The way the smoke hung from the ceiling gave the place a special atmosphere. Remember seeing Lenny Wilkins get the MVP for leading Providence to a holiday festival win. It wasn't just fans of the teams showing up. Guys who liked to bet games, loved the college hoops action and wanted to be there.
Apology
- Thread starter danfog
- Start date
beast of the east
Active member
How many analogies do you have in your arsenal?
It's not an apology whatsoever. All I am saying is that after watching a few games, I thought that at best we would be a hopeful at large team. I think it was you who took me to task for predicting (when asked) 8-11 wins, which wasn't a prediction (I'd agree) but more of an assessment that I thought we at worst (barring injuries of which there haven't been any), we'd win one less than .500, and at best 2 more than .500. At best 11-7 would put us on the bubble. Was fifth place finish the Big East coaches poll (not sure, I'm asking). Fifth place would either be 9-9 or 10-8. I liked our teams chances, but its a flawed team, and pretty inconsistent offensively.
They did learn from the coach. But as we have all witnessed in life, there is a difference between the classroom and the real world. To say that you do not learn anything from others is completely incorrect. How many times have we witnessed Pro teams bringing in veteran players to a young team to show them how to compose themselves on the court or to show them how to win games.
If our Juniors would have played with the D.J Kennedy team I believe we would of won the Penn State, Depaul and Providence games, and at least one of the games with 'cuse and 'nova. The difference in those games was not knowing how to finish games, we outplayed all those teams.
How many analogies do you have in your arsenal?
It's not an apology whatsoever. All I am saying is that after watching a few games, I thought that at best we would be a hopeful at large team. I think it was you who took me to task for predicting (when asked) 8-11 wins, which wasn't a prediction (I'd agree) but more of an assessment that I thought we at worst (barring injuries of which there haven't been any), we'd win one less than .500, and at best 2 more than .500. At best 11-7 would put us on the bubble. Was fifth place finish the Big East coaches poll (not sure, I'm asking). Fifth place would either be 9-9 or 10-8. I liked our teams chances, but its a flawed team, and pretty inconsistent offensively.
Agree with the flawed team and inconsistent offense references for sure.
beast of the east
Active member
How many analogies do you have in your arsenal?
It's not an apology whatsoever. All I am saying is that after watching a few games, I thought that at best we would be a hopeful at large team. I think it was you who took me to task for predicting (when asked) 8-11 wins, which wasn't a prediction (I'd agree) but more of an assessment that I thought we at worst (barring injuries of which there haven't been any), we'd win one less than .500, and at best 2 more than .500. At best 11-7 would put us on the bubble. Was fifth place finish the Big East coaches poll (not sure, I'm asking). Fifth place would either be 9-9 or 10-8. I liked our teams chances, but its a flawed team, and pretty inconsistent offensively.
Agree with the flawed team and inconsistent offense references for sure.
Finally agree on something!
Serious question, at any point in his four years here have you ever heard or seen one of our players, an opposing player, an opposing coach, a former player/coach, an announcer, an analyst in the studio, or a reporter compliment coach Lavin on the things he does in practice or the decisions he makes during games?
I'm sure it's happened, but the fact that all of us probably need to think very hard to come up with an example... that in itself is very telling.
Yes! After the 'Nova loss, Gus Johnson said, and I paraphrase here, that you know Lavin will have these guys ready and will motivate them. Now, that didn't happen for the X game, but I thought that was a compliment. And on a recent Red Storm Report, JaKarr attributed the team's recent success to Lavin's motivation and keeping things positive. This kind of thing is not always clearly visible on the court, whether during practice or during a game, but it's obviously there, just based on JaKarr's observations.
Moose
Well-known member
That's the problem I'm seeing though. I keep hearing quotes, cliches and motivational things. Rarely do I hear X and O things out of him or others when speaking of him. We all know its his weakness. Watch some other coaches give interviews. Especially during halftime or right after the game. They speak in technical terms. Break down game. And do it succinctly and not rambling for 2 minutes. He's a motivator and no doubt he can probably rally the troops (last 2 games excluded) but I'd like to see more 'basketball' breakdown.
Yep. Lavin is what he is. You described his strengths, which I believe also translates into him being an excellent recruiter. And you also described his weakness, which translates into what we see on the court. And that's where we miss Dunlap.
Any other game you watch and you'll hear the announcers say "When we were at practice yesterday Cal had the guys doing this drill where _____"
"Buzz has his entire team do 2-1 rebounding drills for an hour to start every practice .... and it shows, because as we've seen tonight his guards rebound as well as most bigs in this league" And I could go on. When people observe practices with good coaches, they walk away genuinely impressed, I've never heard anyone say that about Lavin.
And the best strategic decision I think he made during a game this season was switching to zone against Bucknell in the second half. That was big, and paid huge dividends. But in most "coachable" situations, plays coming out of a timeout or on an in-bound, our conversion rate is pathetic.
At the end of the day its possible his recruiting prowess more than makes up for his weaknesses. That's a debate for another day. But it's painfully obvious to anyone who does understand basketball, that coach isn't comfortable talking actual basketball. He's comfortable talking about the human condition, human interest stories, motivational tactics, and cliches.
Moose
Well-known member
I watch a lot of college hoops. I've never heard a coach talk less about actual basketball. I get that the staff has assignments. But a HC needs to be involved in everything. Of course you play to your strengths. And I believe Rico is the Associate HC. He's never had a coaching job prior to SJU.
IMO, there never was and never will be a reason to apologize on a message board for expressing the way you feel unless one steps over the bounds of common decency or the rules as they have been set up by Paul. We post emotional reactions and opinions and nothing more. There is no right or wrong; I disagree with 90% of what Marillac posts but have tremendous respect for his passion and his obvious devotion to the program. Doesn't make me right and him wrong, just different ways to look at the most subjective and emotional of pastimes. This is not real life, this is a break from it.