[quote="MJDinkins" post=277415][quote="Mike Zaun" post=277361]My apologies guys if my post was taken as comparing Mullin and Wright as if it's fair. My point was that you can see when you have a good coach...you can see the progress clearly with player development. Nova got a few 3 stars and yes many 4 stars, but it's deceiving. They seem to get many ranked from 75-150 which may still qualify as 4 star recruits but they are closer to the 3/4 border than 5. Yes Spellman was a 5 star...but let's be real. We had a 5 star in Jordan and he wasn't anything special as a freshman. If we get a highly ranked player and they don't perform right away, what do we say overall? Oh well, he's just a freshman he needs time. Meanwhile, other coaches are getting similarly ranked players to buy into systems and succeed from day 1 without any excuses or drama. It just seems like we tolerate way more than other fanbases. Just my opinion but always interested to see others.
I agree Mullin was left with nothing, but next year I would hope the staff truly gets fair judgement by the stats and W/L record...not emotions. We have to separate Chris Mullin the lovable player and best player in our history from Chris Mullin the coach. I feel I've been able to do that which has allowed me to be more objective I think. Look at a coach like Wojo at Marquette. He still has a pretty good record at 72-58 but Marquette fans want more and rightfully so. Many of their fans openly question if they should go in another direction at coach. Coach Mullin is 38-60 and it seems like there's a lot of resistance to even entertain the notion that he may not be the man for the job we had hoped. My point is that we need standards. By the way, I'm no Lavin lover...he was rightfully fired IMO but the Mullin hire may end up being worse and we have gone from mediocre/solid to being DePaul's cousin. Does he deserve more time? Absolutely...but he better make it happen next year, because once Ponds is gone who is the major recruit filling his spot? The Duke and Nova games were so much fun to bask in this year, but can't lose focus of the overall trajectory of the program. Maybe I'm a bit premature, who knows? But I would expect others to be much more dissatisfied if we can't get it done next year. I will still root like crazy even if we get 0 bigs.[/quote]
Dude, Rysheed Jordan was on the Big East All-Rookie team. I don't know if that constitutes special, but it sure as hell doesn't mean it wasn't special as you stated.[/quote]
Jordan was by no means a terrible player. But look back at his numbers. He was nothing special his freshman year. If he made the All-Rookie team it must've been a weak class but I don't remember the others. 41% FG 27% 3PT 66% FT 9.7 PPG. That is definitely not what you'd expect from a 5 star player even out of the gate. What I'm trying to say is that it's not as simple as recruiting. You need good coaches to see talent where others don't, get them to commit, coach them up over 4 years, and get some continuity. That's how you win consistently. Villanova is not really a recruiting powerhouse. But if you think even mentioning Wright is unfair, how about Willard and Cooley? They both make the NCAA's consistently, coach players up every year, and have continuity. Obviously Willard loses a lot now and is shady, but there's absolutely no reason St. John's cannot at worst match what these programs have done. That's all I'm trying to say.
Anyway, why does it seem like we are struggling so much to bring transfer bigs here? I know recruits are probably turned off by our record in recent years, but now we have tons of PT available and we can sell ourselves as a win-now team just missing some size. You'd think you can find plenty of options in the MAAC, A-10, etc. who want to move up in exposure and competitiveness while getting tons of PT.
