Possible Coaching Candidates

The last thing Olivia would want is to lose his power slot at SJU.. Repole was a threat who he got rid of and he probably fears, rightfully so, that he would lose his influence if Pitino is brought in.
I don’t know what he accomplished to get this influence but it appears both Father Shanley and Cragg are on his side.
 
From what I can gather Joe Olivia's influence rose at the University after Father Harrington was forced to retire in 2013. A year later Bobby Gempesaw takes over and Joe's influence increases. The following are his accomplishments in regards to SJU men's basketball in chronological order:

-Fires Steve Lavin after NCAA appearance in March 2015
- Hires Chris Mullin/Slice shortly after (recruits Chris heavily while Steve is still coaching the team)
- A month or two later fires Chris Monasch AD around May 2015
- End of 2015-16 season Slice fired,Mr. Olivia then negotiated a huge buyout of his contract
- Assumes Temporary AD status during the 2015-2016 school year/mens basketball season
- In November 2016 hires Anton Goff as AD
- June 2018 fires Anton Goff
- Once again assumes interim AD status
- September 2018 hires Mike Cragg as AD
- March 2019 after lone NCAA play in appearance/Mullin leaves SJU
- Mike Repole goes on Mike Francessa 's blast the school's leadership (with the exception Cragg) not a fan of Olivia and other BOT members. Repole and the school end their relationship.
- Hires CMA in April 2019
- side note - (November of 2020 BOT elects Fr Shanley as next SJU President after his time at Providence College)
- CMA's contact renewed after 2021 season
 
GardenCity62 said:
The last thing Olivia would want is to lose his power slot at SJU.. Repole was a threat who he got rid of and he probably fears, rightfully so, that he would lose his influence if Pitino is brought in.
I don’t know what he accomplished to get this influence but it appears both Father Shanley and Cragg are on his side.
Click to expand...
Don’t think Shanley will put up with any bs
 
Van Macon seems like a good guy and perhaps a decent Asst coach ( hard to say since Anderson does not seem to listen to any of them) but he would be a mediocre hire at best. We would go from stale program to stale program with no juice. Again what’s needed is a splash hire to wake everyone up. A faltering D1 major coach nor an up and coming assistant (can you say Norm Roberts) is the answer. The school must get creative and make in roads into coaches you would never think would take the job, and go for broke or bring in Mr. Pitino who at least be a shot of adrenaline into the arm of the program.
 
If they do interview Pitino they better do so by Zoom or Teams. Imagine getting a tour of our facilities compared to Kentucky or Louisville 😂
 
19854ever said:
From what I can gather Joe Olivia's influence rose at the University after Father Harrington was forced to retire in 2013. A year later Bobby Gempesaw takes over and Joe's influence increases. The following are his accomplishments in regards to SJU men's basketball in chronological order:

-Fires Steve Lavin after NCAA appearance in March 2015
- Hires Chris Mullin/Slice shortly after (recruits Chris heavily while Steve is still coaching the team)
- A month or two later fires Chris Monasch AD around May 2015
- End of 2015-16 season Slice fired,Mr. Olivia then negotiated a huge buyout of his contract
- Assumes Temporary AD status during the 2015-2016 school year/mens basketball season
- In November 2016 hires Anton Goff as AD
- June 2018 fires Anton Goff
- Once again assumes interim AD status
- September 2018 hires Mike Cragg as AD
- March 2019 after lone NCAA play in appearance/Mullin leaves SJU
- Mike Repole goes on Mike Francessa 's blast the school's leadership (with the exception Cragg) not a fan of Olivia and other BOT members. Repole and the school end their relationship.
- Hires CMA in April 2019
- side note - (November of 2020 BOT elects Fr Shanley as next SJU President after his time at Providence College)
- CMA's contact renewed after 2021 season
Click to expand...
This guy still has a job! Get rid of Oliva and bring Repole back home
 
Looking for some civil debate here.

Anyone know why Iona refused to give Pitino a new contract? Why isn’t Iona doing everything they can to keep Pitino? Surely they won’t be able to find a better coach if/when he leaves. He must be making the school a ton of money fund raising.

Quote from Pitino: “We didn’t necessarily talk about a lifetime contract, we talked about a new contract and it didn’t work out for a variety of reasons. I’m not upset and nobody’s upset about it, it just didn’t work out. There was a changing of the guard with the Board of Trustees and a few other things that didn’t work out with the contract so it’s no hard feelings and we just try to have a great team this year.”
 
stjohnnie75 said:
Looking for some civil debate here.

Anyone know why Iona refused to give Pitino a new contract? Why isn’t Iona doing everything they can to keep Pitino? Surely they won’t be able to find a better coach if/when he leaves. He must be making the school a ton of money fund raising.

Quote from Pitino: “We didn’t necessarily talk about a lifetime contract, we talked about a new contract and it didn’t work out for a variety of reasons. I’m not upset and nobody’s upset about it, it just didn’t work out. There was a changing of the guard with the Board of Trustees and a few other things that didn’t work out with the contract so it’s no hard feelings and we just try to have a great team this year.”
Click to expand...
He took the job at a deep discount when no one else wanted him. When it came time to be paid what he's worth and sign for X amount of years, they balked. He likely had a list of things he wanted to happen and Iona was not prepared to give a coach that much power.
 
Iona also probably wanted a clause that would earn them handsome compensation (from another school) if he wanted to walk prior to the contract expiring. Whereas Pitino would want minimal barriers to his departure.
 
L J S A said:
He took the job at a deep discount when no one else wanted him. When it came time to be paid what he's worth and sign for X amount of years, they balked. He likely had a list of things he wanted to happen and Iona was not prepared to give a coach that much power.
Click to expand...
But it’s Rick Pitino. I would think he is bringing in tons of money fund raising.

You have him, don’t lose him. Pay the man!
 
Little Richard and UNM playing themselves out of an at large bid with their 3rd loss in a row and 4th in 5 games this one at Air Force
 
stjohnnie75 said:
Looking for some civil debate here.

Anyone know why Iona refused to give Pitino a new contract? Why isn’t Iona doing everything they can to keep Pitino? Surely they won’t be able to find a better coach if/when he leaves. He must be making the school a ton of money fund raising.

Quote from Pitino: “We didn’t necessarily talk about a lifetime contract, we talked about a new contract and it didn’t work out for a variety of reasons. I’m not upset and nobody’s upset about it, it just didn’t work out. There was a changing of the guard with the Board of Trustees and a few other things that didn’t work out with the contract so it’s no hard feelings and we just try to have a great team this year.”
Click to expand...
I have no insider information to how Iona runs their AD budget, but I think their goal is to be a top-tier team in conference. Expectations reasonably set. Before Pitino they had board favorite Tim Cluess coaching and if I’m not mistaken he made the tournament 4 years in a row prior to RP’s hire and something like 6 out of 9 years total.

I believe Iona thinks they can achieve that success with smart hire that know the tri-state scene. No need to break the bank for Pitino and especially no need to lock in a lot of future money if Pitino runs into scandal again. For cause is not always ease to prove and my guess is Iona doesn’t have the budget to pay two coaches or a coach and a protracted legal battle.

Fair warning, I have a strong anti-Pitino bias so maybe that last worry isn’t on Iona’s mind.

as far as future coaches, I never like cutting ties with a coach unless there is a clear upgrade. That’s why firing/not extending Lavin was such a head scratcher for me.

So if we were to move on from MA, we better have a yes from someone. My call list would be:

1. Speedy Claxton
2. Brandin Knight
3. Bob Richey
4. Donald Copeland

I think if Repole comes back into the fold he’d reach out to 5. Bobby Hurley I don’t love it but I don’t think it would be a downgrade either. I’d assume little less that Lavin success but instead of a charming polished leader we’d accomplish it in his hot headed manner.

I do have a strong lean to younger former PGs as coaches, if you look back to our interesting coach search that got us MA, I was begging us to interview Shaheen Hallaway (although if we did hire him we wouldn’t have gotten the magic St. Peter’s run and he wouldn’t have had the big jump in name recognition).

I will concede to the RP fans that if it is inevitable that he coaches at SJU the time to hire him would have been in 2018. We already knew at that time Mullin wasn’t interested in the job any more (or successful at it), RP would have been 65, easily hirable for cheap, and he could funnel money to players without having to compete with NIL like when he achieved peak success.

These are the things I think about at 3 am.
 
This will be our last chance to go after Rick Pitino, if SJU ever wants to matter ever again in college basketball, this will be our last chance.
Even in 4-5 years if he's avalable he'll be 74-75, that's to old.
 
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