Hopefully this will stop certain posters from taking shots at the team, the coach, and the players with every post. They read the site, and if I was a player and read some of the crap posted by our fan base, I might consider transferring too.
Oh lord have mercy with this sanctimonious stuff. And if you considered transferring to another high-major or even most mid-to-low major schools, guess what?? THEY ALL HAVE MESSAGE BOARDS TOO! Iona has a message board. As does Fordham. As does Hofstra. As does Manhattan College. Gimme a break with the players-getting-their-feelings-hurt stuff. Every high major school has a message board and we don't read about that nonsense.
If a player REALLY is effected enough by a message board post that they consider transferring, then they aren't mentally or emotionally tough. Because 99.999% of the players at this level deal with the same stuff and don't consider bailing.
Oh give me a freaking break. A deciding factor in choosing a school for many kids is the fan base. Our fan base in all honestly has been pathetic, especially on the internet. How many other programs rip their leading scorer the way Harrison gets ripped on here? The answer is not many. We should appreciate what we have in Harrison. If kids are reading these boards and see nothing but "Lavin is the worst coach in america" "We recruit athletes not basketball players" "Players don't develop under Lavin" "Harrison is a punk," and countless others I could quote, they may have serious doubts about this fan base and rightfully so. There are many fan bases that would love to have our players, and love to have Steve Lavin recruiting top 100 kids every single year.
Stop pretending like every high major school berates their players like we do. It's simply not true, We go overboard. Your job as a fan is to support the team. You'd think the known fact that our players read these boards would be enough for you to calm down a bit with ridiculing the players.
This just isn't true. I covered basketball recruiting for a couple of years, and am friends with the advisors and coaches that surround a number of top-tier players.
I have a fairly good picture of how recruiting works. For top-75/100 talent, "fanbases" play such a tiny part in the recruitment of a prospect. You are fantasizing the process. It is about who gets guys to the league, where is there open playing time, and deep, wideranging politics that go into recruiting and so much more that 95% of the time come way WAY before fanbases, ESPECIALLY as it pertains to "message boards". Its just not at all a significant factor in the process. With that said, yes it is read by those around programs and those around elite players, but they do not play factors in the process.
I also read the message boards of other schools from time-to-time and yes the rhetoric used is very similar. Stop thinking that we're special in how we "go after" players and coaches. Its simply not true. This happens at nearly every high-major school. In fact, the high-achieving schools are often the ones that are the most brutal.
Again, every high-major program has a message board in which there are sharp critics. Every player has had to deal with them. If a player really chooses that he has to transfer because of whats said about dozens or hundreds of players a year on message boards, then hes simply not mentally or emotionally tough.
Its actually insulting to our players to think that they can't handle a situation like this message board without breaking down to a point in which they'd think about transferring.
