Criticism

[quote="Monte" post=408856][quote="lawmanfan" post=408836]I actually think the Norm comparison is somewhat interesting. IMHO our track record of recent coaches goes something like this:

Norm: Recruit high-character players who after 3 years of experience can be average-ish Big East players, focus on defense.

Lavin: Disregard character entirely, try to sign every single highly-ranked player that other schools are willing to pass on because of character concerns, do zero coaching, count on the talent to win games for you.

Mullin: Recruit high-character players with high talent ceilings, do zero coaching or player development, count on the talent to win games for you.

Anderson: Recruit high-character players who can contribute as freshmen, develop them with the expectation that some of them will far out-perform their rankings, fill in the talent gap with JUCOs, and try to recruit more talented players as you build the program.

There's a certain parallel there between Norm and Anderson. Both want to run clean programs, bring in kids with character, insist on attention to defense (clearly a struggle for Coach A this year, but there's no question about his commitment to his defensive approach anyway), and accept that Rome wasn't built in a day, it takes time to develop a program.

Obviously where the parallel ends is that Anderson is a successful coach who actually knows how to coach and develop players. But even Norm's approach wound up with his seniors in the NCAA tournament (albeit without Norm and with a couple of players added).

I guess what I'm saying is that there's a pretty clear divide between the "swing for the fences" folks (who tend to be Lavinites) and the "let's hit doubles and somewhere along the line we will sign a power hitter to complete the lineup or someone will develop into one" folks (who are thus far positive about Anderson).

But whether you agree with the latter approach or not, it doesn't seem all that reasonable to me to be hugely critical of a coach (who again, has never had a losing season) 8 games into Season 2, especially with all of the coaching and recruiting complications that COVID has presented.[/quote]

Extremely reasonable and accurate post. The one caveat being; as long as the plan is to not just rely on coaching-up lower ranked kids and filling in with JCs. I think the Norm recruiting comparison is a fair one, but again Norm had no coaching experience and CMA has a lot. So from that perspective, I would hope CMA would get us back to the dance sooner then Norm's kids got there with Lavin. FWIW I have been extremely happy with most of what CMA and the staff have done in their time here. And I am not righting off this season based on a few early season games. This team is a work in progress and I fully expect that the best is yet to come. Hopefully beginning tomorrow night.[/quote]

Here's my thing. And I know this has been discussed before. CMA has a big track record of success, is apparently a tireless worker, has assembled one of the best staff's we've had, and has never had trouble recruiting in prior stops. At what point are we able to say the "problems with recruiting" (lack of high level talent?) are not due to anything CMA is doing wrong, but a product of the situation he walked into?
 
[quote="Room112" post=408862][quote="Monte" post=408856][quote="lawmanfan" post=408836]I actually think the Norm comparison is somewhat interesting. IMHO our track record of recent coaches goes something like this:

Norm: Recruit high-character players who after 3 years of experience can be average-ish Big East players, focus on defense.

Lavin: Disregard character entirely, try to sign every single highly-ranked player that other schools are willing to pass on because of character concerns, do zero coaching, count on the talent to win games for you.

Mullin: Recruit high-character players with high talent ceilings, do zero coaching or player development, count on the talent to win games for you.

Anderson: Recruit high-character players who can contribute as freshmen, develop them with the expectation that some of them will far out-perform their rankings, fill in the talent gap with JUCOs, and try to recruit more talented players as you build the program.

There's a certain parallel there between Norm and Anderson. Both want to run clean programs, bring in kids with character, insist on attention to defense (clearly a struggle for Coach A this year, but there's no question about his commitment to his defensive approach anyway), and accept that Rome wasn't built in a day, it takes time to develop a program.

Obviously where the parallel ends is that Anderson is a successful coach who actually knows how to coach and develop players. But even Norm's approach wound up with his seniors in the NCAA tournament (albeit without Norm and with a couple of players added).

I guess what I'm saying is that there's a pretty clear divide between the "swing for the fences" folks (who tend to be Lavinites) and the "let's hit doubles and somewhere along the line we will sign a power hitter to complete the lineup or someone will develop into one" folks (who are thus far positive about Anderson).

But whether you agree with the latter approach or not, it doesn't seem all that reasonable to me to be hugely critical of a coach (who again, has never had a losing season) 8 games into Season 2, especially with all of the coaching and recruiting complications that COVID has presented.[/quote]

Extremely reasonable and accurate post. The one caveat being; as long as the plan is to not just rely on coaching-up lower ranked kids and filling in with JCs. I think the Norm recruiting comparison is a fair one, but again Norm had no coaching experience and CMA has a lot. So from that perspective, I would hope CMA would get us back to the dance sooner then Norm's kids got there with Lavin. FWIW I have been extremely happy with most of what CMA and the staff have done in their time here. And I am not righting off this season based on a few early season games. This team is a work in progress and I fully expect that the best is yet to come. Hopefully beginning tomorrow night.[/quote]

Here's my thing. And I know this has been discussed before. CMA has a big track record of success, is apparently a tireless worker, has assembled one of the best staff's we've had, and has never had trouble recruiting in prior stops. At what point are we able to say the "problems with recruiting" (lack of high level talent?) are not due to anything CMA is doing wrong, but a product of the situation he walked into?[/quote]

It is a product of the situation. The problem is Anderson's solution to the situation is to try and win, while recruiting almost completely "sure things" WRT character, grades, etc. It can be done, but I believe, at this school, at this time, the odds are heavily, heavily stacked against that working out.

I'm not saying break NCAA rules (though my thing has always been "just don't get caught"), but Anderson may find that he will have to take a chance at some point.

At the time, I supported Lavin's not giving Tiny Morton an assistant coach's position just to take on Whitehead, but that has proven to be a mistake. Anderson will probably have to do something similar at some point in the future. He should learn from our past mistakes (and from Willard's success).
 
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[quote="Room112" post=408862][quote="Monte" post=408856][quote="lawmanfan" post=408836]I actually think the Norm comparison is somewhat interesting. IMHO our track record of recent coaches goes something like this:

Norm: Recruit high-character players who after 3 years of experience can be average-ish Big East players, focus on defense.

Lavin: Disregard character entirely, try to sign every single highly-ranked player that other schools are willing to pass on because of character concerns, do zero coaching, count on the talent to win games for you.

Mullin: Recruit high-character players with high talent ceilings, do zero coaching or player development, count on the talent to win games for you.

Anderson: Recruit high-character players who can contribute as freshmen, develop them with the expectation that some of them will far out-perform their rankings, fill in the talent gap with JUCOs, and try to recruit more talented players as you build the program.

There's a certain parallel there between Norm and Anderson. Both want to run clean programs, bring in kids with character, insist on attention to defense (clearly a struggle for Coach A this year, but there's no question about his commitment to his defensive approach anyway), and accept that Rome wasn't built in a day, it takes time to develop a program.

Obviously where the parallel ends is that Anderson is a successful coach who actually knows how to coach and develop players. But even Norm's approach wound up with his seniors in the NCAA tournament (albeit without Norm and with a couple of players added).

I guess what I'm saying is that there's a pretty clear divide between the "swing for the fences" folks (who tend to be Lavinites) and the "let's hit doubles and somewhere along the line we will sign a power hitter to complete the lineup or someone will develop into one" folks (who are thus far positive about Anderson).

But whether you agree with the latter approach or not, it doesn't seem all that reasonable to me to be hugely critical of a coach (who again, has never had a losing season) 8 games into Season 2, especially with all of the coaching and recruiting complications that COVID has presented.[/quote]

Extremely reasonable and accurate post. The one caveat being; as long as the plan is to not just rely on coaching-up lower ranked kids and filling in with JCs. I think the Norm recruiting comparison is a fair one, but again Norm had no coaching experience and CMA has a lot. So from that perspective, I would hope CMA would get us back to the dance sooner then Norm's kids got there with Lavin. FWIW I have been extremely happy with most of what CMA and the staff have done in their time here. And I am not righting off this season based on a few early season games. This team is a work in progress and I fully expect that the best is yet to come. Hopefully beginning tomorrow night.[/quote]

Here's my thing. And I know this has been discussed before. CMA has a big track record of success, is apparently a tireless worker, has assembled one of the best staff's we've had, and has never had trouble recruiting in prior stops. At what point are we able to say the "problems with recruiting" (lack of high level talent?) are not due to anything CMA is doing wrong, but a product of the situation he walked into?[/quote]

I've got no problem giving CMA more leeway/time based on his track record, the situation he walked in to, what's going on with Covid and what he's done here so far. But at some point we have got to see better talent which will then lead to better results on the court. At this point I'm looking for incremental improvement every year in both those areas. I also realize that it may not be a straight line up. I've never been big on excuses, just solutions to problems and results. So I may not be quite as understanding and patient as many others are on this board. Guess that comes from my background as both a sales manager and a business owner. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that we should at least be in the mix with some top 100 kids for the class of 2022, along with some skilled big men. I don't think that we are, but I don't follow recruiting all that closely and things change rapidly these days. Paultz probably knows off the top of his head, but he's probably also hating on me right now for dragging his name in to this conversation lol. I still think that the right coach can get us back to being a consistently winning program, and in a relatively short period of time(3-4 years).. I remain cautiously optimistic that CMA is that coach.
 
[quote="Monte" post=408875][quote="Room112" post=408862][quote="Monte" post=408856][quote="lawmanfan" post=408836]I actually think the Norm comparison is somewhat interesting. IMHO our track record of recent coaches goes something like this:

Norm: Recruit high-character players who after 3 years of experience can be average-ish Big East players, focus on defense.

Lavin: Disregard character entirely, try to sign every single highly-ranked player that other schools are willing to pass on because of character concerns, do zero coaching, count on the talent to win games for you.

Mullin: Recruit high-character players with high talent ceilings, do zero coaching or player development, count on the talent to win games for you.

Anderson: Recruit high-character players who can contribute as freshmen, develop them with the expectation that some of them will far out-perform their rankings, fill in the talent gap with JUCOs, and try to recruit more talented players as you build the program.

There's a certain parallel there between Norm and Anderson. Both want to run clean programs, bring in kids with character, insist on attention to defense (clearly a struggle for Coach A this year, but there's no question about his commitment to his defensive approach anyway), and accept that Rome wasn't built in a day, it takes time to develop a program.

Obviously where the parallel ends is that Anderson is a successful coach who actually knows how to coach and develop players. But even Norm's approach wound up with his seniors in the NCAA tournament (albeit without Norm and with a couple of players added).

I guess what I'm saying is that there's a pretty clear divide between the "swing for the fences" folks (who tend to be Lavinites) and the "let's hit doubles and somewhere along the line we will sign a power hitter to complete the lineup or someone will develop into one" folks (who are thus far positive about Anderson).

But whether you agree with the latter approach or not, it doesn't seem all that reasonable to me to be hugely critical of a coach (who again, has never had a losing season) 8 games into Season 2, especially with all of the coaching and recruiting complications that COVID has presented.[/quote]

Extremely reasonable and accurate post. The one caveat being; as long as the plan is to not just rely on coaching-up lower ranked kids and filling in with JCs. I think the Norm recruiting comparison is a fair one, but again Norm had no coaching experience and CMA has a lot. So from that perspective, I would hope CMA would get us back to the dance sooner then Norm's kids got there with Lavin. FWIW I have been extremely happy with most of what CMA and the staff have done in their time here. And I am not righting off this season based on a few early season games. This team is a work in progress and I fully expect that the best is yet to come. Hopefully beginning tomorrow night.[/quote]

Here's my thing. And I know this has been discussed before. CMA has a big track record of success, is apparently a tireless worker, has assembled one of the best staff's we've had, and has never had trouble recruiting in prior stops. At what point are we able to say the "problems with recruiting" (lack of high level talent?) are not due to anything CMA is doing wrong, but a product of the situation he walked into?[/quote]

I've got no problem giving CMA more leeway/time based on his track record, the situation he walked in to, what's going on with Covid and what he's done here so far. But at some point we have got to see better talent which will then lead to better results on the court. At this point I'm looking for incremental improvement every year in both those areas. I also realize that it may not be a straight line up. I've never been big on excuses, just solutions to problems and results. So I may not be quite as understanding and patient as many others are on this board. Guess that comes from my background as both a sales manager and a business owner. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that we should at least be in the mix with some top 100 kids for the class of 2022, along with some skilled big men. I don't think that we are, but I don't follow recruiting all that closely and things change rapidly these days. Paultz probably knows off the top of his head, but he's probably also hating on me right now for dragging his name in to this conversation lol. I still think that the right coach can get us back to being a consistently winning program, and in a relatively short period of time(3-4 years).. I remain cautiously optimistic that CMA is that coach.[/quote]

Monte ordering Zaun if Anderson does not turn this around in 2 years;

https://twitter.com/jpcarlesimo/status/1339303516926599170?s=21
 
[quote="SJU61982" post=408867][quote="Room112" post=408862][quote="Monte" post=408856][quote="lawmanfan" post=408836]I actually think the Norm comparison is somewhat interesting. IMHO our track record of recent coaches goes something like this:

Norm: Recruit high-character players who after 3 years of experience can be average-ish Big East players, focus on defense.

Lavin: Disregard character entirely, try to sign every single highly-ranked player that other schools are willing to pass on because of character concerns, do zero coaching, count on the talent to win games for you.

Mullin: Recruit high-character players with high talent ceilings, do zero coaching or player development, count on the talent to win games for you.

Anderson: Recruit high-character players who can contribute as freshmen, develop them with the expectation that some of them will far out-perform their rankings, fill in the talent gap with JUCOs, and try to recruit more talented players as you build the program.

There's a certain parallel there between Norm and Anderson. Both want to run clean programs, bring in kids with character, insist on attention to defense (clearly a struggle for Coach A this year, but there's no question about his commitment to his defensive approach anyway), and accept that Rome wasn't built in a day, it takes time to develop a program.

Obviously where the parallel ends is that Anderson is a successful coach who actually knows how to coach and develop players. But even Norm's approach wound up with his seniors in the NCAA tournament (albeit without Norm and with a couple of players added).

I guess what I'm saying is that there's a pretty clear divide between the "swing for the fences" folks (who tend to be Lavinites) and the "let's hit doubles and somewhere along the line we will sign a power hitter to complete the lineup or someone will develop into one" folks (who are thus far positive about Anderson).

But whether you agree with the latter approach or not, it doesn't seem all that reasonable to me to be hugely critical of a coach (who again, has never had a losing season) 8 games into Season 2, especially with all of the coaching and recruiting complications that COVID has presented.[/quote]

Extremely reasonable and accurate post. The one caveat being; as long as the plan is to not just rely on coaching-up lower ranked kids and filling in with JCs. I think the Norm recruiting comparison is a fair one, but again Norm had no coaching experience and CMA has a lot. So from that perspective, I would hope CMA would get us back to the dance sooner then Norm's kids got there with Lavin. FWIW I have been extremely happy with most of what CMA and the staff have done in their time here. And I am not righting off this season based on a few early season games. This team is a work in progress and I fully expect that the best is yet to come. Hopefully beginning tomorrow night.[/quote]

Here's my thing. And I know this has been discussed before. CMA has a big track record of success, is apparently a tireless worker, has assembled one of the best staff's we've had, and has never had trouble recruiting in prior stops. At what point are we able to say the "problems with recruiting" (lack of high level talent?) are not due to anything CMA is doing wrong, but a product of the situation he walked into?[/quote]

It is a product of the situation. The problem is Anderson's solution to the situation is to try and win, while recruiting almost completely "sure things" WRT character, grades, etc. It can be done, but I believe, at this school, at this time, the odds are heavily, heavily stacked against that working out.

I'm not saying break NCAA rules (though my thing has always been "just don't get caught"), but Anderson may find that he will have to take a chance at some point.

At the time, I supported Lavin's not giving Tiny Morton an assistant coach's position just to take on Whitehead, but that has proven to be a mistake. Anderson will probably have to do something similar at some point in the future. He should learn from our past mistakes (and from Willard's success).[/quote]

Very fair response, thank you
 
[quote="Monte" post=408875][quote="Room112" post=408862][quote="Monte" post=408856][quote="lawmanfan" post=408836]I actually think the Norm comparison is somewhat interesting. IMHO our track record of recent coaches goes something like this:

Norm: Recruit high-character players who after 3 years of experience can be average-ish Big East players, focus on defense.

Lavin: Disregard character entirely, try to sign every single highly-ranked player that other schools are willing to pass on because of character concerns, do zero coaching, count on the talent to win games for you.

Mullin: Recruit high-character players with high talent ceilings, do zero coaching or player development, count on the talent to win games for you.

Anderson: Recruit high-character players who can contribute as freshmen, develop them with the expectation that some of them will far out-perform their rankings, fill in the talent gap with JUCOs, and try to recruit more talented players as you build the program.

There's a certain parallel there between Norm and Anderson. Both want to run clean programs, bring in kids with character, insist on attention to defense (clearly a struggle for Coach A this year, but there's no question about his commitment to his defensive approach anyway), and accept that Rome wasn't built in a day, it takes time to develop a program.

Obviously where the parallel ends is that Anderson is a successful coach who actually knows how to coach and develop players. But even Norm's approach wound up with his seniors in the NCAA tournament (albeit without Norm and with a couple of players added).

I guess what I'm saying is that there's a pretty clear divide between the "swing for the fences" folks (who tend to be Lavinites) and the "let's hit doubles and somewhere along the line we will sign a power hitter to complete the lineup or someone will develop into one" folks (who are thus far positive about Anderson).

But whether you agree with the latter approach or not, it doesn't seem all that reasonable to me to be hugely critical of a coach (who again, has never had a losing season) 8 games into Season 2, especially with all of the coaching and recruiting complications that COVID has presented.[/quote]

Extremely reasonable and accurate post. The one caveat being; as long as the plan is to not just rely on coaching-up lower ranked kids and filling in with JCs. I think the Norm recruiting comparison is a fair one, but again Norm had no coaching experience and CMA has a lot. So from that perspective, I would hope CMA would get us back to the dance sooner then Norm's kids got there with Lavin. FWIW I have been extremely happy with most of what CMA and the staff have done in their time here. And I am not righting off this season based on a few early season games. This team is a work in progress and I fully expect that the best is yet to come. Hopefully beginning tomorrow night.[/quote]

Here's my thing. And I know this has been discussed before. CMA has a big track record of success, is apparently a tireless worker, has assembled one of the best staff's we've had, and has never had trouble recruiting in prior stops. At what point are we able to say the "problems with recruiting" (lack of high level talent?) are not due to anything CMA is doing wrong, but a product of the situation he walked into?[/quote]

I've got no problem giving CMA more leeway/time based on his track record, the situation he walked in to, what's going on with Covid and what he's done here so far. But at some point we have got to see better talent which will then lead to better results on the court. At this point I'm looking for incremental improvement every year in both those areas. I also realize that it may not be a straight line up. I've never been big on excuses, just solutions to problems and results. So I may not be quite as understanding and patient as many others are on this board. Guess that comes from my background as both a sales manager and a business owner. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that we should at least be in the mix with some top 100 kids for the class of 2022, along with some skilled big men. I don't think that we are, but I don't follow recruiting all that closely and things change rapidly these days. Paultz probably knows off the top of his head, but he's probably also hating on me right now for dragging his name in to this conversation lol. I still think that the right coach can get us back to being a consistently winning program, and in a relatively short period of time(3-4 years).. I remain cautiously optimistic that CMA is that coach.[/quote]

Thanks for the response, and I definitely see your point of view. I guess what I'm getting at is I really don't see what we have to offer recruits at this time, that would make me have a realistic expectation that we should be in the running for top 100 talent right now. All of these kids were not even born the last time we won an NCAA tourney game. We have no recent history of success. The on campus facilities are clearly lacking compared to all of our competitors. So is the campus lifestyle. I believe the academic shortcomings of St. John's compared to competitors have been well documented in other posts.

I'm in the camp that we really need to get momentum with winning to start having a shot at higher ranked kids. We haven't even come close to that yet under CMA in his short time here. Luckily I am a believer that we have the right man for the job to do it. I am confident we will get there, I just think it's going to take more patience than some would like to have.
 
[quote="TheArtest15" post=408905]Just A question........Would you guys rather get higher quality kids or win?[/quote]

Yes.
 
[quote="TheArtest15" post=408905]Just A question........Would you guys rather get higher quality kids or win?[/quote]

I trust that CMA will recruit mostly high quality kids. I also have no problem with him taking chances with some kids who are questionable. Almost all the great coaches have done that, including one of the greatest of all time, John Thompson.
 
[quote="Room112" post=408882][quote="Monte" post=408875][quote="Room112" post=408862][quote="Monte" post=408856][quote="lawmanfan" post=408836]I actually think the Norm comparison is somewhat interesting. IMHO our track record of recent coaches goes something like this:

Norm: Recruit high-character players who after 3 years of experience can be average-ish Big East players, focus on defense.

Lavin: Disregard character entirely, try to sign every single highly-ranked player that other schools are willing to pass on because of character concerns, do zero coaching, count on the talent to win games for you.

Mullin: Recruit high-character players with high talent ceilings, do zero coaching or player development, count on the talent to win games for you.

Anderson: Recruit high-character players who can contribute as freshmen, develop them with the expectation that some of them will far out-perform their rankings, fill in the talent gap with JUCOs, and try to recruit more talented players as you build the program.

There's a certain parallel there between Norm and Anderson. Both want to run clean programs, bring in kids with character, insist on attention to defense (clearly a struggle for Coach A this year, but there's no question about his commitment to his defensive approach anyway), and accept that Rome wasn't built in a day, it takes time to develop a program.

Obviously where the parallel ends is that Anderson is a successful coach who actually knows how to coach and develop players. But even Norm's approach wound up with his seniors in the NCAA tournament (albeit without Norm and with a couple of players added).

I guess what I'm saying is that there's a pretty clear divide between the "swing for the fences" folks (who tend to be Lavinites) and the "let's hit doubles and somewhere along the line we will sign a power hitter to complete the lineup or someone will develop into one" folks (who are thus far positive about Anderson).

But whether you agree with the latter approach or not, it doesn't seem all that reasonable to me to be hugely critical of a coach (who again, has never had a losing season) 8 games into Season 2, especially with all of the coaching and recruiting complications that COVID has presented.[/quote]

Extremely reasonable and accurate post. The one caveat being; as long as the plan is to not just rely on coaching-up lower ranked kids and filling in with JCs. I think the Norm recruiting comparison is a fair one, but again Norm had no coaching experience and CMA has a lot. So from that perspective, I would hope CMA would get us back to the dance sooner then Norm's kids got there with Lavin. FWIW I have been extremely happy with most of what CMA and the staff have done in their time here. And I am not righting off this season based on a few early season games. This team is a work in progress and I fully expect that the best is yet to come. Hopefully beginning tomorrow night.[/quote]

Here's my thing. And I know this has been discussed before. CMA has a big track record of success, is apparently a tireless worker, has assembled one of the best staff's we've had, and has never had trouble recruiting in prior stops. At what point are we able to say the "problems with recruiting" (lack of high level talent?) are not due to anything CMA is doing wrong, but a product of the situation he walked into?[/quote]

I've got no problem giving CMA more leeway/time based on his track record, the situation he walked in to, what's going on with Covid and what he's done here so far. But at some point we have got to see better talent which will then lead to better results on the court. At this point I'm looking for incremental improvement every year in both those areas. I also realize that it may not be a straight line up. I've never been big on excuses, just solutions to problems and results. So I may not be quite as understanding and patient as many others are on this board. Guess that comes from my background as both a sales manager and a business owner. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that we should at least be in the mix with some top 100 kids for the class of 2022, along with some skilled big men. I don't think that we are, but I don't follow recruiting all that closely and things change rapidly these days. Paultz probably knows off the top of his head, but he's probably also hating on me right now for dragging his name in to this conversation lol. I still think that the right coach can get us back to being a consistently winning program, and in a relatively short period of time(3-4 years).. I remain cautiously optimistic that CMA is that coach.[/quote]

Thanks for the response, and I definitely see your point of view. I guess what I'm getting at is I really don't see what we have to offer recruits at this time, that would make me have a realistic expectation that we should be in the running for top 100 talent right now. All of these kids were not even born the last time we won an NCAA tourney game. We have no recent history of success. The on campus facilities are clearly lacking compared to all of our competitors. So is the campus lifestyle. I believe the academic shortcomings of St. John's compared to competitors have been well documented in other posts.

I'm in the camp that we really need to get momentum with winning to start having a shot at higher ranked kids. We haven't even come close to that yet under CMA in his short time here. Luckily I am a believer that we have the right man for the job to do it. I am confident we will get there, I just think it's going to take more patience than some would like to have.[/quote]

Question 112; how much time(approx) do you think CMA deserves to completely right this ship?
 
[quote="Monte" post=408912][quote="Room112" post=408882][quote="Monte" post=408875][quote="Room112" post=408862][quote="Monte" post=408856][quote="lawmanfan" post=408836]I actually think the Norm comparison is somewhat interesting. IMHO our track record of recent coaches goes something like this:

Norm: Recruit high-character players who after 3 years of experience can be average-ish Big East players, focus on defense.

Lavin: Disregard character entirely, try to sign every single highly-ranked player that other schools are willing to pass on because of character concerns, do zero coaching, count on the talent to win games for you.

Mullin: Recruit high-character players with high talent ceilings, do zero coaching or player development, count on the talent to win games for you.

Anderson: Recruit high-character players who can contribute as freshmen, develop them with the expectation that some of them will far out-perform their rankings, fill in the talent gap with JUCOs, and try to recruit more talented players as you build the program.

There's a certain parallel there between Norm and Anderson. Both want to run clean programs, bring in kids with character, insist on attention to defense (clearly a struggle for Coach A this year, but there's no question about his commitment to his defensive approach anyway), and accept that Rome wasn't built in a day, it takes time to develop a program.

Obviously where the parallel ends is that Anderson is a successful coach who actually knows how to coach and develop players. But even Norm's approach wound up with his seniors in the NCAA tournament (albeit without Norm and with a couple of players added).

I guess what I'm saying is that there's a pretty clear divide between the "swing for the fences" folks (who tend to be Lavinites) and the "let's hit doubles and somewhere along the line we will sign a power hitter to complete the lineup or someone will develop into one" folks (who are thus far positive about Anderson).

But whether you agree with the latter approach or not, it doesn't seem all that reasonable to me to be hugely critical of a coach (who again, has never had a losing season) 8 games into Season 2, especially with all of the coaching and recruiting complications that COVID has presented.[/quote]

Extremely reasonable and accurate post. The one caveat being; as long as the plan is to not just rely on coaching-up lower ranked kids and filling in with JCs. I think the Norm recruiting comparison is a fair one, but again Norm had no coaching experience and CMA has a lot. So from that perspective, I would hope CMA would get us back to the dance sooner then Norm's kids got there with Lavin. FWIW I have been extremely happy with most of what CMA and the staff have done in their time here. And I am not righting off this season based on a few early season games. This team is a work in progress and I fully expect that the best is yet to come. Hopefully beginning tomorrow night.[/quote]

Here's my thing. And I know this has been discussed before. CMA has a big track record of success, is apparently a tireless worker, has assembled one of the best staff's we've had, and has never had trouble recruiting in prior stops. At what point are we able to say the "problems with recruiting" (lack of high level talent?) are not due to anything CMA is doing wrong, but a product of the situation he walked into?[/quote]

I've got no problem giving CMA more leeway/time based on his track record, the situation he walked in to, what's going on with Covid and what he's done here so far. But at some point we have got to see better talent which will then lead to better results on the court. At this point I'm looking for incremental improvement every year in both those areas. I also realize that it may not be a straight line up. I've never been big on excuses, just solutions to problems and results. So I may not be quite as understanding and patient as many others are on this board. Guess that comes from my background as both a sales manager and a business owner. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that we should at least be in the mix with some top 100 kids for the class of 2022, along with some skilled big men. I don't think that we are, but I don't follow recruiting all that closely and things change rapidly these days. Paultz probably knows off the top of his head, but he's probably also hating on me right now for dragging his name in to this conversation lol. I still think that the right coach can get us back to being a consistently winning program, and in a relatively short period of time(3-4 years).. I remain cautiously optimistic that CMA is that coach.[/quote]

Thanks for the response, and I definitely see your point of view. I guess what I'm getting at is I really don't see what we have to offer recruits at this time, that would make me have a realistic expectation that we should be in the running for top 100 talent right now. All of these kids were not even born the last time we won an NCAA tourney game. We have no recent history of success. The on campus facilities are clearly lacking compared to all of our competitors. So is the campus lifestyle. I believe the academic shortcomings of St. John's compared to competitors have been well documented in other posts.

I'm in the camp that we really need to get momentum with winning to start having a shot at higher ranked kids. We haven't even come close to that yet under CMA in his short time here. Luckily I am a believer that we have the right man for the job to do it. I am confident we will get there, I just think it's going to take more patience than some would like to have.[/quote]

Question 112; how much time(approx) do you think CMA deserves to completely right this ship?[/quote]

As long as we're seeing incremental and meaningful progress each year, I dont necessarily put a timeline on it. That being said, if after 4 years we don't have a tournament appearance and aren't in the running for a higher caliber of talent, that would be very concerning to me.
 
[quote="Room112" post=408915][quote="Monte" post=408912][quote="Room112" post=408882][quote="Monte" post=408875][quote="Room112" post=408862][quote="Monte" post=408856][quote="lawmanfan" post=408836]I actually think the Norm comparison is somewhat interesting. IMHO our track record of recent coaches goes something like this:

Norm: Recruit high-character players who after 3 years of experience can be average-ish Big East players, focus on defense.

Lavin: Disregard character entirely, try to sign every single highly-ranked player that other schools are willing to pass on because of character concerns, do zero coaching, count on the talent to win games for you.

Mullin: Recruit high-character players with high talent ceilings, do zero coaching or player development, count on the talent to win games for you.

Anderson: Recruit high-character players who can contribute as freshmen, develop them with the expectation that some of them will far out-perform their rankings, fill in the talent gap with JUCOs, and try to recruit more talented players as you build the program.

There's a certain parallel there between Norm and Anderson. Both want to run clean programs, bring in kids with character, insist on attention to defense (clearly a struggle for Coach A this year, but there's no question about his commitment to his defensive approach anyway), and accept that Rome wasn't built in a day, it takes time to develop a program.

Obviously where the parallel ends is that Anderson is a successful coach who actually knows how to coach and develop players. But even Norm's approach wound up with his seniors in the NCAA tournament (albeit without Norm and with a couple of players added).

I guess what I'm saying is that there's a pretty clear divide between the "swing for the fences" folks (who tend to be Lavinites) and the "let's hit doubles and somewhere along the line we will sign a power hitter to complete the lineup or someone will develop into one" folks (who are thus far positive about Anderson).

But whether you agree with the latter approach or not, it doesn't seem all that reasonable to me to be hugely critical of a coach (who again, has never had a losing season) 8 games into Season 2, especially with all of the coaching and recruiting complications that COVID has presented.[/quote]

Extremely reasonable and accurate post. The one caveat being; as long as the plan is to not just rely on coaching-up lower ranked kids and filling in with JCs. I think the Norm recruiting comparison is a fair one, but again Norm had no coaching experience and CMA has a lot. So from that perspective, I would hope CMA would get us back to the dance sooner then Norm's kids got there with Lavin. FWIW I have been extremely happy with most of what CMA and the staff have done in their time here. And I am not righting off this season based on a few early season games. This team is a work in progress and I fully expect that the best is yet to come. Hopefully beginning tomorrow night.[/quote]

Here's my thing. And I know this has been discussed before. CMA has a big track record of success, is apparently a tireless worker, has assembled one of the best staff's we've had, and has never had trouble recruiting in prior stops. At what point are we able to say the "problems with recruiting" (lack of high level talent?) are not due to anything CMA is doing wrong, but a product of the situation he walked into?[/quote]

I've got no problem giving CMA more leeway/time based on his track record, the situation he walked in to, what's going on with Covid and what he's done here so far. But at some point we have got to see better talent which will then lead to better results on the court. At this point I'm looking for incremental improvement every year in both those areas. I also realize that it may not be a straight line up. I've never been big on excuses, just solutions to problems and results. So I may not be quite as understanding and patient as many others are on this board. Guess that comes from my background as both a sales manager and a business owner. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that we should at least be in the mix with some top 100 kids for the class of 2022, along with some skilled big men. I don't think that we are, but I don't follow recruiting all that closely and things change rapidly these days. Paultz probably knows off the top of his head, but he's probably also hating on me right now for dragging his name in to this conversation lol. I still think that the right coach can get us back to being a consistently winning program, and in a relatively short period of time(3-4 years).. I remain cautiously optimistic that CMA is that coach.[/quote]

Thanks for the response, and I definitely see your point of view. I guess what I'm getting at is I really don't see what we have to offer recruits at this time, that would make me have a realistic expectation that we should be in the running for top 100 talent right now. All of these kids were not even born the last time we won an NCAA tourney game. We have no recent history of success. The on campus facilities are clearly lacking compared to all of our competitors. So is the campus lifestyle. I believe the academic shortcomings of St. John's compared to competitors have been well documented in other posts.

I'm in the camp that we really need to get momentum with winning to start having a shot at higher ranked kids. We haven't even come close to that yet under CMA in his short time here. Luckily I am a believer that we have the right man for the job to do it. I am confident we will get there, I just think it's going to take more patience than some would like to have.[/quote]

Question 112; how much time(approx) do you think CMA deserves to completely right this ship?[/quote]

As long as we're seeing incremental and meaningful progress each year, I dont necessarily put a timeline on it. That being said, if after 4 years we don't have a tournament appearance and aren't in the running for a higher caliber of talent, that would be very concerning to me.[/quote]

That's very fair and more or less where I stand. Thanks.
 
[quote="TheArtest15" post=408905]Just A question........Would you guys rather get higher quality kids or win?[/quote]

Is this class room or basketball question?
What would rather have?

You might want higher quality kids, but you'll end up with the norm years, garbage years.
I don't know about you but sports is about winning. No cares about a classy last place team.
Just win baby, that's how I see it.
 
[quote="EliteBaller K" post=408917][quote="TheArtest15" post=408905]Just A question........Would you guys rather get higher quality kids or win?[/quote]

Is this class room or basketball question?
What would rather have?

You might want higher quality kids, but you'll end up with the norm years, garbage years.
I don't know about you but sports is about winning. No cares about a classy last place team.
Just win baby, that's how I see it.[/quote]

What you just said is exactly what I meant. I 100 % agree with you. I want to win. Everyone on here loves to say how we have such great high quality kids, which may be true, but who the heck cares if we lose. I take winning above all so saying that we have great kids and CMA runs a great quality program that breeds successful young men does not do much for me if we lose. Its great in life which I am all for but not if we don't win
 
I believe that our recent disenchantment with coach Anderson has more to do with all the frustration we have had in this program over the last 20 years than coach himself! I for one have been an avid fan for over 52 years and I can tell you I am so fed up with this lousy program of ours! I just looked up some Big East stats to find out how irrelevant we have been in the last 20 years! The last time we won a Big East championship or have been a runner up was in 2000! That’s just unacceptable! It appears that we can no longer compete in this league. This program needs to step it up in a big way or maybe they should join the MAAC and it all starts with building an arena that is up to Big East standards! Our arena is a f—king joke! How in gods name can you bring a recruit into what amounts to a high school gym and expect to get a commitment from him! Don’t blame CMA for his inability to nail down 5 star recruits when he is basically like a one legged man in a ass kicking contest!
 
[quote="TheArtest15" post=408928][quote="EliteBaller K" post=408917][quote="TheArtest15" post=408905]Just A question........Would you guys rather get higher quality kids or win?[/quote]

Is this class room or basketball question?
What would rather have?

You might want higher quality kids, but you'll end up with the norm years, garbage years.
I don't know about you but sports is about winning. No cares about a classy last place team.
Just win baby, that's how I see it.[/quote]

What you just said is exactly what I meant. I 100 % agree with you. I want to win. Everyone on here loves to say how we have such great high quality kids, which may be true, but who the heck cares if we lose. I take winning above all so saying that we have great kids and CMA runs a great quality program that breeds successful young men does not do much for me if we lose. Its great in life which I am all for but not if we don't win[/quote]

It's a business, and in every business you have succeed or you get fired, if sju only cared about classy then norm would still be here.
 
[quote="EliteBaller K" post=408917][quote="TheArtest15" post=408905]Just A question........Would you guys rather get higher quality kids or win?[/quote]

Is this class room or basketball question?
What would rather have?

You might want higher quality kids, but you'll end up with the norm years, garbage years.
I don't know about you but sports is about winning. No cares about a classy last place team.
Just win baby, that's how I see it.[/quote]

Guessing you wanted Pitino here? Would you also be willing to cheat as long as we don't get caught, as long as we win? That's what it sounds like the way you're talking lol
 
[quote="Room112" post=408935][quote="EliteBaller K" post=408917][quote="TheArtest15" post=408905]Just A question........Would you guys rather get higher quality kids or win?[/quote]

Is this class room or basketball question?
What would rather have?

You might want higher quality kids, but you'll end up with the norm years, garbage years.
I don't know about you but sports is about winning. No cares about a classy last place team.
Just win baby, that's how I see it.[/quote]

Guessing you wanted Pitino here? Would you also be willing to cheat as long as we don't get caught, as long as we win? That's what it sounds like the way you're talking lol[/quote]

I did want Pitino here.Why would I not want him here, he wins. So you are saying hes cheated every years hes been a coach? Likely that because of his past he wont be cheating again. His former players seem to love him
 
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