Anderson - is he really the guy ?

[MakingPlays]

I view Anderson as a placeholder for whoever is coming in next.

He blew his big opportunity this year by losing the entire team from last year and replacing them with a bunch of scrubs. It's a damn shame that they're wasting Julian and Posh's last season together like this.

His recruiting has been Norm level awful. You can't win in a major conference by recruiting undervalued 2 and 3 star players and low end transfers. For every Julian you unearth there's 100s of Sears, Sorianos, Pinzons, Vince Coles etc. And his in game coaching has always been bad. We still don't run and offense and we we've been bad defensively which is supposed to be his calling card.

Not only that he was so concerned with keeping his fugazzi winning streak alive (that others around CBB laugh at because of how out of his league he is compared to the others on that list) that he gave us a cupcake schedule with few chances for big wins which we already blew. 

I just feel in a holding pattern now just waiting for the inevitable. Hopefully the 5th coach is a charm since Jarvis left and the last time we were relevant. 

This post is hilarious.  First off, you've already declared Pinzon a bust and he's been injured and only played like 6 games as a FRESHMAN.  LMAO

Next, I've never once heard CMA mention his winning streak, unless someone asks him about it, you mention it more than he ever has, you say something about it after every game.  Only people that say something about it is the broadcasters during the games to fill time, literally nobody else cares, because it's a meaningless stat and means nothing without tournament wins. 

CMA is not a perfect coach by any means, team should look better than they have and I've even said if he doesn't make tournament this year that seat probably gets warm, but you've gone 0 to 100, most of your post made absolutely no sense and based on 0 facts.
 

 

[SI1996]

To get more fans to attend, SJU needs to improve the team’s marketing, ie. start the Red Storm report when the season starts (on broadcast channels), advertise the games, have a broadcast radio presence, etc.  In addition to upgrading CA.

Just win and they will come.

Very true. I am visiting my nephew at Purdue in Jan and I got tickets from 3rd party seller. 1K a ticket for nosebleed seats and that's against Northwestern. Those Knicks tickets I got seem like a bargain now. There at least I got to yell at Wally for cutting the buffet line. 

 

[Redmen88]

Anderson has got us to "we are not a laughingstock" anymore.  We are able to beat cupcakes.  We are competitive in the BE.  We could be a fringe tournament team.  However, you are as good as your players and we are not getting top tier players, so this is what we will be relegated to.  We will be this type of team until we begin to get better players consistently.  

 

[RedmanMike]

I love the passion of our fans on this board, but any discussion about Mike Anderson not being the guy is a little ridiculous.  Not because he's a great coach (I think he's good, not great), but because we need to answer a simple question before we declare that we need to move on from Anderson.  Namely, who else are we getting that's going to be any better?

Look at our last coaching search. 

We went after Bobby Hurley first, who's not as good as Anderson and who had no interest in coming here anyway.  He just used us for an extension and raise.

Porter Moser chose to stay in the Missouri Valley Conference rather than coming here.  Ryan Odom at UMBC (who was on our radar screen because he won ONE GAME in the NCAAs) turned us down.  He ended up at Utah State.

We were in discussions with a retread like Paul Hewitt, and then with James Jones at Yale.  You want to talk about how Anderson doesn't recruit big-time talent?  Wait until you see what players those two guys would have brought in here.

Let's be realistic about where we are.  If we move on from Anderson, no big time coach is coming here.  We'd be dealing with an up and coming assistant a la Norm Roberts or a mid-major guy who would be looking for his next job the second he walked on campus.  Remember guys, Fran Fraschilla, a New York guy through and through, was looking for new jobs in his second year here - and he was coaching two McDonalds AAs at the time.  We are a lesser program now than we were then.

Mike Anderson, warts and all, is a better coach than we had a right to expect coming out of that fiasco of a coaching search three years ago.  We're not going to do much better than him anytime soon.  This team will get better, as his teams tend to do, and my guess is we'll probably be around 20-22 wins and in the Dance when its all said and done.

 

[NCJohnnie]

Redmen88 wrote:

Anderson has got us to "we are not a laughingstock" anymore.  We are able to beat cupcakes.  We are competitive in the BE.  We could be a fringe tournament team.  However, you are as good as your players and we are not getting top tier players, so this is what we will be relegated to.  We will be this type of team until we begin to get better players consistently.  

We have a top 100 four star recruit (Storr) coming in in 2022 plus a solid 3 star PG but it's been very quiet on the recruiting front lately. Does anyone hear about us being in contention for other 2022 recruits?

 

[Redmen88]

Redmen88 wrote:

Anderson has got us to "we are not a laughingstock" anymore.  We are able to beat cupcakes.  We are competitive in the BE.  We could be a fringe tournament team.  However, you are as good as your players and we are not getting top tier players, so this is what we will be relegated to.  We will be this type of team until we begin to get better players consistently.  

We have a top 100 four star recruit (Storr) coming in in 2022 plus a solid 3 star PG but it's been very quiet on the recruiting front lately. Does anyone hear about us being in contention for other 2022 recruits?

That kind of recruiting keeps us respectable but does not get us over the hump.  I am in no way saying MA should go, as I agree with the post above in looking at what the other potential candidate pool looked like.  I guess I am saying we are what we are, a mid-pack team with an occasional good year and an occasional real bad year.  We are not the SJ of the 80's.  We are mediocre and will be unless we can consistently recruit higher ranked players.  We don't need all highly ranked players but we need at least 3-4 top 100 guys to be a top tier BE team and we need to keep recruiting at this level as these top guys might only be here a few years based on transfer rules.
 

 

[beast of the east]

Beast , you saw us on TV vs Indiana.if you were a recruit would you prefer to play on our home court or theirs, packed , upgraded arena w screaming , enthusiastic  all Indiana fans?

Richard, appreciate the comment, but creating a larger, new or upgraded arena makes zero sense since what is currently our fan base here has expressed so much reticence in coming to campus under any circumstances. 

If we win, people will come.   Our facility is not a dump in any way, shape or form.   Cameron indoor stadium from what I understand is in far worse shape, yet because Duke wins, it is packed, has bleachers, and fans sit packed shoulder to shoulder.  

Our problem is not unique to St. John's.   BC basketball barely draws at all unless a Duke or UNC comes in.   A few years ago I checked, and they averaged 3500 or less when you include 2 big crowds for those types of games.    Now our problem is different.  Their teams, and others like them, have fallen greatly and not really recovered.   Our program was renewed under Lavin, and both Lavin, Mullin, and Anderson have had limited success but our fans perceive them as not good enough.

So, three tourney bids in nine years of Lavin and Mullin resulted in modest attendance bumps.   In Lavin's first year, fans really started to come out only at the tail end of that 8 game run that put us in the top 25.  When then run ended, our ticket sales declined a bit also and by the BET and NCAA game ticket interest was lower, though about 50 students and 100 fans made it to Denver.  There were less students and fans successively in Charlotte and Dayton, though fan attendance crested in Mullin's last year.

No one is doubting that winning brings fans.   The problem as it exists is that Anderson's teams have played gritty, hard nosed, compelling basketball for two full seasons and it hasn't brought fans, but should.   Our challenge is to build a strong fan base that is passionate, appreciates our brand of in your face basketball, and will come out for a pretty good product even before we get ranked.   

What I found over the past 5 years or so is that our fans on here are much more critical and negative about our teams than NY sports fans in general.   Our ticket prices in NYC are much lower than most venues - pro sports teams, broadway, Lincoln Center, concerts.  Hell, in NYC a good mixed drink costs more than $20, a glass of wine $15, yet younger people spend that all the time.   Which is all way we have to look elsewhere among our vast metro NYC population to build a fan base. 

 

 

[monte]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's way premature(probably by 2-3 years) for anyone to even suggest CMA needs to be replaced. Besides, the school is committed to him for the long term, so he's not going anywhere anytime soon. Having said that, in the last 10 years his teams have cracked the top 25 twice, and have danced three times. And while past performance is no guarantee of future results, I'm going to assume that we can expect similar results from his teams moving forward. For the school, I think that's more than acceptable; finish above .500, make the NIT most years, dance occasionally, minimal headaches. That's also acceptable to much of our fan base. For those of us who it's not acceptable to, we have 2 choices;
change our expectations and accept it,
or find another team to root for. 

 

[beast of the east]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's way premature(probably by 2-3 years) for anyone to even suggest CMA needs to be replaced. Besides, the school is committed to him for the long term, so he's not going anywhere anytime soon. Having said that, in the last 10 years his teams have cracked the top 25 twice, and have danced three times. And while past performance is no guarantee of future results, I'm going to assume that we can expect similar results from his teams moving forward. For the school, I think that's more than acceptable; finish above .500, make the NIT most years, dance occasionally, minimal headaches. That's also acceptable to much of our fan base. For those of us who it's not acceptable to, we have 2 choices;
change our expectations and accept it,
or find another team to root for. 

God grant me the serenityTo accept the things I cannot change;Courage to change the things I can;And wisdom to know the difference. 

 

[Alex9045]

To get more fans to attend, SJU needs to improve the team’s marketing, ie. start the Red Storm report when the season starts (on broadcast channels), advertise the games, have a broadcast radio presence, etc.  In addition to upgrading CA.

Just win and they will come.

Very true. I am visiting my nephew at Purdue in Jan and I got tickets from 3rd party seller. 1K a ticket for nosebleed seats and that's against Northwestern. Those Knicks tickets I got seem like a bargain now. There at least I got to yell at Wally for cutting the buffet line. 

You spent a thousand dollars a ticket for nosebleeds against NW? They're all over SeatGeek, Stubhub, VividSeats, etc for a fraction of the cost.

 

[JohnnyFan]

At the risk of over simplifying, I will say the following.

CMA knows we have not played well and is not settling.  Last game, Wheeler and Soriano were essentially benched.  I think it was a particularly strong message to Soriano who was playing against his former school/teammates.   Steph Smith has shown some flashes, but he is also not yet playing to expectation so his minutes were cut as well.  

I am not sure where we end up, but it's certainly going to be better than where we are now.  To me, as a fan, all I can do hopefully watch things develop.  In other words, I see the warts, but I remain supportive of CMA.  I believe he's the best man for this job at this time.  

 

 

[PharmDJohnnie11]

I view Anderson as a placeholder for whoever is coming in next.

He blew his big opportunity this year by losing the entire team from last year and replacing them with a bunch of scrubs. It's a damn shame that they're wasting Julian and Posh's last season together like this.

His recruiting has been Norm level awful. You can't win in a major conference by recruiting undervalued 2 and 3 star players and low end transfers. For every Julian you unearth there's 100s of Sears, Sorianos, Pinzons, Vince Coles etc. And his in game coaching has always been bad. We still don't run and offense and we we've been bad defensively which is supposed to be his calling card.

Not only that he was so concerned with keeping his fugazzi winning streak alive (that others around CBB laugh at because of how out of his league he is compared to the others on that list) that he gave us a cupcake schedule with few chances for big wins which we already blew. 

I just feel in a holding pattern now just waiting for the inevitable. Hopefully the 5th coach is a charm since Jarvis left and the last time we were relevant. 

This post is hilarious.  First off, you've already declared Pinzon a bust and he's been injured and only played like 6 games as a FRESHMAN.  LMAO

Next, I've never once heard CMA mention his winning streak, unless someone asks him about it, you mention it more than he ever has, you say something about it after every game.  Only people that say something about it is the broadcasters during the games to fill time, literally nobody else cares, because it's a meaningless stat and means nothing without tournament wins. 

CMA is not a perfect coach by any means, team should look better than they have and I've even said if he doesn't make tournament this year that seat probably gets warm, but you've gone 0 to 100, most of your post made absolutely no sense and based on 0 facts.

 

If I were you I’d start doing some research on southern mid major school basketball forums.

 

[prjohnnies]

I'm not following you there -- care to elaborate (shouldn't be a big secret unless I'm missing something).

 

[GardenCity62]

For years I must have read a hundred times that in order for SJU to increase attendance they have to start winning. The problem with that statement is it needs the word big at the end. If SJU goes 16-15 this year they will sell less tickets next year.
For SJU to increase ticket sales substantially, filling CA on a regular basis and selling fifteen thousand tickets for MSG games they need a 23-8 season with two wins at MSG vs big time opponents. Right now the roster is not capable of that type of season and the casual college basketball fan in NYC is not interested in anything less than that. Creighton can go 16-15 and sell seventeen thousand tickets but not in NYC. Unless recruiting picks up all the marketing effort in the world won’t result in big crowds.

 

[ADORAZ]

Year 3 is typically the year this is asked- it happened with both Lavin (not counting his absent year with the freshmen) and Mullin when those teams underperformed by missing the Tournament. Then year 4 came around, teams for both coaches (barely) made the Tournament but flamed out, and then they were fired. In hindsight I think Lavin was let go too early- he even had a top 30ish level recruit lined up for the next year- but fans were not willing to do a rebuild with the same staff and fewer elite recruits. Same thing happened with Mullin, but he had less of a promising recruiting outlook than Lavin did.

With CMA's contract in place through 2027 I do wonder what happens if we miss the Tournament this year. Let's say we miss it and things aren't looking too promising a year from now (next December). We'd then be in year 4 with no Tournament appearances- worse than either Lavin or Mullin- with 5 years remaining on his contract. That could potentially be disastrous for the school if there aren't any loopholes out of the contract.

All that said, I'm hopeful this topic can go away if we take care of business for the remainder of OOC play (starting with our biggest challenge on Thursday) and don't tank to start Big East play. If we beat Monmouth things would turn around VERY quickly and there would be reason for optimism again. All of this- beating the teams we're supposed to and getting off to a solid Big East start (we might be favored in 4 of our first 5 games) should be obtainable.

The most likely scenario I think would be winning 6 of our next 8 (3-0 OOC, 3-2 BE). Then we'd be 12-3 overall and back in the Tournament picture- all would be good. Let's root for that to happen.

 

[jr49]

I think some of us going out to indoor sporting event right now is not a great idea. 

 

[monte]

At the risk of over simplifying, I will say the following.

CMA knows we have not played well and is not settling.  Last game, Wheeler and Soriano were essentially benched.  I think it was a particularly strong message to Soriano who was playing against his former school/teammates.   Steph Smith has shown some flashes, but he is also not yet playing to expectation so his minutes were cut as well.  

I am not sure where we end up, but it's certainly going to be better than where we are now.  To me, as a fan, all I can do hopefully watch things develop.  In other words, I see the warts, but I remain supportive of CMA.  I believe he's the best man for this job at this time.  
 

JF seeing as your one of the more knowledgeable and level headed posters on this board, and seeing as you don't have an agenda like others on this board, let me pose this question to you:
If CMA were to do over the next 10 years here, what he has done over the last 10 years, would that be acceptable to you?

So, let's say over the next 10 years he makes the big dance 3 times, the NIT  5 times and the CBA twice, with an occasional top 25 appearance, would that be good enough for you? I'm not saying he won't do better, or possibly worse, just wanted to hear your position based on those projections. 

 

[ADORAZ]

Monte- I know that question wasn't directed at me, but it's a good one to ask. Personally I'd be on the fence and leaning towards "no", but if you asked me 2 years ago when he was hired and his previous 10 seasons consisted of 5 Tournament appearances (3 wins)/ 2 NITs and and then 11 years back would be the Elite 8, my answer would've been "yes".

For the 11 year period prior to signing with St. John's he only missed the NIT/NCAA 3 times, but with St. John's so far he is 0/2. I am one of those who thought he was a pretty good (but not great) hire at the time, but I'd have no issue admitting I was wrong a few years from now if he doesn't accomplish what he did at previous schools.

 

[bamafan]

Beast , you saw us on TV vs Indiana.if you were a recruit would you prefer to play on our home court or theirs, packed , upgraded arena w screaming , enthusiastic  all Indiana fans?

Richard, appreciate the comment, but creating a larger, new or upgraded arena makes zero sense since what is currently our fan base here has expressed so much reticence in coming to campus under any circumstances. 

If we win, people will come.   Our facility is not a dump in any way, shape or form.   Cameron indoor stadium from what I understand is in far worse shape, yet because Duke wins, it is packed, has bleachers, and fans sit packed shoulder to shoulder.  

Our problem is not unique to St. John's.   BC basketball barely draws at all unless a Duke or UNC comes in.   A few years ago I checked, and they averaged 3500 or less when you include 2 big crowds for those types of games.    Now our problem is different.  Their teams, and others like them, have fallen greatly and not really recovered.   Our program was renewed under Lavin, and both Lavin, Mullin, and Anderson have had limited success but our fans perceive them as not good enough.

So, three tourney bids in nine years of Lavin and Mullin resulted in modest attendance bumps.   In Lavin's first year, fans really started to come out only at the tail end of that 8 game run that put us in the top 25.  When then run ended, our ticket sales declined a bit also and by the BET and NCAA game ticket interest was lower, though about 50 students and 100 fans made it to Denver.  There were less students and fans successively in Charlotte and Dayton, though fan attendance crested in Mullin's last year.

No one is doubting that winning brings fans.   The problem as it exists is that Anderson's teams have played gritty, hard nosed, compelling basketball for two full seasons and it hasn't brought fans, but should.   Our challenge is to build a strong fan base that is passionate, appreciates our brand of in your face basketball, and will come out for a pretty good product even before we get ranked.   

What I found over the past 5 years or so is that our fans on here are much more critical and negative about our teams than NY sports fans in general.   Our ticket prices in NYC are much lower than most venues - pro sports teams, broadway, Lincoln Center, concerts.  Hell, in NYC a good mixed drink costs more than $20, a glass of wine $15, yet younger people spend that all the time.   Which is all way we have to look elsewhere among our vast metro NYC population to build a fan base. 


 

What sports talk shows do you listen to to make the statement our fans are much more critical and negative than NY sports fans in general? Giants, Jets, Knicks, Mets fans have pure lovefests with their teams LOL

 

[monte]

Monte- I know that question wasn't directed at me, but it's a good one to ask. Personally I'd be on the fence and leaning towards "no", but if you asked me 2 years ago when he was hired and his previous 10 seasons consisted of 5 Tournament appearances (3 wins)/ 2 NITs and and then 11 years back would be the Elite 8, my answer would've been "yes".

For the 11 year period prior to signing with St. John's he only missed the NIT/NCAA 3 times, but with St. John's so far he is 0/2. I am one of those who thought he was a pretty good (but not great) hire at the time, but I'd have no issue admitting I was wrong a few years from now if he doesn't accomplish what he did at previous schools.

Reasonable response Adam. I'm in the same boat as you for the most part. I know we had limited options when CMA was hired, and I do think he's a good coach, but at the end of the day the bar needs to be set at making the dance at least 3 out of 5 years IMO. And based on what I've seen, especially with the recruiting, that ain't gonna happen. And believe me when I tell you, I've adjusted my expectations a lot over the past 2 years. I no longer think we'll ever return to anywhere near the glory days, and I have completely given up on seeing a Final 4 ever again. Like you, I'll hope for the best and see what happens down the road. It's not like we have much of a choice at this point