Have to disagree. Just look at Xavier located in a rather mundane, not exactly cosmopolitan area with other sports options, albeit less than NY. It attracts three & four star kids for most part from all around the country built on its winning tradition. They then coach the hell out of and develop recruits. It can be done here with steady, competent leadership. Avoid the fools gold of "questionable" elite kids with NBA mania & build a solid core of basketball players. The volatility of our roster is a big factor in destabilizing the program with an end result of being mediocre more often than not. It is quite ok to look at current player & roster issues like Thomas debacle, Jordan & Adonis ineligibility to posit notion that we have to look at the way we do business here. At this stage of Lavin era we should not be looking at possibility of going to battle with such a thin roster. Perhaps we should put blame aside and objectively examine the state of the program, fairly look at who should be held accountable & develop a plan of remediation.Got home a little while ago from the CTK-Molloy game. Rawle as usual a man amongst boys. Anyhow as others have said, this is disappointing but not surprising. There have been warning signs including his demeanor as recently as at the SH game. Based on reports from Paultz, I assume we'll never see the likes of him again. Good bye and good luck.
Just to be clear. I am not certain how long the "leave" will be for. Since the problem has festered I just don't see a quick return.
What you have to love about rooting for this team is the way it keeps you guessing. A little over 48 hours ago, you could draw up a way for there to be two Top 10 teams playing in the Garden Tuesday night. Now a tricky game just got a lot trickier tomorrow and you can draw up a way for there to only be one ranked team playing in the Garden Tuesday night, with the unranked team without one of its two most talented players and returning to its bread and butter under multiple regimes the last 10 years: the 5 man rotation! WE ARE!
Interesting points.
Even if I cast no blame on anyone in this situation, I find myself asking a basic question, should this program be much more stable? Is there anything that can be done to reduce the instability that seems to plague us? If this is the norm, so be it. I can then find another diversion. If it is not, how can we get to a less volatile level & who is responsible for accomplishing that? My desire is to root for a team that has a minimum of drama, continuity, competes for a BE championship annually & goes to the Dance more often than not. As things stand, I have a hard time believing we will achieve that status. It seems like we get headed in the right direction only to be derailed. "Always something" could be our motto.
I've been saying this for awhile, St. John's is a tough sell to get kids to come here. This isn't the 80's anymore, things have changed so much in college BB since then. Of course Lavin gets the blame, but it's almost like he's got to take a chance on imperfect kids. I would wonder what realistic coach we could bring in here that could do a better recruiting job. At least Lavin has us in the running for the top talent. Norm was supposed to be an expert recruiter, and look how badly he failed at it.
*Edit: I don't want to make this seem like a Lavin defense. I'm not happy at all with the way he's seemingly taken recruiting periods off and put our future in a lot of doubt.
I have never subscribed to your view that St Johns is a tough sell. There are schools and programs that have enjoyed or are enjoying success in lesser locations. Gonzaga in Spokane, Xavier in Cincinnati, Villanova in Radnor, Davidson in the sticks, Syracuse in the North Pole, Butler, San Diego State, and others. For Christmas sake, NYC should be an easy sell for hungry and aggressive coaches. Hiring lazies or losers has been our athletic administration's history since Brian Mahoney was endorsed by Lou. The current situation is eerie in that it is shaping up to end like the Jarvis fiasco. Coaches with big egos thinking they deserve(d) contract extension without proving they worked hard enough for it, sabotaging their recruiting efforts with JC talent and walk ons and alienating the fan base. I agree with Paultzman in regard to the length of Rysheed's absence and since the Spring semester does not begin until January 21st, neither party will have any incentive to contact the other. If Jordan returns before that date he may have gotten the message. What message? That I (Lavin ) will ruin your selfish fckn NBA dream by exposing you as uncoachable and making you damaged goods even if it means losing my job since Class of 72 says I am losing it anyway. :angry:
You're missing my point though. You're not selling the top kids on NYC anymore. With the emergence of mainstream media and social media, these guys think they're rock stars in high school. Location hasn't proven to be a factor and time and time again we've seen kids interested in leaving home rather than put NY on their back. Kids are looking to get to the next level by any means necessary, even if they have to go to Podunk U. But the biggest thing is the level of support at schools like Syracuse, using your example. They are the main attraction there. Look how little support there is for st. John's.
Can't say it better than this. Thanks Paultz.
The last 20 years tend to blend together and make this seem like it's a lot harder than it is. But it isn't so. After a few transitional years of Mahoney after Lou, Fran had this program ready to go to the moon. We know what happened with him but if we are evaluating based on "could he have succeeded here", the answer is unequivocally yes. So one long time assistant who couldn't hack it, and a guy who made some mistakes and overplayed his hand but was ready to win big here. Far from the end of the world, happens in this business.
Then the school made two horrible hires. Simple as that. A bad guy and a good guy, neither of whom could win here. That's caused many to question whether it's possible to win here. Not a valid question IMO. No doubting SJU has it's shortcomings, but winning coaches win with similar or less all the time. Easier to win with more for sure, but possible to win with the same or less. SJU is not a fundamentally flawed basketball program.
Lavin is clearly light years ahead of the last two but unclear whether he is the right profile. For sure, Rysheed is just the latest example of volatility that is way above the norm. Lavin has averaged like 2-3 of these instances, or more, per year since he's been here. Understood the risks early, but at this point it's reasonable to ask when or if it's going to stop. IMO, too focused on the big fish which can overcomplicate things because realistically that's not really who we are so we end up being on the fringes more often than not (at least the last 3 years). We don't need to focus on a Harkless or a Briscoe "saving the program". Great to think about, but this program doesn't need to be saved, it just needs sustainable quality, and all these big swings - even with a mix of hits and misses - have resulted in us going into a conference game in early January with 5 guys averaging over 10 minutes per game, in year 5. That's concerning in terms of long term prospects.
Really rooting hard for those 5 kids and everyone else in SJU uniform today.
Outstanding post SJU15. Man that "sustainable quality" reference rings so true.
Sure, we're paying our coach $2 million + whatever recruiting budget he has, but that seems like the end of the investment into this program.
Im not sure what else you could ask for. 2 mill+ is probably in the 90th percentile
Then it's poor program management if that's the case. You can't just dump your whole budget into the coach and hope for the best. I mean where is the marketing campaign for this team! Until recently we didn't even have gear available for fans to purchase.
