is why Shanley was convinced to build a basketball only facility and not address our overall worst in class facilities for our remaining 350 athletes. Pitino also was adamant about playing all conference games away from CA. It made no sense to put poor draws in MSG so UBS was the remaining option. When that proved to be a pretty bad arena for basketball and fan engagement, he asked to pull remaining games back to CA for a lively crowd and homecourt advantage. He had to be told these are contractual commitments that couldn't just be backed out of.

What we need and how that would work out are at present incongruent. A strong AD may likely want to dash the basketball only facility and retreat to the initial broad based plan.

For an AD to build successful teams you need a strong foundation. You need facilities to attract athletes that are comparable to other schools. You need a budget to pay for talented coaches. A friend of mine had a relationship with a top coach for a vacancy here. The coach had interest but was not worth pursuing because of salary requirements.

The likelihood is they will hire someone who is exactly what Cragg wasn't - someone who will follow administration's lead and focus primarily on basketball, while maintaining status quo on facilities and other sports. That person will work with development but raising funds will be outside the purview of the AD.

As I said, what we need and what we will probably (and should hire) is someone who does what he is told.
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Investing in other sports will not bring in more revenue. The only way to generate money to upgrade facilities for other programs is to have a powerhouse basketball program again because that is there the money is
 
don_pitino said:
Investing in other sports will not bring in more revenue. The only way to generate money to upgrade facilities for other programs is to have a powerhouse basketball program again because that is there the money is
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Of course non revenue producing sports by definition don't raise funds. But horrible facilities don't attract the best athletes either. Our paid attendance last season was poor and there was not high demand until the BET and that was all for the 200-300 tickets that they could scrounge up.

If we are to be consistently highly competitive in other D1 sports we need better facilities, period.

If you build one structure for just men's basketball now that isn't funded, when will we improve facilities for all sports. The incremental cost to build ANOTHER facility for the remaining 350 athletes would cost far more than a single all inclusive facility. As it is athletic fundraising is less than $3 million per year.

As I've stated before, the school is giving Pitino everything he is asking for, in the hopes he can build a championship caliber roster. Beyond a Mike Repole, who appears to be only interested in men's basketball, and a handful of high end NIL supporters, it remains to be seen what kind of a bump a great team will produce as compared to the cost of producing it. That's the gamble, and it not a crazy gamble, just not a sure thing.
 
Beasts of the East said:
I'm not so sure. I'm OK with Pitino giving the thumbs up or thumbs down, but Pitino's interest is myopic - what his program needs. This is why Shanley was convinced to build a basketball only facility and not address our overall worst in class facilities for our remaining 350 athletes. Pitino also was adamant about playing all conference games away from CA. It made no sense to put poor draws in MSG so UBS was the remaining option. When that proved to be a pretty bad arena for basketball and fan engagement, he asked to pull remaining games back to CA for a lively crowd and homecourt advantage. He had to be told these are contractual commitments that couldn't just be backed out of.

What we need and how that would work out are at present incongruent. A strong AD may likely want to dash the basketball only facility and retreat to the initial broad based plan.

For an AD to build successful teams you need a strong foundation. You need facilities to attract athletes that are comparable to other schools. You need a budget to pay for talented coaches. A friend of mine had a relationship with a top coach for a vacancy here. The coach had interest but was not worth pursuing because of salary requirements.

The likelihood is they will hire someone who is exactly what Cragg wasn't - someone who will follow administration's lead and focus primarily on basketball, while maintaining status quo on facilities and other sports. That person will work with development but raising funds will be outside the purview of the AD.

As I said, what we need and what we will probably (and should hire) is someone who does what he is told.
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Disagree. His standard is higher than anyone’s. He also runs our only profitable program. It is the flagship of our entire university.

The odds that someone could be amazing for basketball and bad for anything else are very low IMO.
 
Marillac2 said:
Disagree. His standard is higher than anyone’s. He also runs our only profitable program. It is the flagship of our entire university.

The odds that someone could be amazing for basketball and bad for anything else are very low IMO.
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As long as Pitino gets what he wants for his program and the AD delivers on any promises made to him, he will be happy.

We need an AD that is more than a figurehead for the basketball program who is of course looking out for the flagship program but also an advocate for the other programs to get them on competitive grounds and not just so we can maintain our D1 classification.
 
SJU85 said:
As long as Pitino gets what he wants for his program and the AD delivers on any promises made to him, he will be happy.

We need an AD that is more than a figurehead for the basketball program who is of course looking out for the flagship program but also an advocate for the other programs to get them on competitive grounds and not just so we can maintain our D1 classification.
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Very well said. I hope that person gets the monetary and human resources and autonomy to do as you stated.
 
Knight said:
What has happened to the soccer team? Once NCAA Champs.
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What has happened to the one time national powerhouse StJ’s men’s soccer team?

Likely lack of funding.

Read my prior post that explained when the StJ’s lacrosse team was searching for a coach I called Cragg and informed him that a coach who had won one or more D1 lacrosse NCAA National championships had passing interest in the StJ’s job. Cragg explained that although he would have love to hire the coach StJ’s low end budget would not allow it.

The point being that those critical of Cragg should understand that the StJ’s AD is under tremendous financial constraints; their failures caused not necessarily by not knowing what to do, but by finances that prevent them from doing what they wanted to do.
 
JohnnyFan said:
How Oliva has remained influential over all this time is both perplexing and impressive. I was hoping Shanley would sideline him from Athletics decision-making, but I guess not.
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Maybe he keeps threatening to release the PeePee tape from the Pittsburgh scandal!
 
otis said:
What has happened to the one time national powerhouse StJ’s men’s soccer team?

Likely lack of funding.

Read my prior post that explained when the StJ’s lacrosse team was searching for a coach I called Cragg and informed him that a coach who had won one or more D1 lacrosse NCAA National championships had passing interest in the StJ’s job. Cragg explained that although he would have love to hire the coach StJ’s low end budget would not allow it.

The point being that those critical of Cragg should understand that the StJ’s AD is under tremendous financial constraints; their failures caused not necessarily by not knowing what to do, but by finances that prevent them from doing what they wanted to do.
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It's not the coaching but not being able to compete for players. Especially now with NIL being a big factor.

P.S. as AH stated our recruiting is below par!
 
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otis said:
What has happened to the one time national powerhouse StJ’s men’s soccer team?

Likely lack of funding.

Read my prior post that explained when the StJ’s lacrosse team was searching for a coach I called Cragg and informed him that a coach who had won one or more D1 lacrosse NCAA National championships had passing interest in the StJ’s job. Cragg explained that although he would have love to hire the coach StJ’s low end budget would not allow it.

The point being that those critical of Cragg should understand that the StJ’s AD is under tremendous financial constraints; their failures caused not necessarily by not knowing what to do, but by finances that prevent them from doing what they wanted to do.
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At. John’s should be with the talent available in this and surrounding areas, a great spot for a good competitive Lacrosse program. But you have to put the resources into in order to make it happen.
 
Beasts of the East said:
Of course non revenue producing sports by definition don't raise funds. But horrible facilities don't attract the best athletes either. Our paid attendance last season was poor and there was not high demand until the BET and that was all for the 200-300 tickets that they could scrounge up.

If we are to be consistently highly competitive in other D1 sports we need better facilities, period.

If you build one structure for just men's basketball now that isn't funded, when will we improve facilities for all sports. The incremental cost to build ANOTHER facility for the remaining 350 athletes would cost far more than a single all inclusive facility. As it is athletic fundraising is less than $3 million per year.

As I've stated before, the school is giving Pitino everything he is asking for, in the hopes he can build a championship caliber roster. Beyond a Mike Repole, who appears to be only interested in men's basketball, and a handful of high end NIL supporters, it remains to be seen what kind of a bump a great team will produce as compared to the cost of producing it. That's the gamble, and it not a crazy gamble, just not a sure thing.
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Sju is really known for their basketball program and baseball program. The basketball team is the one that makes the most money . When you think sju you think basketball when you think Alabama you think football when you think UConn you think basketball , let's face Rick has us on the right path. You can't produce good vegetables with bad seeds Rick is planting good seeds .
 
mjmaherjr said:
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I know it is only a video but I always questioned what the kid was doing in the Casino. Now looking at it, he appears to be outside of it in front of the entrance.

And I don’t care if it is Bono, I’d have a big problem with him jumping onto and laying down on the hood of my Jag.
 
njfan said:
Sju is really known for their basketball program and baseball program. The basketball team is the one that makes the most money . When you think sju you think basketball when you think Alabama you think football when you think UConn you think basketball , let's face Rick has us on the right path. You can't produce good vegetables with bad seeds Rick is planting good seeds .
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I think getting the Soccer Team on par with Bball and baseball is a critical element for the University. Soccer has blown up during the last decade in America and whenever I speak to in the know Soccer fans they do acknowledge that SJU had a decent program.
 
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