At this point, let’s just see how the rest of the season plays out. As previous posters have said, I think they’ve dug themselves into too deep of a hole with a bad OOC schedule and missing out on chances to get Quad 1 and 2 wins (Villanova, Xavier, Marquette). Going to have to go on a serious run here to have a chance at the NCAA Tournament and this group hasn’t shown me any reason to be optimistic. The players don’t seem to mix well and it has become apparent CMA doesn’t really know how to fix it.
My stance is simple. If he doesn’t make the tournament, I don’t think he deserves a 5th year here. His coaching has been lackluster and the recruiting results haven’t been much better. In college basketball, you typically are either a great coach or a great recruiter. Very rare to have both and those guys cost a fortune. CMA is proving to be none at this point in his career. I’m rooting for him, but just don’t see this fixing itself. What happens next? I don’t really know. It’s St. John’s, so I expect to be disappointed. Contrary to what some posters have said, Pitino doesn’t want this job. He’s open to it, but there’s going to be a lot of others teams in the mix for him. Teams that can offer more money, better facilities and larger fan bases. He does have prior history with Shanley, but that doesn’t mean much of anything come contract negotiations time. Personally, I don’t think he comes here and SJU goes scrambling for a young coach. Someone like Jared Grasso or Robert Jones. Hope I’m wrong, but again, I’ve seen this play out way too many times. Your best predictor of future behavior is past behavior or past performance in a similar situation.
