Coaching Staff

M

ManhattAn1

Active member
This quite possibly may be one of the worst coaching staffs in Division 1 Basketball.

There are no adjustments made, we play 1 on 1 and chuck shots up the whole game. Numerous times Seth Davis said we may have individual talent but do not play as a team. Five games in no adjustments have been made. Lovett misses a selfish dunk, take him out.

It is extremely concerning that we have barely any Division 1 Coaching experience on this team as well.

I for 1 am not enamored with Mullin as I was not of age during his greatness. I look at him by progress and X&O's and I have seen absolutely nothing from him or Richmond that would make me they have any chance of succeeding in the future.

St. Jean looks like a psycho on the sidelines and that needs to be addressed.

Matt A is the only one who is doing a successful job.

I do not see the light at the end of the tunnel when ourcoaching staff is pathetic.
 
St. John's didn't hire Chris Mullin because he was a great coach. They hired him because they think he can become one. If you're willing to write him off completely now than be just as willing to kiss his feet when he gets this thing going.
 
So far I have been very underwhelmed by Mullin's in game coaching. My feeling is his style is more suited for the NBA. However in college, coaches need to coach and manage the game. Still early and he did start from scratch with this roster but I'm not sure the college game is for him.
 
This quite possibly may be one of the worst coaching staffs in Division 1 Basketball.

There are no adjustments made, we play 1 on 1 and chuck shots up the whole game. Numerous times Seth Davis said we may have individual talent but do not play as a team. Five games in no adjustments have been made. Lovett misses a selfish dunk, take him out.

It is extremely concerning that we have barely any Division 1 Coaching experience on this team as well.

I for 1 am not enamored with Mullin as I was not of age during his greatness. I look at him by progress and X&O's and I have seen absolutely nothing from him or Richmond that would make me they have any chance of succeeding in the future.

St. Jean looks like a psycho on the sidelines and that needs to be addressed.

Matt A is the only one who is doing a successful job.

I do not see the light at the end of the tunnel when ourcoaching staff is pathetic.
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So you think our coach looks like a psycho? How should it be addressed? Should we take his white board away? You are not enamored with Chris Mullin? Well that may lead to your being blocked by Fun on BidEastBoards. He has a huge man crush on Chris.
But seriously, this is St. John's and we use the Osmosis Method when hiring coaches. It was first used with the hiring of Brian Mahoney. Our parochial brain trusts decided that just sitting next to Lou Carnesecca was qualification enough even though he got fired after 3 seasons at his alma mater. Then there was Norm Roberts. It was assumed just sitting near Bill Self made him a "home run" hire. Then comes Chris Mullin. Just being the NBA made him the savior even though he showed no interest in coaching until he became eligible for AARP.
So, stop being nasty Buck! This is the way it is at St. John's. Unlike some geniuses here I said from day one that the only way Mullin was going to win was with 4 or 5 star talent from the 1 through 5 positions. To his credit I think even he knows that and knows he is only two 4 star players away from becoming a coach whose player's talent make him look like a Division 1 Hall of Fame coach like another similar coach...John Clueless Calipari.
 
Speaking of man crushes and St. Jean as we gathered the extended family around to watch St. John's the talk went something like

"See that guy talking? That's the one she has a crush on (St Jean) who they've affectionately nicknamed "Eyebrows" and that other guy (Mullin) is the one my dad has a crush on..."
 
as far as the other comments we are currently like an 8th grade team playing in the h.s. varsity league. We have ZERO upper classmen and we play that way. The fact that we've held leads and regained 2nd half leads against good, well coached teams, is not luck. It is lunacy or heavy holiday drinking, to write off the coaching staff at this point.
 
You don't need to be a genius to win with great players, or even pretty good experienced players. Living proof is Steve Lavin, who made the tourney with Norm's recruits and then his own. They just had to have 4 years under their belts to get there. With one and a half recruiting classes, Mullin has brought in perhaps the best back court the school has ever had. More help on the way next season. He will start looking smarter when the players get better.
 
as far as the other comments we are currently like an 8th grade team playing in the h.s. varsity league. We have ZERO upper classmen and we play that way. The fact that we've held leads and regained 2nd half leads against good, well coached teams, is not luck. It is lunacy or heavy holiday drinking, to write off the coaching staff at this point.
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You hit the proverbial nail on the head regarding the heavy holiday drinking! When we sober up we will look back....way back to last year when the bulk of the minutes were going to guys named Alibegovic, Jones, M'ouvika and Mussini and we were losing to D2 teams by 30 points. ;)
We could have won every game we played thus far against legit D1 talent. When your best players are freshmen and sophs the future looks bright. I even think we bring on a grad transfer next year to accelerate the maturity process and lose some dead weight.
 
Nah.....this is exactly how it should look at this point. Underclassmen have to learn how to win games. This thing is going to take time. Don't forget, we are just 8 months removed from being a 1 win conference team. I'll hang with these guys and watch them mature. Good days ahead.

Regarding the coaching staff, they too will grow over time. My only beef with Mullin has been not tapping an experience technical coach. Perhaps that, too, will come.
 
i like too look at the big picture.
Mullins job is too coach but also run a basketball PROGRAM..........
So far No suspensions, or players academic issues. Or leaving the program for "personal issues". High character kids.
Look at the talent we have recruited/include next years transfers (Clark & SImon) & Brown. Lavin&Roberts couldn't even come close.

We've been in a position to win in all 3 losses. Coaches put players in that position and then players have too make winning basketball plays.
Are there things that can be improved of course.
Mullin is a basketball & preparation Junkie. Gotta give him some what of a learning curve.
Talk to me in year 3 in February probably a fair discussion then. IMO

by the way our SOS is in the top 5........
And this coming from a guy who wanted B Hurley to be the next coach .
 
Perhaps part of the frustration is not only seeing Johnnies lose, but inflated expectations for an inexperienced roster still missing a few pieces. Paul's analogy is spot on. As good as LoVett and Ponds can be, the idea of two freshmen leading SJU to a winning, impressive season is crazy. The competition we faced this week is just better than us at this point. If they progress in second half of BE schedule & knock off a few solid teams, giving kids confidence for next year, I'm ok.

Preferred an up & coming coach with some experience post Lavin, but In fairness, the results of next season should give us much more to evaluate re staff.
 
The reasons why I am extremely concerned are, we have now played three good teams who we jumped out to major leads on and they have all come back on us. During this period no Timeouts were called, we did not slow tempo down, leads just evaporated like that!

When a player screws up there are no "teaching moments" in game.

When Lovett missed the dunk he should have been pulled immediately for at least one possession. When a player comes down and chucks a three without anyone under the basket when the other team has momentum pull him.

Finally, if we were going to hire this coach we needed to hire an assistant with D1 Coaching experience - Perfect choice Pete Gillin or someone like that. Instead we have absolutely no experience besides Matt A.


I before would have liked them to extend Lavin two years and possibly make some changes to his staff or hire an younger coach. That did not happen obviously but this does not look good.

NBA Players who come back to their school to coach the first time does typically not end well. There is no offense and the media is starting to catch on that Mullin is not doing a good job!

I hope I am wrong but this just does not look good.
 
Perhaps part of the frustration is not only seeing Johnnies lose, but inflated expectations for an inexperienced roster still missing a few pieces. Paul's analogy is spot on. As good as LoVett and Ponds can be, the idea of two freshmen leading SJU to a winning, impressive season is crazy. The competition we faced this week is just better than us at this point. If they progress in second half of BE schedule & knock off a few solid teams, giving kids confidence for next year, I'm ok.

Preferred an up & coming coach with some experience post Lavin, but In fairness, the results of next season should give us much more to evaluate re staff.
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NO ONE SHOULD BE SURPRISED!
This is on all of those we will win 20 games posters.
If Ponds and or Lovett struggle we can't win. I kept saying that when we need a basket we have no one to dump the ball into. That still needs to be addressed next year.
You guys wildly overestinated Yakwe, Sima, Owens and RF
We are actually enjoyable to watch and will be much better next year.
I predicted 13 games I think and it is about where we will be.
If Ahmed can figure out what he is doing we will start to wins some of these games.
 
I am for giving Mullin a chance for all he did when he played that gave me so much enjoyment . What I don't like more than anything else is that he has not been in charge when they are in a huddle . If he wants advice from St Jean, do it before they go in the huddle . There should be only one coach in the huddle who advises, complains, draws, sweats and smells with his players. If I was a player , I would want to be looking at Mullin and felling his frustrations or encouragements in the huddle. Please Chris, take charge and make your own mistakes and learn ,don' t let St Jean make the mistakes you should be making.
 
I think the posts so far are circling around the following issues:

1. Mullin wants to play an NBA game. To me that means it is mostly (a) one-on-one; (b) two-man game such as pick-and-roll; or (c) open court. We are not talking about running the "Princeton offense" here or any modified form of a motion offense. And we are and will be playing against teams that have established team-oriented offensive and defensive schemes.

2. To win using an NBA approach with college players, you darn well better have a collection of NBA talent on your team. Lavin tried and failed, the jury is out on whether Mullin will meet with better success. Whether its' realistic to believe that SJU can ever win using the same approach as Kentucky is certainly a fair subject for debate. But that's clearly the path that has been chosen here.

3. Matt A is doing a fine job, but we are still a few quarters short of a dollar in terms of having a roster than can successfully play an NBA-type offense and win in college against teams that are playing a more structured, team-oriented college game. Plus, the team is very young.

4. It is a reasonable position to accept all of the above as an explanation for the results so far. However, it is also reasonable to comment that there does not appear to be anyone on the staff who is responsible for coaching fundamental basketball or instilling court discipline (what is known here as "the Mike Dunlap role"). Mullin is an NBA guy. So is Mitch Richmond. So is St. Jean. Matt A is a recruiter. However, this is not the NBA, and these are not NBA players. They are college players, in many instances nobody taught them the fundamentals in high school, and in some instances they have spent much of their careers being a one-man team. For instance, look at Ahmed, who apparently thinks he's Superman and can do whatever he wants every time he touches the ball, probably because that is how it was in high school and Juco. Most of the bigs succeeded earlier in life by being bigger and more athletic than their competition - now they're playing against equal or superior size and athleticism plus basketball knowledge and ability. I could go on, but you get the idea. Somebody needs to be responsible for working with this group on college-level skills like on-ball defense, team defense, spacing, how to attack a zone, how to press and trap effectively. Right now it doesn't look like that person is on staff.

So it's fair to talk about how the head coach and the team are a work in progress and should get better as time goes on. But it's also fair to point out that there are some glaring holes that need to be filled or that progress will come much more slowly or not at all.
 
I think the posts so far are circling around the following issues:

1. Mullin wants to play an NBA game. To me that means it is mostly (a) one-on-one; (b) two-man game such as pick-and-roll; or (c) open court. We are not talking about running the "Princeton offense" here or any modified form of a motion offense. And we are and will be playing against teams that have established team-oriented offensive and defensive schemes.

2. To win using an NBA approach with college players, you darn well better have a collection of NBA talent on your team. Lavin tried and failed, the jury is out on whether Mullin will meet with better success. Whether its' realistic to believe that SJU can ever win using the same approach as Kentucky is certainly a fair subject for debate. But that's clearly the path that has been chosen here.

3. Matt A is doing a fine job, but we are still a few quarters short of a dollar in terms of having a roster than can successfully play an NBA-type offense and win in college against teams that are playing a more structured, team-oriented college game. Plus, the team is very young.

4. It is a reasonable position to accept all of the above as an explanation for the results so far. However, it is also reasonable to comment that there does not appear to be anyone on the staff who is responsible for coaching fundamental basketball or instilling court discipline (what is known here as "the Mike Dunlap role"). Mullin is an NBA guy. So is Mitch Richmond. So is St. Jean. Matt A is a recruiter. However, this is not the NBA, and these are not NBA players. They are college players, in many instances nobody taught them the fundamentals in high school, and in some instances they have spent much of their careers being a one-man team. For instance, look at Ahmed, who apparently thinks he's Superman and can do whatever he wants every time he touches the ball, probably because that is how it was in high school and Juco. Most of the bigs succeeded earlier in life by being bigger and more athletic than their competition - now they're playing against equal or superior size and athleticism plus basketball knowledge and ability. I could go on, but you get the idea. Somebody needs to be responsible for working with this group on college-level skills like on-ball defense, team defense, spacing, how to attack a zone, how to press and trap effectively. Right now it doesn't look like that person is on staff.

So it's fair to talk about how the head coach and the team are a work in progress and should get better as time goes on. But it's also fair to point out that there are some glaring holes that need to be filled or that progress will come much more slowly or not at all.
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Your NBA style point is quite fair. I often wonder if Mullin misses the NBA in general. Not sure he would garner any administrative offers at this point, but wonder if that is really his niche. College game is a grind, especially turning a program around. Oh well, just thinking out loud. Go Johnnies!
 
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