Mullin as Coach
- Thread starter cappy105
- Start date
One thing that makes me laugh is when I hear pundits question if Mullin's heart will be in it. There are a lot of things to question anytime a new coach is hired, but Chris having his heart in this (or anything he does) is probably the one certainty.
We think we love this program...Chris is an alum, the face of the program without question, his mentor, friend and father figure-Louie is woven so deeply into the fabric of the university it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins, he met his wife at SJU, his son plays lacrosse and will graduate from SJU (maybe two or three?), he went to a Final Four at SJU and had the best days of his life here. Even though his career brought him nearly as far away as you can from SJU, he has never really left and shows up more than most former players that live down the road. There may not be a bigger fan of the program.
We think we love this program...Chris is an alum, the face of the program without question, his mentor, friend and father figure-Louie is woven so deeply into the fabric of the university it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins, he met his wife at SJU, his son plays lacrosse and will graduate from SJU (maybe two or three?), he went to a Final Four at SJU and had the best days of his life here. Even though his career brought him nearly as far away as you can from SJU, he has never really left and shows up more than most former players that live down the road. There may not be a bigger fan of the program.
we are sju
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I think it is more of he might not know what he is getting into type of thing.
But on a better note, quote function works. Woo Hoo
we are sju
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Who is the first to turn? Vegas has Desco as favorite first time Mullin wears a suit he does not agree with
Desco is a good fan that just gets fed up. The clear money is on Poison, Salty Dog, Tom Bradley, or OldSchooolRedmen--temporarily until the team does something good for him to get too high over.
SaltyDog has been pretty salty lately..doesn't seem up for the Mullin hire. Tom Bradley was very anti-Lavin firing and not very pro-Mullin. Both of those guys seem like stable, solid posters, though. Poison went off the reservation a few years back and I'm starting to think that he's not just on walkabout. He's probably lost for good.
I'm not ready to give up on Desco as a potential coach basher. Desco is all business when he comes to games. Wears collar dress shirt freshly pressed and wears Mullin Jersey over it.
If you think Desco is about to let the new staff slack on their Descocode you are mistaken.
If we get Slice I'm not worried about him because Desco will be afraid to criticize a Tony Soprano lookalike. But if even a dress shirt becomes slightly wrinkled Desco will show no mercy whether it's Matt or Mullin or anyone else
we are sju
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Imagine Desco was a West Virginia fan. He would have a heart attack
Georgetown Hoyas @georgetownhoyas ·
Welcome back to the @BIGEAST, Coach!
http://collegespun.com/big-east/geo...ack-to-st-johns-with-a-cool-throwback-picture
Welcome back to the @BIGEAST, Coach!
http://collegespun.com/big-east/geo...ack-to-st-johns-with-a-cool-throwback-picture
Why Mullin hiring is good for St. John's . . . and Nova
Mike Sielski, Inquirer Columnist
Wednesday, April 1, 2015,
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports...ng_is_good_for_St__John_s_______and_Nova.html
The T-shirt. When he was playing college ball in the early 1980s, Chris Mullin always wore that T-shirt underneath his St. John's tank top. Jay Wright had never seen anyone do that before. It was one of the first things Wright thought of when he learned this week that St. John's had hired Mullin as its new head coach, that a former Big East power had reached into its past to try to revitalize its present.
Wright, Villa's head coach, was still a student at Bucknell University then, often making the 150-mile drive from Lewisburg, Pa., to Nova's campus to see his girlfriend, Patty Reilly, who is now his wife. Patty was a Villanova cheerleader, too, and Wright particularly enjoyed those weekends when the Wildcats had games against St. John's, when he might get a seat at the Spectrum or at Madison Square Garden, when Villanova had Ed Pinckney and Dwayne McClain and Harold Pressley and St. John's had Mullin and Walter Berry and Bill Wennington and every game was a happening.
"Great memories," Wright said in a phone interview Tuesday. "That was the heyday of the Big East."
The nostalgia for the conference's glory days has been thick over the past few days, since Mullin's name surfaced as a possible replacement for Steve Lavin, and if you're of a certain generation, as Wright is, you understand and embrace that nostalgia.
"The strength and allure of our league is the tradition," he said. "It's a basketball-rich tradition, and there are probably very few names that could return and stir up as many thoughts of greatness."
For that reason, Mullin's hiring is in no way bad for the present iteration of the Big East, and in no way is it bad for the program that has dominated the conference these last two seasons. The league gets to reconnect with one of the best players in college basketball history - Mullin was a three-time Big East player of the year and scored 2,440 career points - and Villanova finds itself in a no-lose situation vis-à-vis St. John's. If Mullin flops as a head coach, then Wright and the Wildcats maintain their superiority over the Red Storm. And if Mullin does indeed turn around a program that has reached the NCAA tournament just twice in the last 13 years, then a long-dormant rivalry is rekindled, and both Villanova and the Big East will be made better for the challenge to the Wildcats' supremacy.
Really, the only entity that could suffer for hiring Mullin is St. John's itself. No one disputes the beauty of his basketball mind, and the connections he formed over his 15 years as an NBA player and his more than five years as an NBA executive could help him in the same way that Larry Brown's pro connections have helped him at SMU.
But Mullin has never been a head coach before, at any level of the sport, and remember: He's not recruiting those middle-aged men who watched him play on TV and whose mouths would fall open at the thought of meeting him. He's recruiting their sons, and most of their sons don't know who Chris Mullin is or was.
Nevertheless, he is a New Yorker, and that background, Wright said, is an advantage that can't be overstated. When Hofstra University hired Wright as its head coach in 1994, the first assistant coach he hired was Tom Pecora, who was from Queens Village and was plugged into New York's recruiting culture.
"Much like Philadelphia, New Yorkers want a New York guy," said Wright, who reportedly turned down an overture from the University of Texas for its vacant head coaching position Tuesday. "When the head coach is a New York guy, you're golden in New York, especially when you're Chris Mullin. One thing that's unique about it: In New York, St. John's is king. There's no Big 5. All the other colleges are below St. John's. In Philly, all the teams are equal. So it's different in New York in what St. John's is so far above everybody else. St. John's basketball in New York is huge. It's always been that way, and it remains that way."
It's been an awful long time since the program's performance justified that status, though. Wednesday marks the 30th anniversary of Villanova's upset of Georgetown in the 1985 NCAA title game, and the old Wildcats from that era still tell Wright that there was another team in that year's Final Four that they feared more than Patrick Ewing's Hoyas.
St. John's had beaten Villanova three times that season, and if the Wildcats had met St. John's in the national semifinal instead of Memphis, they might never have had the chance to play for a national championship at all. Chris Mullin might have sent them home losers in a big game again.
Starting next season, we'll find out just how much has changed.
Mike Sielski, Inquirer Columnist
Wednesday, April 1, 2015,
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports...ng_is_good_for_St__John_s_______and_Nova.html
The T-shirt. When he was playing college ball in the early 1980s, Chris Mullin always wore that T-shirt underneath his St. John's tank top. Jay Wright had never seen anyone do that before. It was one of the first things Wright thought of when he learned this week that St. John's had hired Mullin as its new head coach, that a former Big East power had reached into its past to try to revitalize its present.
Wright, Villa's head coach, was still a student at Bucknell University then, often making the 150-mile drive from Lewisburg, Pa., to Nova's campus to see his girlfriend, Patty Reilly, who is now his wife. Patty was a Villanova cheerleader, too, and Wright particularly enjoyed those weekends when the Wildcats had games against St. John's, when he might get a seat at the Spectrum or at Madison Square Garden, when Villanova had Ed Pinckney and Dwayne McClain and Harold Pressley and St. John's had Mullin and Walter Berry and Bill Wennington and every game was a happening.
"Great memories," Wright said in a phone interview Tuesday. "That was the heyday of the Big East."
The nostalgia for the conference's glory days has been thick over the past few days, since Mullin's name surfaced as a possible replacement for Steve Lavin, and if you're of a certain generation, as Wright is, you understand and embrace that nostalgia.
"The strength and allure of our league is the tradition," he said. "It's a basketball-rich tradition, and there are probably very few names that could return and stir up as many thoughts of greatness."
For that reason, Mullin's hiring is in no way bad for the present iteration of the Big East, and in no way is it bad for the program that has dominated the conference these last two seasons. The league gets to reconnect with one of the best players in college basketball history - Mullin was a three-time Big East player of the year and scored 2,440 career points - and Villanova finds itself in a no-lose situation vis-à-vis St. John's. If Mullin flops as a head coach, then Wright and the Wildcats maintain their superiority over the Red Storm. And if Mullin does indeed turn around a program that has reached the NCAA tournament just twice in the last 13 years, then a long-dormant rivalry is rekindled, and both Villanova and the Big East will be made better for the challenge to the Wildcats' supremacy.
Really, the only entity that could suffer for hiring Mullin is St. John's itself. No one disputes the beauty of his basketball mind, and the connections he formed over his 15 years as an NBA player and his more than five years as an NBA executive could help him in the same way that Larry Brown's pro connections have helped him at SMU.
But Mullin has never been a head coach before, at any level of the sport, and remember: He's not recruiting those middle-aged men who watched him play on TV and whose mouths would fall open at the thought of meeting him. He's recruiting their sons, and most of their sons don't know who Chris Mullin is or was.
Nevertheless, he is a New Yorker, and that background, Wright said, is an advantage that can't be overstated. When Hofstra University hired Wright as its head coach in 1994, the first assistant coach he hired was Tom Pecora, who was from Queens Village and was plugged into New York's recruiting culture.
"Much like Philadelphia, New Yorkers want a New York guy," said Wright, who reportedly turned down an overture from the University of Texas for its vacant head coaching position Tuesday. "When the head coach is a New York guy, you're golden in New York, especially when you're Chris Mullin. One thing that's unique about it: In New York, St. John's is king. There's no Big 5. All the other colleges are below St. John's. In Philly, all the teams are equal. So it's different in New York in what St. John's is so far above everybody else. St. John's basketball in New York is huge. It's always been that way, and it remains that way."
It's been an awful long time since the program's performance justified that status, though. Wednesday marks the 30th anniversary of Villanova's upset of Georgetown in the 1985 NCAA title game, and the old Wildcats from that era still tell Wright that there was another team in that year's Final Four that they feared more than Patrick Ewing's Hoyas.
St. John's had beaten Villanova three times that season, and if the Wildcats had met St. John's in the national semifinal instead of Memphis, they might never have had the chance to play for a national championship at all. Chris Mullin might have sent them home losers in a big game again.
Starting next season, we'll find out just how much has changed.
beast of the east
Active member
Not many SJU fans who lived through the Ewing Georgetown years would want Ewing here. Not me, for one.