Fire Lavin!

[FranWho?]

This team has underachieved thus far, of this, there is no doubt. However, given the amount of time that the University gave to Norm Roberts, who was far and away, one of the absolute worst coaches in Big East history, Lavin should be given more time to see if he actually can get the job done. I believe that it is a certainty that he will be give that time, and I also do believe that he will ultimately succeed.

 

[GardenCity62]

A few points in defense of Lavin;
To play at a national level a coach must be able to recruit nationally nowadays. In the Looie era you could strictly stay local but most of NY's current stars move onto prep schools prior to graduation. There are not many local grads contributing at the college level compared to 20 years ago. Lavin can recruit nationally.
Recruiting now begins at such an early stage of a player' career it makes it more difficult to truly evaluate a player' ability to perform at the college level. Going into their senior year Harkless, Sampson, Pointer, Harrison and Branch were all rated top ten at their positions. I think all SJU fans felt an NCAA bid by 2014 was a certainty.But a recruit's game as well as his body has to mature and this has been a disappointment. Blame the coaching staff for some of this but I think the main reasons are the inability to improve shooting skills and gain bodily strength. Try as hard as you can to improve these two areas most times it has to happen naturally and it just hasn't happened for these recruits.
The hot local coach considered as a replacement is like the backup quarterback.When things are going bad they look like John Wooden but it rarely works out that way.

 

[malone611]

You guys are so stupid, Lavin has done a terrible job at St. John's. One NCAA Tournament with Roberts players and the University knew that if they let Roberts coach that year, they would have made the tournament and would have had to give him a contract extension, which they did not want to do. Lavin has gotten a free pass because nobody in NY cares about St. John's basketball except the people on this site. Its a pro town. Gods Gift, Felix Balamou and Max Hooper are not major D1 talent, they should be playing at Central Connecticut State or that level. I live in Vegas and the only team I care about is St. John's. Look at this team, Harrison offers nothing to do team except bombing from 3-pt range, Pointer, I like has not improved at all since his freshman year. Jakarr Sampson has gotten worse this year. People may disagree with me about Phil Greene but he stinks. He should be playing at Illinois State. I think Jamal Branch needs to get more time. He can drive and he should be playing more than 8 minutes a game. Obekpa is terrible on the offensive end of the floor. With all this being said, Lavin has to go. In this new Big East, St. John's should never be worse than fourth. I am worried with this idiot as coach, we are in big trouble. Seton Hall is going to be better than St. John's and so isProvidence. That should never happen.

 

[Class of 72]

A few points in defense of Lavin;
To play at a national level a coach must be able to recruit nationally nowadays. In the Looie era you could strictly stay local but most of NY's current stars move onto prep schools prior to graduation. There are not many local grads contributing at the college level compared to 20 years ago. Lavin can recruit nationally.
Recruiting now begins at such an early stage of a player' career it makes it more difficult to truly evaluate a player' ability to perform at the college level. Going into their senior year Harkless, Sampson, Pointer, Harrison and Branch were all rated top ten at their positions. I think all SJU fans felt an NCAA bid by 2014 was a certainty.But a recruit's game as well as his body has to mature and this has been a disappointment. Blame the coaching staff for some of this but I think the main reasons are the inability to improve shooting skills and gain bodily strength. Try as hard as you can to improve these two areas most times it has to happen naturally and it just hasn't happened for these recruits.
The hot local coach considered as a replacement is like the backup quarterback.When things are going bad they look like John Wooden but it rarely works out that way.

There is no hot local coach!

 

[mjmaherjr]

You guys are so stupid, Lavin has done a terrible job at St. John's. One NCAA Tournament with Roberts players and the University knew that if they let Roberts coach that year, they would have made the tournament and would have had to give him a contract extension, which they did not want to do.

Nope the school new there were a bunch of schollies to fill and Roberts couldn't recruit. Heck whatever happened to that overweight pg that Roberts had coming

 

[MBoutchatski]

You guys are so stupid, Lavin has done a terrible job at St. John's. One NCAA Tournament with Roberts players and the University knew that if they let Roberts coach that year, they would have made the tournament and would have had to give him a contract extension, which they did not want to do. Lavin has gotten a free pass because nobody in NY cares about St. John's basketball except the people on this site. Its a pro town. Gods Gift, Felix Balamou and Max Hooper are not major D1 talent, they should be playing at Central Connecticut State or that level. I live in Vegas and the only team I care about is St. John's. Look at this team, Harrison offers nothing to do team except bombing from 3-pt range, Pointer, I like has not improved at all since his freshman year. Jakarr Sampson has gotten worse this year. People may disagree with me about Phil Greene but he stinks. He should be playing at Illinois State. I think Jamal Branch needs to get more time. He can drive and he should be playing more than 8 minutes a game. Obekpa is terrible on the offensive end of the floor. With all this being said, Lavin has to go. In this new Big East, St. John's should never be worse than fourth. I am worried with this idiot as coach, we are in big trouble. Seton Hall is going to be better than St. John's and so isProvidence. That should never happen.

This post is pretty much spot-on. the only thing i disagree with slightly is your evaluation of hooper. I think he is definitely a big-east caliber player/shooter, and is the type of player that would kill st. john's if he was an opponent. This coaching staff just has no clue how to run plays for him.

I also like branch more than most people do, and think he should be getting 20-25 minutes.

Obekpa should not play...at all.

 

[McGarry2]

Well it looks like dumb and dumber have joined the board.

 

[ErickTheRed]

So Lavin is an idiot? ok he may be underachieving but c'mon enough with this crap. Its not 1984 anymore we are not an elite program and those who think we are are insane. However we should be a 18-10ish team with this talent and in new Big East. I'm all for sticking with Lavs for another couple of seasons and if we do not improve time to move on. Remember the buzz when he took over, with Mike R helping out the program, recruiting on a national level, new UA contract, leading us into the new Big East. Sure some guys didn't make it to campus but we were and are still are mentioned with recruits that guys like Norm never got close to. We made it through those years. So Whitehead holds us up, trying to get his High School coach a job and its Lavs fault for not catering to him? We are mentioned with Brisco and Diallo, every time we think he's gonna lose out he lands a top player. Jordan going to temple, Jakarr going to Kansas, CO going to Cincy and so on, i know they have not turned out the way we expected but hopefully they'll develop.

 

[JackofVirginia]

This team is so over-hyped. They are horrible. I see splits with DePaul and Providence and maybe a ref-aided split with Seton Hall. SJU is just an awful team.

It's a shame for the new Big East to have such lack of media interest in New York. I guess we can dwell on the success of the teams from the original Big East (U-Conn, Syracuse). I suspect Creighton and Xavier will be applying to the AAC at the end of the season.

Do you read what your write? UCONN has lost to powerhouses Houston and SMU in the AAC. They also receive about 2 million per year for both the football and basketball teams. Creighton and Xavier are receiving 5 million dollars per year from the Big East. You're a college president where would you go?

Steve Snortz too much! The best scenario would be for St. Louis and Dayton to join the Big East, Lavin to go back to California to coach and St. John's to offer Shaka Smart big$$ to come to NYC. That will not happen this year so we will be forever a day late and a dollar short when it comes to basketball.

I think the VCU coach can and will get any big time job when he leaves. And if we continue to bomb the St.John's job will not even be attractive to high school coaches.

 

[JackofVirginia]

IMO the only shot Lavin has of succeeding here is if he can continuously bring in solid points guards who will act as floor generals. During our heyday of the 70's, 80's and 90's we always had those kinds of players. Not necessarily stars(IE Alagia, Moses, Buchanan), but kids who knew how to direct the offense and control tempo. In the short term I'm hoping that Jordan can become that player, but he's more of a shoot first point guard.

And wouldn't you be a shoot first point guard playing with the most pitiful shooting team in the Big East. I want Jordan to continue to drive and start taking some jumpers.

 

[JackofVirginia]

If you watched on TV you did not get a clear view of this (because it was filmed from the wrong side) but with 5:18 left and St. John's down four 60-56 Josh Hart clearly dribbled the ball off his leg for an obvious Villanova turnover. From where I sat in the Garden it was as clear a turnover as I have seen all season. Somehow a legally blind ref saw the ball go off a phantom Red Storm player (Perhaps it was the Ghost of Lenny Cooke or Darius Miles) and gave the ball back to the Wildcats. Seconds later Jay Vaughn Pinkston found an open Darrun Hilliard on the wing for an open three and a seven point lead. Game Over! That was the crowning bad call in as poorly an officiated game as I have seen since last year's Villanova game. Don't get me wrong we lost the game on the square and I believe Villanova was the better team but the refs did a bad job for most of this game and that phantom turnover call was the height of absurdity.

And wasn't it Hart who took four steps while driving in front of the St.John's bench. Lavin and the bench all leaped in shock.

 

[McGarry2]

IMO the only shot Lavin has of succeeding here is if he can continuously bring in solid points guards who will act as floor generals. During our heyday of the 70's, 80's and 90's we always had those kinds of players. Not necessarily stars(IE Alagia, Moses, Buchanan), but kids who knew how to direct the offense and control tempo. In the short term I'm hoping that Jordan can become that player, but he's more of a shoot first point guard.

And wouldn't you be a shoot first point guard playing with the most pitiful shooting team in the Big East. I want Jordan to continue to drive and start taking some jumpers.

FYI "the heydays were not the70's,80's and 90's"

 

[JackofVirginia]

And here we go.

As per Zags article:
“As you know, my goal is just to get our team to play the best basketball come March,” coach Steve Lavin said in a Garden hallway following the game. “That goal doesn’t change, that objective doesn’t change.”

The only problem Stevie is we might have a losing record by then... duh!

 

[monte]

IMO the only shot Lavin has of succeeding here is if he can continuously bring in solid points guards who will act as floor generals. During our heyday of the 70's, 80's and 90's we always had those kinds of players. Not necessarily stars(IE Alagia, Moses, Buchanan), but kids who knew how to direct the offense and control tempo. In the short term I'm hoping that Jordan can become that player, but he's more of a shoot first point guard.

And wouldn't you be a shoot first point guard playing with the most pitiful shooting team in the Big East. I want Jordan to continue to drive and start taking some jumpers.

That wasn't a criticism of Jordan, just an observation. I like his game a lot, but he's more a combo guard. Having said that, a lot of what our team does from here on out will be determined by how he performs.

 

[gman]

IMO the only shot Lavin has of succeeding here is if he can continuously bring in solid points guards who will act as floor generals. During our heyday of the 70's, 80's and 90's we always had those kinds of players. Not necessarily stars(IE Alagia, Moses, Buchanan), but kids who knew how to direct the offense and control tempo. In the short term I'm hoping that Jordan can become that player, but he's more of a shoot first point guard.

And wouldn't you be a shoot first point guard playing with the most pitiful shooting team in the Big East. I want Jordan to continue to drive and start taking some jumpers.

That wasn't a criticism of Jordan, just an observation. I like his game a lot, but he's more a combo guard. Having said that, a lot of what our team does from here on out will be determined by how he performs.

I think both Jordan and branch could be good passing guards, but we have no one that can catch the passes and finish.

 

[monte]

IMO the only shot Lavin has of succeeding here is if he can continuously bring in solid points guards who will act as floor generals. During our heyday of the 70's, 80's and 90's we always had those kinds of players. Not necessarily stars(IE Alagia, Moses, Buchanan), but kids who knew how to direct the offense and control tempo. In the short term I'm hoping that Jordan can become that player, but he's more of a shoot first point guard.

And wouldn't you be a shoot first point guard playing with the most pitiful shooting team in the Big East. I want Jordan to continue to drive and start taking some jumpers.

FYI "the heydays were not the70's,80's and 90's"

Based on what's gone on here for the past 10+ years, those sure seemed like heydays.

 

[austour]

If you watched on TV you did not get a clear view of this (because it was filmed from the wrong side) but with 5:18 left and St. John's down four 60-56 Josh Hart clearly dribbled the ball off his leg for an obvious Villanova turnover. From where I sat in the Garden it was as clear a turnover as I have seen all season. Somehow a legally blind ref saw the ball go off a phantom Red Storm player (Perhaps it was the Ghost of Lenny Cooke or Darius Miles) and gave the ball back to the Wildcats. Seconds later Jay Vaughn Pinkston found an open Darrun Hilliard on the wing for an open three and a seven point lead. Game Over! That was the crowning bad call in as poorly an officiated game as I have seen since last year's Villanova game. Don't get me wrong we lost the game on the square and I believe Villanova was the better team but the refs did a bad job for most of this game and that phantom turnover call was the height of absurdity.

And wasn't it Hart who took four steps while driving in front of the St.John's bench. Lavin and the bench all leaped in shock.

I think that was Pinkston

 

[jr49]

So Lavin is an idiot? ok he may be underachieving but c'mon enough with this crap. Its not 1984 anymore we are not an elite program and those who think we are are insane. However we should be a 18-10ish team with this talent and in new Big East. I'm all for sticking with Lavs for another couple of seasons and if we do not improve time to move on. Remember the buzz when he took over, with Mike R helping out the program, recruiting on a national level, new UA contract, leading us into the new Big East. Sure some guys didn't make it to campus but we were and are still are mentioned with recruits that guys like Norm never got close to. We made it through those years. So Whitehead holds us up, trying to get his High School coach a job and its Lavs fault for not catering to him? We are mentioned with Brisco and Diallo, every time we think he's gonna lose out he lands a top player. Jordan going to temple, Jakarr going to Kansas, CO going to Cincy and so on, i know they have not turned out the way we expected but hopefully they'll develop.

Guys right here on this very board thought Polle was better then any recruit Norm had ever gotten. Thats how thrilled they were with Steve. I think the kid hit a couple of jumpers from 16 in his first couple of games. Guys fell in love with the talent level because they wanted to. Sure, I'll continue to root for these kids and even now hope next years better. Most important I hope Steve really starts to bring in complete players. He did what he could for a coach starting from scratch who had to field a team fast. If it was not going to happen for Beilein at Mich. fast, and for Amaker not at all, why was it going to be easy here? Going into the season it was a fact this team had trouble with the basics. A juco was going to get us 10 and 10! The same kids that were skinny last year were still skinny. There are no perfect teams and I would expect our guys to win a few games. I hope they play hard. On average we were picked to finish around 6th. Maybe we can still get there.

 

[Section3]

Can somebody please tell me what you would have done differently today?

The only thing I would have done differently is not played Hooper so much. I didn't put much worth in his garbage time performance, but would have given him as much playing time. He shot 1-5 in 18 minutes, and although I do think he is a basketball player who can pass and handle the ball decently, he hasn't shown he can shoot with any pressure on him whatsoever. You can't prove to me that as bad as Branch has been, that Hooper merits 18 minutes to Branch's 8.

Other than that, we played decent defense today, at least if you go by Villanova's shooting %. We did lose the boards 42-31, and I guess when you go three guards, that will happen. I would have started pointer and not Greene. That point hardly mattered since our front line of Sanchez and Sampson immediately got into foul trouble and were not factors from that point out. Once they were in foul trouble, after Obekpa, there aren't any other big men worthy of significant playing time, so we would have gone small anyway.

On offense, we attacked, and attacked, and attacked the hoop. Nova did block 5 shots to our 6, but we were successfully able to penetrate, get relatively easy shots, and draw fouls. As mentioned, we missed so many relatively easy shots, I don't know what Lavin could have done to improve that.

Jordan played reasonably well, and shot 6-14. Surprisingly, as much as he penetrated, he didn't go to the line once. It's amazing how easily he can slash to the basket - he vaguely has the ability of a Monroe to shake free even in heavy traffic and heavily guarded, he gets off the shot he wants.

Harrison: 4-13
Greene: 2-8
Sampson; 4-11
Pointer: 1-8
Hooper: 1-5

Collectively: 12 for 45, 26.6% for players on the floor 123 minutes of the 200 total.

You ask me, two main reasons for the loss are things Lavin or any coach couldn't control: inability to make high percentage shots, and Sampson, Pointer, Sanchez racking up 14 fouls. I thought Sampson and Sanchez were going to have really big games and I think they could have.

Agree Beast...Regardless of whether one is pro or anti Lavin, don't think there was much, if anything, that he did that contributed to today's loss...

I think he needs to video guy to create a montage of Sampson going for ball fakes over the last 2 years. Let him watch it until he connects the dots...

Think he needs to tell Sanchez that his PT will be predicated on his aggressiveness on the offensive side...he continues to pass up mismatch opportunities

 

[MBoutchatski]

So Lavin is an idiot? ok he may be underachieving but c'mon enough with this crap. Its not 1984 anymore we are not an elite program and those who think we are are insane. However we should be a 18-10ish team with this talent and in new Big East. I'm all for sticking with Lavs for another couple of seasons and if we do not improve time to move on. Remember the buzz when he took over, with Mike R helping out the program, recruiting on a national level, new UA contract, leading us into the new Big East. Sure some guys didn't make it to campus but we were and are still are mentioned with recruits that guys like Norm never got close to. We made it through those years. So Whitehead holds us up, trying to get his High School coach a job and its Lavs fault for not catering to him? We are mentioned with Brisco and Diallo, every time we think he's gonna lose out he lands a top player. Jordan going to temple, Jakarr going to Kansas, CO going to Cincy and so on, i know they have not turned out the way we expected but hopefully they'll develop.

Guys right here on this very board thought Polle was better then any recruit Norm had ever gotten. Thats how thrilled they were with Steve. I think the kid hit a couple of jumpers from 16 in his first couple of games. Guys fell in love with the talent level because they wanted to. Sure, I'll continue to root for these kids and even now hope next years better. Most important I hope Steve really starts to bring in complete players. He did what he could for a coach starting from scratch who had to field a team fast. If it was not going to happen for Beilein at Mich. fast, and for Amaker not at all, why was it going to be easy here? Going into the season it was a fact this team had trouble with the basics. A juco was going to get us 10 and 10! The same kids that were skinny last year were still skinny. There are no perfect teams and I would expect our guys to win a few games. I hope they play hard. On average we were picked to finish around 6th. Maybe we can still get there.

Polee is playing well on a nationally ranked SD St team.