Anderson - is he really the guy ?

[beast of the east]

Regarding Lavin, I've said it before that as a world-class procrastinator, I can immediately spot another world-class procrastinator. But the major problem was that I think he had other stuff going on in his personal life so he wasn't even 100 percent focused on recruiting even at the 11th hour.

I can't even remember everyone from Lavin's staff, but I'm sure if you swapped some guys out for better ones the Mullin era may not have happened. Then again, that whole thing with Bobby G. falling in love with the idea of Mullin may have been too much to overcome. But maybe someone should have told Bobby G. to tell Mullin it was a 12-month gig beforehand.

This comment (about swapping) made me think.  How about........

Head Coach:  Mike Anderson
Associate Head Coach:  Mike Dunlap
Asst Coach:  Van Macon
Asst. Coach:  Matt A.
Dir. Basktball Operations:  Chris Huey

Obviously, with no games being played, just wishful dreaming. 

I don't see anything wrong with Anderson's current staff that should make you wish for something different.

I do not recall any speculation of him being fired during his last season here.    Once the team started playing well, D'Angelo Harrison was one of I believe 18 nominated for the Wooden award, and we were touted as having the potential to go deep into the tournament.   Harrison's injury cooled the team off, and the Obekpa suspension coupled with the very short bench raised a lot of concerns over his commitment to winning.

My take on Lavs is that he is a California guy and personality.   He never exhibited outward frustration about losing, and it was mistaken as not really caring one way or another, and being satisfied with mediocrity.    He quite well may have been okay with being a good team and not a great one, but I wouldn't go by his outward demeanor.

Very late in the season I had a conversation with someone who had authority to hire or fire him, and that person simply said, "I don't know what we are going to do with Lavin.  IT's a tough call."

I heard rumblings that they offered him a pay cut to stay on, and he refused that.  It serves no purpose to substantiate that at this point, but it does support the notion that going in another direction was not an easy decision.   The thinking there was that for $2 million per, he had to do better than he had.

 

[SJU Double Alumn]

 

I do not recall any speculation of him being fired during his last season here.    Once the team started playing well, D'Angelo Harrison was one of I believe 18 nominated for the Wooden award, and we were touted as having the potential to go deep into the tournament.   Harrison's injury cooled the team off, and the Obekpa suspension coupled with the very short bench raised a lot of concerns over his commitment to winning.

My take on Lavs is that he is a California guy and personality.   He never exhibited outward frustration about losing, and it was mistaken as not really caring one way or another, and being satisfied with mediocrity.    He quite well may have been okay with being a good team and not a great one, but I wouldn't go by his outward demeanor.

Very late in the season I had a conversation with someone who had authority to hire or fire him, and that person simply said, "I don't know what we are going to do with Lavin.  IT's a tough call."

I heard rumblings that they offered him a pay cut to stay on, and he refused that.  It serves no purpose to substantiate that at this point, but it does support the notion that going in another direction was not an easy decision.   The thinking there was that for $2 million per, he had to do better than he had.

He only had one year remaining on his contract. Just about any coach with only one year remaining who doesn't get an extension is considered on the hot seat. It was apparent that St. John's was unsure about bringing him back, which is enough to make recruiting a massive challenge.

In hindsight, we would have been better off keeping him. It would have maintained stability and slowed the coaching carousel at St. John's and avoided the Mullin mistake. We should have extended him three years and given him two more recruiting cycles to see if things improved.

I never got any sense that he was ok with losing or that he came across that way. He sure did show excitement and pride for his players when they won.

 

[beast of the east]

 

I do not recall any speculation of him being fired during his last season here.    Once the team started playing well, D'Angelo Harrison was one of I believe 18 nominated for the Wooden award, and we were touted as having the potential to go deep into the tournament.   Harrison's injury cooled the team off, and the Obekpa suspension coupled with the very short bench raised a lot of concerns over his commitment to winning.

My take on Lavs is that he is a California guy and personality.   He never exhibited outward frustration about losing, and it was mistaken as not really caring one way or another, and being satisfied with mediocrity.    He quite well may have been okay with being a good team and not a great one, but I wouldn't go by his outward demeanor.

Very late in the season I had a conversation with someone who had authority to hire or fire him, and that person simply said, "I don't know what we are going to do with Lavin.  IT's a tough call."

I heard rumblings that they offered him a pay cut to stay on, and he refused that.  It serves no purpose to substantiate that at this point, but it does support the notion that going in another direction was not an easy decision.   The thinking there was that for $2 million per, he had to do better than he had.

He only had one year remaining on his contract. Just about any coach with only one year remaining who doesn't get an extension is considered on the hot seat. It was apparent that St. John's was unsure about bringing him back, which is enough to make recruiting a massive challenge.

In hindsight, we would have been better off keeping him. It would have maintained stability and slowed the coaching carousel at St. John's and avoided the Mullin mistake. We should have extended him three years and given him two more recruiting cycles to see if things improved.

I never got any sense that he was ok with losing or that he came across that way. He sure did show excitement and pride for his players when they won.

I appreciate your comments, but I was offering my opinion, just that decision makers were on the fence about him as the season winded down.   I don't recall him making this an issue in terms of hampering his recruiting, else they could have done what schools do - extended someone with no contract guarantees.   I believe that is speculation on your part regarding his recruiting being hampered by not being extended.   

A big criticism from those around the school is that Lavin was rarely on campus.  I personally could not care less about where he ate dinner. 

Being that he left us with so little when he left, it's very likely year 6 would have been a very bad season, and I think that factored into the decision to release him.  

Lavin did immediately restore our program to respectability, recruited very well initially, and deserves credit for that.    

 

[SLYFOXX1968]

Lavin got a lot out of Norm’s players that Norm didn’t .   They were mostly all 4 year players  and Hardy had a monster year !    He gets kudos for that season .    After that his results were mediocre with Players he recruited .  Losing Harkless after his 1 and done hurt badly .  But , that’s todays game .    To be honest , Lavin wasn’t the best in game Coach and this Board constantly mentioned that . Perhaps his supporters have forgotten that .    He was a great supporter for St John’s and still shows his Redmen Pride as a TV guy .  But , in the end , he didn’t get kids that Seton Hall got for whatever reason . Delgado , Desi, etc     By the time , his contract only has a year left , I think he had enough of NY living and hanging around Manhattan with Keady , sipping Maker’s Mark .  Obepka and Jordan , very good players kind of disrupted things a lot .     I think he wanted back to Calif and quick entry to the Broadcast Booth . He made his Millions here as Coach . 

 

[mjmaherjr]

I still will never understand the Lavin not on campus thing ( not you beast people told you that from the school ). Was he on campus as much as CMA ? I highly doubt it but my friends brother in law was the team manager and he would pick Lavin up in the city and drive him to campus and he was there. Arbitello used to say Lavin never went to CTK but that wasn’t true. I know who drove him there. I think Panther had even mentioned he saw Lavin at CTK. Water under the bridge but I think certain people whether in the school or Arbitello had an agenda 

 

[SJU Double Alumn]

 He only had one year remaining on his contract. Just about any coach with only one year remaining who doesn't get an extension is considered on the hot seat. It was apparent that St. John's was unsure about bringing him back, which is enough to make recruiting a massive challenge.

In hindsight, we would have been better off keeping him. It would have maintained stability and slowed the coaching carousel at St. John's and avoided the Mullin mistake. We should have extended him three years and given him two more recruiting cycles to see if things improved.

I never got any sense that he was ok with losing or that he came across that way. He sure did show excitement and pride for his players when they won.

I appreciate your comments, but I was offering my opinion, just that decision makers were on the fence about him as the season winded down.   I don't recall him making this an issue in terms of hampering his recruiting, else they could have done what schools do - extended someone with no contract guarantees.   I believe that is speculation on your part regarding his recruiting being hampered by not being extended.   

A big criticism from those around the school is that Lavin was rarely on campus.  I personally could not care less about where he ate dinner. 

Being that he left us with so little when he left, it's very likely year 6 would have been a very bad season, and I think that factored into the decision to release him.  

Lavin did immediately restore our program to respectability, recruited very well initially, and deserves credit for that.    

He left so little because three of his recruits, all of whom turned out to be pretty good players, de-committed after he was fired. Year 6 would not have been great but your guessing that it would have been very bad is just that- guessing.

If you think the uncertainty as to whether the coach recruiting you will actually be your coach doesn't hamper recruiting, I don't know how I could explain that to you.

 

[SJU Double Alumn]

Lavin got a lot out of Norm’s players that Norm didn’t .   They were mostly all 4 year players  and Hardy had a monster year !    He gets kudos for that season .    After that his results were mediocre with Players he recruited .  Losing Harkless after his 1 and done hurt badly .  But , that’s todays game .    To be honest , Lavin wasn’t the best in game Coach and this Board constantly mentioned that . Perhaps his supporters have forgotten that .    He was a great supporter for St John’s and still shows his Redmen Pride as a TV guy .  But , in the end , he didn’t get kids that Seton Hall got for whatever reason . Delgado , Desi, etc     By the time , his contract only has a year left , I think he had enough of NY living and hanging around Manhattan with Keady , sipping Maker’s Mark .  Obepka and Jordan , very good players kind of disrupted things a lot .     I think he wanted back to Calif and quick entry to the Broadcast Booth . He made his Millions here as Coach . 

I think his cancer experience and recovery set him back with recruiting. There is only so much you can do when going through that. I think he did the best he could during that time and he deserved more time to get back to full energy and a full speed recruiting than St. John's gave him.

 

[stjohnschris]

I consider SJU lucky to have Anderson, given the state of the program and the available people when we were looking for a head coach.  Everything is a step up from where we've been in the past 10 years.  Yes, there have been in-game coaching mistakes that we'd rather not endure, but the bigger picture of recruiting, coaching, and the face and vibe of the program are better than we've had in a long time.

 

[NCJohnnie]

I had very mixed feelings about Lav at the end of his stint here as his last couple of teams seemed to underachieve and was (wrongly) optimistic with the Mullin hire. In retrospect, there is no doubt that Lavin was a good hire in that he brought us back to instant credibility from the depths of irrelevance. He was 92-72 here with 2 NCAA appearances, 3 times winning 20 or more games and had us in the top 20 during 2 of his 5 years here finishing #18 in his first year. Plus he continues to be a big time booster of the school every chance he gets on TV.  Good guy who is probably better in the announcer's booth but coaching record here and at UCLA nothing to be ashamed of.

 

[mjmaherjr]

And I should probably preface everything I’ve said in this thread that there is literally nothing more in my St. John’s world then want to see CMA succeed abs be here for the next 10 years because he is a person of unquestionable character and someone we can always be proud of. Let’s make a run this year so we can all be universally happy

 

[beast of the east]

I had very mixed feelings about Lav at the end of his stint here as his last couple of teams seemed to underachieve and was (wrongly) optimistic with the Mullin hire. In retrospect, there is no doubt that Lavin was a good hire in that he brought us back to instant credibility from the depths of irrelevance. He was 92-72 here with 2 NCAA appearances, 3 times winning 20 or more games and had us in the top 20 during 2 of his 5 years here finishing #18 in his first year. Plus he continues to be a big time booster of the school every chance he gets on TV.  Good guy who is probably better in the announcer's booth but coaching record here and at UCLA nothing to be ashamed of.

To be completely fair, winning is the only thing that matters.   If Lavin won the NCAA game 1 in year 5, If Mullin won the play in game and maybe 1 more game, neither would have been let go.   Everything else is garbage and fodder for fans to chat about.   For that matter, if Norm won a couple of NIT games his final season, he probably would have been back.   Winning and losing in the end, is all that matters for a coach.

 

[BrooklynRed]

I had very mixed feelings about Lav at the end of his stint here.........  Good guy who is probably better in the announcer's booth but coaching record here and at UCLA nothing to be ashamed of.

I have similar feelings, some folks just are a natural behind the mike.  Some come quickly to mind--Dick Vitale had limited coaching success but has become a media icon as has Lee "Not So Fast" Corso on the ESPN College Game Day and great coach and greater TV persona-John Madden.  I enjoy Lavin on TV.

One of the greatest things he did as Our Coach was to suspend D'Angelo near the end of his sophomore year because of his anger issues and tell him to go pro, transfer or work on his problems which turned out to be a summer with John Lucas which turned D's life around.  If only he could have done the same with Rysheed Jordan.

 

[SJU Double Alumn]

I consider SJU lucky to have Anderson, given the state of the program and the available people when we were looking for a head coach.  Everything is a step up from where we've been in the past 10 years.  Yes, there have been in-game coaching mistakes that we'd rather not endure, but the bigger picture of recruiting, coaching, and the face and vibe of the program are better than we've had in a long time.

100% agree, which is why I hope people here stop calling for replacing him regardless of what happens this year. Give Anderson time and he will have the team in good shape. We need to stop changing coaches every 5 years.

 

[beast of the east]

I had very mixed feelings about Lav at the end of his stint here.........  Good guy who is probably better in the announcer's booth but coaching record here and at UCLA nothing to be ashamed of.

I have similar feelings, some folks just are a natural behind the mike.  Some come quickly to mind--Dick Vitale had limited coaching success but has become a media icon as has Lee "Not So Fast" Corso on the ESPN College Game Day and great coach and greater TV persona-John Madden.  I enjoy Lavin on TV.

One of the greatest things he did as Our Coach was to suspend D'Angelo near the end of his sophomore year because of his anger issues and tell him to go pro, transfer or work on his problems which turned out to be a summer with John Lucas which turned D's life around.  If only he could have done the same with Rysheed Jordan.

Bobby Knight lists 3 NYC area coaches as most formative in mentoring him to become the coach that he became.   The one he held in absolute reverence, was Joe Lapchick.  When he asked Lapchick about rules for his players. Lapchick replied, "There's only one important rule for you to know, and that is there are no rules."  Puzzled, Knight probed further.   Lapchick explained that every kid is different and you cannot apply one set of rules to the entire team but to treat each kid and each circumstance as different.   Lapchick argue that if you have a set of rules, and a kid commits a transgression, you may have no choice but to deal him a consequence that is ill advised and detrimental to a kid.

I think Lavin knew that if he tried to restrict Jordan from not going home to see his mom or visit his friends, that Jordan would be gone.    Jordan is not Harrison. The suspension he dealt to Harrison woke him up as his basketball future was hanging by a thread.   D'Angelo's grandmother was so concerned that she flew to NY and met with Lavin.    Jordan apparently has none of that in terms of parental oversight.    I believe Lavin did the best he could to try to deal with Jordan, and in the end, it wasn't good enough.  I'm not sure if anyone would have gotten through to Rysheed. 

 

[fuchsia]

Some of what you are addressing can be understood in terms of "attachment theory".

http://www.psychology.sunysb.edu/attachment/online/inge_origins.pdf

 

[mjmaherjr]

Agree with Beasts last post completely 

 

[beast of the east]

Some of what you are addressing can be understood in terms of "attachment theory".

http://www.psychology.sunysb.edu/attachment/online/inge_origins.pdf

Thanks for injecting reason and healthcare into this discussion.   I have three children, and found they are vastly different in many respects.   Children respond differently to the same stimulus, definitely to the same parenting.  What one finds acceptable, another could find oppressing.   Some obstacles crush individuals, others find a way around them.   It isn't a matter of one individual being more capable or better, it is what is crippling to one person, may not be for another.   However, the points of this article are well taken.   It's why nuclear families are so important in my opinion. 

 

[otis]

  Jordan apparently has none of that in terms of parental oversight.    I believe Lavin did the best he could to try to deal with Jordan, and in the end, it wasn't good enough.  I'm not sure if anyone would have gotten through to Rysheed. 

_____
 1. Unfortunately the events in Rysheed's life are not as unusual as some may think.   

2.  There is a reason why (per Rivals and  Rysheed as a 5*did not receive a single offer from a single Philadelphia area college, and received only 6 offers.

 

[NCJohnnie]

My strong recollection on Rysheed is he was choosing between UCLA, Temple & us.

 

[panther2]

I still will never understand the Lavin not on campus thing ( not you beast people told you that from the school ). Was he on campus as much as CMA ? I highly doubt it but my friends brother in law was the team manager and he would pick Lavin up in the city and drive him to campus and he was there. Arbitello used to say Lavin never went to CTK but that wasn’t true. I know who drove him there. I think Panther had even mentioned he saw Lavin at CTK. Water under the bridge but I think certain people whether in the school or Arbitello had an agenda 
 

I went to CTK on more than one occasion with Coach Lavin. Arbitello was being dishonest and fed negative stories to Zach. During Lavin's tenure, CTK did not produce any players who had successful college careers in a high major conference. Omar Calhoun was supposed to be that guy, but flamed out at UCONN.

Just my opinion, we would have been better off extending Lavin for two more years. Obekpa and Jordan would probably have returned. He also had decent recruits coming in. In January of Lavin's last year, some representatives of St johns were already making overtures to Mullin. This was an ass backwards way of doing thins and it definitely set the program back. I was in LA when I heard what was going on. You can bet that other schools and recruits heard that knew that the administration was looking to fire Lavin.

As for Obekpa and marijuana, there are  68 teams that qualify and if each team has 15 players, for a total of 1,020 players. I just can't see how out of 1,020 college basketball players, Obekpa was the only one who tested positive for marijuana. Just a lil something to think about.