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You make a good point. But teaching shooting is Mullins strength. I am suggesting having a coaching staff w different skill sets may have been a better approach.I also agree w you that it is too early in the season to judge.None of you have any idea what Richmond brings or doesn't bring to the table... similar to Mullin, frankly. We just don't know.
LoVett is a far better outside shooter than probably anyone could have anticipated. Why couldn't that be all because of work that Richmond did with him? It's impossible to know.
Frankly, I like the pitch to recruits about having two awesome offensive hall of famers on the bench. It must make it much easier in recruiting kids out of highschool. I much prefer to wait to judge the coaches until the end of next season.
Some of your are just so short-sighted sometimes. Let the recruiting develop. Let the talent develop. (I personally don't think Yakwe and Sima will get to meet the high expectations many had because they are so late to learning the game).
The coaches might be disasters, or might be great. We won't know for another two seasons. Give it time.
Certainly Richmond and Mullin bring HOF cache to recruiting and that can't hurt. That doesn't mean either of them are great salesmen, which is what recruiting is all about. What kids want to know when they are recruited is how that staff and school are going to get them to the NBA. Neither Mullin nor Richmond has gotten anyone to the NBA (yet) so their HOF resumes can easily be counteracted by a D1 coach who has 5 or 6 guys in the NBA over a dozen years. More than anything, the recruiting end of things involve sales ability, and as we know, there are AAU coaches with their hands out wondering what's in it for them for delivering a kid. It's a seedy business that the Calipariis of the world are great at.
To speculate that Richmond and Mullin may be great teachers is fine, but there really isn't a lot of evidence that suggests that in sports the best players are the best teachers. There is a traditional path in readying yourself to coach at the high D1 level which includes head coaching at lower levels (D3, D2) then a mid major. Even with phenomenal HS coaching success, Cluess followed this formula and proved himself every step of the way, justifying the current bump to Iona. Mullin and Richmond are a huge risk because they never coached anywhere. You can speculate all you want about player development or translating their NBA experience into winning in-game strategy but until there is real evidence of that, it's just wishful thinking on your part.
To be clear, this IS a wait and see thing, but unless they field a very strong roster next season, the odds of this not being a successful try on the part of SJU will continue to increase. Don't get me wrong - this hire was clearly a case of risk-reward, clouded by the huge aura Mullin left on us after 4 great seasons as a player. The entire narrative of your greatest basketball legend coming home to NY and to campus to resurrect the once highly regarded program is so intoxicating, so story-book in its making that it is hard for any SJU fan (myself included) to resist taking a shot at. That is especially true since the past 25 years have not yielded a single coaching candidate that had all the attributes to build and sustain a winning tradition - 5 coaches, not a single defection - all fired. So, SJU gave in to the obvious temptation - hire a guy who IS SJU, who represents athletic success better than anyone who ever played a sport here (and that's a pretty high honor considering guys like Artest, Viola, Franco, and many others).
When you lose 4 in a row of your first real tests, it's easy to either blame the coaches in part for the caliber of play or absolve the coaches by pointing to the lack of talent or inexperience. Somewhere in that analysis is the truth - that we are either too short on talent, high on inexperience, or there are coaching deficiencies - maybe all of the them. But it's just plain silly to try to shut down that analysis or dialogue by adopting a wait and see approach. Either the signs of improvement are there, or there are signs of things not going to well. We are here to discuss these things, and to try to take a "glass half full" approach to prove you are on a higher ground than other fans is just ridiculous.
For the record, I sat in the 6th row behind the SJU bench for all 4 Mullin years for every single home game and many away games, and I don't remember Mullin being "chirpy" or anything like his bench personna in challenging refs. Curious if anyone else remembers Mullin constantly lambasting refs as a player.
Nice analysis. I agree that NBA stars are rarely "developed" by their college coaches. If it were not for the NBA age restrictions the best high school players would be entering the NBA and not enrolling at Duke and Kentucky. The rest of the best would still be going there but there would be a little more parity in the competition.
That is why I stated that recruiting has been "good" so far at St.John's but not great enough to overcome the inexperienced coaching. It is even harder when your coach is beginning his career after getting his AARP card.
Only at low achieving St. John's, a consistent bottom dweller in the Big East in the past quarter century, would an administration fire a coach that took them to the post season (2 NCAA & 2 NIT'S) In the four years he actually coached there and replace him with a "player" who never coached a day in his life, nor ever showed any interest in college coaching.
We were all skeptical but were reassured that to compensate St. John's would bring in a great recruiter to get D1 ready players and we were more than happy with the hiring of Slice and Matt. Exit Slice and we are left with Matt who excelled at JC and transfer recruiting. That is a hit or miss formula for success at upper D1 competition. At Iowa State he had a great coach and balanced recruiting. When I say that St. John's basketball can be successful with better recruiting I mean closing on more players on the level of Shamorie Ponds. Marcus Lovett always wanted to come so I deduct him from the recruiting. Mussini also showed interest after a Steve Lavin vacation in Italy. Even Yakwe was recruited by Tony Chiles. So, it remains to be seen if Matt can do better than Ron Mouvlika, Sima, Darien Williams, Malik Ellidon, Simon and Clark. We erroneously thought Slice was going to be the guy to establish relationships with 4 and 5 star players. He was Mullin's guy and mysteriously has vanished from the scene.
A recent interview with Mullin showed him touting St. John's great history and trying to sell it as a destination for players by saying "if you want great coaching come to St. John's".
It was great trying to sell the program but hopefully he is not just going to be another snake oil salesman making his way through town on his way back west in his wagon.