Mike Anderson - Former Coach

SLYFOXX1968 said:
Yes , of course , nether deserve to be fired but , I only suggested it as a tactic to leverage CMA into a Retirement / Resignation at Season end . If you can the entire staff , which is commonly used tacitly , the HC usually looks to exit himself as he has been stripped of staff. And , a new Coach is going to want his own Assistants not Macon or Vetrone . No offense to them . Think of it as them getting caught up in a house cleaning . It has nothing to do with the job they are doing . Perhaps I didn’t explain that properly ..
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No decent program strips a head coach of his chosen staff! Why even suggest it?

AD Cragg has never in his career had to deal with a situation such as the one he inherited from the past sleazy AD who, along with President Bobby, mismanaged the basketball program and hired a coach with less than zero experience in the coaching of young men.

It's obvious now that this team's starters are not as talented and cohesive as last year's team but the greatest concern is the tendency of some of the players to quit working during the game and the utter lack of leadership on the court. While the head coach usually falls on the sword as CMA has been doing, I think players like Posh Alexander and Curbelo are the primary culprits for the lack of leadership on the court. Coach Anderson has been screaming his lungs out to get Posh to focus during the last few games to no avail. Curbelo loses concentration if a play doesn't go his way. In short, the backcourt is a hot mess.

One strategy CMA could employ is to play not ready for prime time players like King and Storr more and move Mathis to his natural two guard position. I disagree with those who diminish Stanley's potential contributions. I think he should get major minutes at the power forward position and Jones should be encouraged to attack the basket more and only take unforced open threes.

Most importantly we have to tighten the defense and focus on the other team's hot player.

Ironically CMA'S future is in the hands of two little guards who are not handling adversity too well right now. I wouldn't be surprised if Posh is the one to come off the bench as the season progresses because he looked emotionally drained after being pulled in tha Seton Hall game and keeping his towel over his head in shame and disappointment. He needs to regain his confidence and warrior mentality or the season will be over for him and his team mates who were depending on him.
 
Let's keep him until his contract runs out and save the money we would use to hire another coach who would have been fired before CMA contract ran out.

Coach is not the problem. The school is the problem. I think that the school has a top limit of sweet 16 maybe one every ten-twenty years and a middle of the pack BE school that is always going to be on the bubble.

I think acceptance is the beginning...
 
Re the staff discussion I would also add that in the eventual certain hiring of Ricky P he would likely benefit from both shoes and van. He could bring Masiello in with him and maybe Taliek as DOBO. The rest of his staff at Iona is pretty underwhelming. ;)
 
Fizzy said:
Let's keep him until his contract runs out and save the money we would use to hire another coach who would have been fired before CMA contract ran out.

Coach is not the problem. The school is the problem. I think that the school has a top limit of sweet 16 maybe one every ten-twenty years and a middle of the pack BE school that is always going to be on the bubble.

I think acceptance is the beginning...
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Constant joking is only acceptable when the jokes are good.
 
L J S A said:
Constant joking is only acceptable when the jokes are good.
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This is not a joke. You tell me what info you've gleamed during the last 30 years that will tell you that anything is going to change?

Hire this coach, fire this coach. Hasn't worked so far has it? If you were choosing stocks would you expect a radical change in its performance if it has been giving the same returns for 30 years?

Do I hope that what I posted isn't the end result? Yes. Has changing coaches worked since Looie, ever? No.

Definition of insanity.

Also I am pretty fricking hilarious...
 
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Fizzy said:
This is not a joke. You tell me what info you've gleamed during the last 30 years that will tell you that anything is going to change?

Hire this coach, fire this coach. Hasn't worked so far has it? If you were choosing stocks would you expect a radical change in its performance if it has been giving the same returns for 30 years?

Do I hope that what I posted isn't the end result? Yes. Has changing coaches worked since Looie, ever? No.

Definition of insanity.

Also I am pretty fricking hilarious...
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Do you think CMA is doing a good job?
 
rcatalano said:
FWIW I was told by a person who is very close to the entire team on game days that if CMA does not make the tournament this year HE IS GONE! I cannot disclose who this person is as it might jeopardize his position. But I think what he told me has legs!
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I wish we could use AI technology here and input the last 25 years of management of the SJU Bball program into the computer and have it spit out the answer. I just do not think changing a coach and going through a rebuilding process every 5 years or so is the answer. It has not worked. IMO we should have stayed with Lavin. Maybe money needs to be thrown at facilities first? Relying on 2-3 star recruits to compete each year with 4-5 star recruits generally will not work long term, the coaching staff is not on the court playing.
 
Roamer said:
I wish we could use AI technology here and input the last 25 years of management of the SJU Bball program into the computer and have it spit out the answer. I just do not think changing a coach and going through a rebuilding process every 5 years or so is the answer. It has not worked. IMO we should have stayed with Lavin. Maybe money needs to be thrown at facilities first? Relying on 2-3 star recruits to compete each year with 4-5 star recruits generally will not work long term, the coaching staff is not on the court playing.
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2-3 stars kids? We're now going after unranked kids. It ain't getting better, it's getting worse.
 
Absent a complete collapse, which I don’t expect, I’d only move on from Anderson if you have a guaranteed upgrade in hand. That universe of theoretical candidates is small and would require an unprecedented financial investment by the university.

More realistic path is demanding the obvious staff shake up to plug the X&O deficiencies. Also going to need many more “NIL” resources, which can legally come from CMAs pocket.
 
monte said:
2-3 stars kids? We're now going after unranked kids. It ain't getting better, it's getting worse.
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To be fair we have been getting 3 and 4 star kids. We have one coming next year and a JC AA.
Davidson gets 2-3 star kids every year and is very competitive because the kids seem to have good character qualities and are good students.
Getting an unranked kid to play off the bench is common on most D1 teams.
We can no longer compete for talent with Kentucky, Kansas, Duke, UNC, or any of the upper tier schools of the Power 5 but there is no reason not to be in the hunt for talent on the level of most of the rest of D1 schools.
Gonzaga and St. Mary's on the west coast have a similar profile as St. John's. The difference is management and coaching decisions that St. John's has sucked at for over 20 years now.
 
Roamer said:
I wish we could use AI technology here and input the last 25 years of management of the SJU Bball program into the computer and have it spit out the answer. I just do not think changing a coach and going through a rebuilding process every 5 years or so is the answer. It has not worked. IMO we should have stayed with Lavin. Maybe money needs to be thrown at facilities first? Relying on 2-3 star recruits to compete each year with 4-5 star recruits generally will not work long term, the coaching staff is not on the court playing.
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It doesn’t have to be a multi year rebuild. As I said previously, with NIL and the immediate eligibility of transfers , if you get the right coach in here , you rebuild this in one offseason, two at the most. There are three guys who we could probably entice to come here who could probably do that, Pitino, Mack or Howland. I’ll even throw Lavin in there as 4th guy and bring him back. Lavin would move around very expediently and efficiently in this new world of College Basketball in my opinion. Where Lavin is now just doesn’t really give him the opportunities that he would have here.
 
When we had Lavin and Dunlop running the team that was exciting basketball! It took half a season for the kids to buy into Dunlop’s system but when they did we were humming! I recall beating 4 Top 10 teams that year and going to the dance! That was potentially a Final Four team before Postell got injured! I would taken Lavin back in a heart beat!
 
rcatalano said:
When we had Lavin and Dunlop running the team that was exciting basketball! It took half a season for the kids to buy into Dunlop’s system but when they did we were humming! I recall beating 4 Top 10 teams that year and going to the dance! That was potentially a Final Four team before Postell got injured! I would taken Lavin back in a heart beat!
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it was DJ Kennedy who got hurt but I agree. I would take Lavin back in a heartbeat, especially with the NIL and transfer rules.
 
Fizzy said:
Let's keep him until his contract runs out and save the money we would use to hire another coach who would have been fired before CMA contract ran out.

Coach is not the problem. The school is the problem. I think that the school has a top limit of sweet 16 maybe one every ten-twenty years and a middle of the pack BE school that is always going to be on the bubble.

I think acceptance is the beginning...
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I’ll settle for always being on the bubble. We’ve been on the bubble once since Lavin left and that was Mullin’s last year.
 
IDRAFT said:
Totally agree
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Boo Harvey said:
I’ll settle for always being on the bubble. We’ve been on the bubble once since Lavin left and that was Mullin’s last year.
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Just not sure why people keep focusing on level of talent and recruiting stars. That is not our problem. We are not UCONN or Nova but we have similar talent to PC or Marquette. They just have better coaching/systems to get the best out of the talent they have.
 
No use comparing past coaches. In my opinion, each was fired for a reason and none of them were the answer.

The position of Head Coach demands a multi-faceted skill set. You have to be a salesman, a psychiatrist, a PR front man, and an X's & O's guru. You have to manage your roster, recruits, your assistants, your bosses, the donors, the media, and the fans. Very few coaches will have the whole package and do all of these things well. The smart ones hire assistants that excel in areas where they are weak.

The Lavin/Dunlap marriage is a good example of this. Lavin could win the press conference and talk about "sharing the sugar", while Dunlap planned practice drills and installed a system.

Norm and especially Mullin (who hired his buddies) did not organize as wisely. As for Lavin, after Dunlap left, he never brought in anyone of equal caliber and it left an obvious void. That's my two cents.
 
NCJohnnie said:
Just not sure why people keep focusing on level of talent and recruiting stars. That is not our problem. We are not UCONN or Nova but we have similar talent to PC or Marquette. They just have better coaching/systems to get the best out of the talent they have.
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As of right now we have one player who would start on some(not all) of the better big east teams; Soriano. Every other player on our team would be relegated to the 6-8 slot on other good teams. Our 6-8 players would be 8-10(or lower) on other good teams. Some wouldn't sniff PT. We lack shooters, we lack any sort of skilled size up front other then Soriano, we have a starting backcourt made of 2 kids with almost the exact same strengths and weaknesses. Both of whom are small and are not good shooters. Sorry, but are not a very talented team. Lower 3rd of of the league IMO. Combine all of this with the fact that CMA is going up against some of the best coaches in college basketball almost every game. So even if our talent was equal to those of most other teams, as you feel it is, we'll still loose games purely on coaching. I said it before and I'll say it again; if CMA cannot bring in a higher level of talent then he has so far, he will never win here.
 
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