[quote="Beast of the East" post=281552][quote="Class of 72" post=281502][quote="Paultzman" post=281497][quote="Mike Zaun" post=281495]Paultz, sometimes I wonder if you're secretly Matt A, St. Jean, Mullin, or Goff. Either that or you can tolerate a lot more failure than I can...in a good way. I agree, let's wait and see what the roster looks like and what big we get. That being said, it's pretty clear that Mullin desperately needs a real assistant. That can't be spun into "just wait and see" IMO. Again, he's solidly on the hot seat according to every major college hoops pundit and it's obvious to everyone who isn't biased. There's smoke coming from the windows and there are some in denial of the fire inside the building. Imagine going up to a person watching smoke billowing from the windows of an office building and saying "there's no fire...it's just your imagination". They'd look at you cock-eyed. Mullin gets one more year to show he can have even mild success. I just think fans have seen this movie before and it usually doesn't end as nicely as you seem to imply it will.
Caraher is a good get but I'm not letting that cloud next year's importance or the obvious absence of a solid big transfer and lack of big man development.[/quote]
Frankly I was never a big fan of hiring Chris, but interested in seeing him succeed. Next season to me is very important. I just don’t believe in droning on about the staff shortcomings at this point & will leave that to you.[/quote]
I appreciate your honesty about the Mullin hire. I didn't meet one fan at the time of the hire that was optimistic about hiring a completely inexperienced coach. What gave me and others hope was recruiting over the coaching deficiency by the hiring of Slice and Matt. I believed that Matt would excel at the transfer game as he did at Iowa State and Slice would work all the local talent and high level preps as he did at Pitt and Kentucky. When, in the summer of 2016 that duo and Mullin has a falling out, recruiting talent to cover the staff's inexperience became a long shot and it shows in our difficulty in maintaining relationships with some of the top talent because, as has been mentioned here 100 times, Matt cannot do it all and Mitch Richmond obviously has not filled the void left by Slice. Without reconfiguring roles on the staff or adding someone like Rice this staff will have a very difficult time moving from the bottom 5 to the top 5 five where NCAA consideration becomes automatic. I agree we have no choice but to wait and see and have passed the baton to young Mike Zaun to point out the coaching deficiencies in the 4th year because frankly many of us older fans have bigger and more important issues in our lives than worrying about if Mullin gets it or not.[/quote]
Wrong thread for this but I was enthusiastic about the hire at the point of hire, but also aware of the obviously higher risk of failure that goes with lack of experience.
Out of the gate we all thought that Matt and Slice were great hires that would bring high octane recruiting. The whole notion that we had lifted A great recruiter from Kentucky's staff seemed too good to be true.
I never understood the hire of Richmond into special assistant category. It was created by Lavin for Keady, and Lavin left money on the table to pay for Keady, a 6 time national coach of the year and mentor to Steve. It was a benevolent act by lavin to Keady as Keady had lost his wife and the change of life worked out great for him. That being said he appeared to bring some value (not 400k worth but oh well)
I think without an AD, the board was only too willing to give Mullin the budget he asked for to facilitate success. Fill keadys slot with mitch - sure. Hire Matt A. , no brainer. Pay slice a crazy guaranteed salary to pry him.awa from Kentucky- well, that was the digging deep part.
By midsrason #1, it was apparent something was wrong. Slice appeared to have hijacked in game coaching and he and Mullin hardly spoke on the bench if at all. We all know subsequently what happened and it was well chronicled that Matt and Slice were at odds too. Toxic hire and had to exit.
That debacle and failure to rehire something should focus attention on the role Mitch plays. He appears publicly invisible. He is not vocal or animated on the bench, and doesn't appear to be on the recruiting trail but i don't know. Maybe he is a big factor at practice but that's a ton of money for a practice coach.
That being said to me recruiting is 80% of college coaching and we haven't nailed any huge hs recruit since Ponds. Simon was a great transfer add, and clark owens also solid. Since then we haven't made big noise.
Time is running short. To me, the prospect for year 5 is a lot more important that year 4. Even if we dance, its likely as a low at large seed and early exit. But it would set the stage for growth if we have big time talent coming in the following year.
Anton Goff is a great guy, but is he strong enough to actually tell Mullin what to do in terms of staffing? If he fired Mitch or demanded he be replaced, would Chris balk or walk? 400k could buy a lot of coach, if that's what Mitch brings. At some point soon, greg will get HC opportunities. He and Matt are millenials and could leave at any point.
Bottom line is time is running short to build an impressive roster for 2019-20.[/quote]
Did someone clone old 72 into Beast??
I agree with you 110 %! The Mitch Richmond hire and role may be the downfall of Chris Mullin yet. Needs to go back to California and his family and replaced by someone with experience and northeast ties. We didn't hire Mullin to continue the friends and family plan as we did with Jarvis and Lavin. Mullin was supposed to be a breath of fresh air but the air is getting stale. Open the window and smell the roses Chris!!!!
