Possible Coaching Candidates

RedmanMike said:
This thread has been very fair to Mike Jarvis - both the good and bad are completely correct. He did a great job with players largely recruited by Fran (although Postell was a Mahoney recruit), and should get credit for that. After all, Lavin had his best season with Norm;s recruits, and Lavs should get credit for that.

In my opinion, Jarvis's best coaching job was 2001-2002. He took a team with one great player (Hatten), one hard working blue collar warrior (Glover) and a bunch of misfit toys and got them to 20 wins and a spot in the Dance. I thought it was an impressive performance.

In many ways, Hatten's excellence masked the overall drop in talent on the roster in the later Jarvis years.

Now the donwside is also true - Jarvis basically stopped recruiting local HS kids, he alienated local coaches, he brought in some JUCOs that were super-sketchy (who remembers Rodney Epperson?) and he seemed like an arrogant jerk. By the time he left the program was in a shambles. It was a dumpster fire, and he deserved to be fired.

He did leave us with Darryl Hill (who was excellent until his knee injury) and Lamont Hamilton, who was one of our better bigs.

Jarvis was by far our most successful coach since Looie, but it went really bad really fast in his last two years.
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Jarvis was great the first couple of years with Fran's players. His first recruiting class should have been a harbinger of things to come though. Heath Orvis? Mystery man Jack Wolfinger? I realize the team was loaded but I have no idea how he was completely unable to bring anybody of any kind of consequence, especially when it seemed obvious that Artest was probably leaving early. His 2nd recruiting class was really good on the surface but Darius Miles I'm pretty sure never had any intention of coming here and Omar Cook only came because Carolina decided for some reason not to recruit him.

He does get credit for bringing in Hatten and to a lesser degree Elijah Ingram, but after that it seems like he put all of his eggs in the Lenny Cooke basket and when that didn't work out, he decided not to recruit any local HS players while teams like Pitt (Slice, mostly), Villanova (Jay Wright, who replaced Jarvis in an alternate universe after the 2000 season when he took the Wizards job) and Louisville (oh hey, there's that Pitino guy again) waltzed in and grabbed the best players in the area and recruiting-wise we still haven't really recovered from that.

Was Epperson a Jarvis guy? I know he was on Norm's first team and played 5 or 6 games before we decided to stop playing with fire and basically had to not let him suit up anymore. He might have been the best player on that entire roster, tbh. Seeing what other schools have been getting away with, we should have just let him play the whole season, what's the worst that could have happened?

What we were promised and never received, was the Jarvis at GW, who was taking teams to the tournament every year and bringing in talent from all over the world. I guess once he got to Queens he could no longer recruit the children of diplomats and lost his recruiting chops/connections.

Anyway, while there are a lot of people we can point fingers at in the last 20+ years of mostly mediocrity and despite the couple years of success he had at the beginning. I'll forever remain convinced that nobody did more to destroy this program than Mike Jarvis.
 
fordham96 said:
Here is a Lenn Robbins article from December of 2003 speculating on Mark Jackson replacing Jarvis.

THE JAX MAY FALL ON JARVIS: SCHOOL EYEING FORMER JOHNNIES, KNICKS GREAT AS COACH’S SUCCESSOR

There were some 2,000 empty seats in Alumni Hall Tuesday night, so a lot of St. John’s fans didn’t see their team get waxed 81-64 by Hofstra. But there were plenty of eyes belonging to …
nypost.com nypost.com
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Great article, thanks for sharing! It looks back at the low points of the Jarvis era, what a guy....

Feb. 23, 2003: Four days after slamming fist against courtside billboard and spitting on Carrier Dome floor, is ejected in game at Connecticut after profanity-laced tirade during which he grabbed official by arm.
 
SeattleJohnny said:
Was beginning to worry when I hadn't seen a paultz response on Rick for awhile in this thread. We should really rename it to Rick Pitino, as there are no other candidates and hopefully won't be any.
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Don't you realize that if we did that, we would jinx the whole Pitino hire? ;) :ROFLMAO:
 
Footwork21 said:
Was Epperson a Jarvis guy? I know he was on Norm's first team and played 5 or 6 games before we decided to stop playing with fire and basically had to not let him suit up anymore. He might have been the best player on that entire roster, tbh. Seeing what other schools have been getting away with, we should have just let him play the whole season, what's the worst that could have happened?
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Epperson was signed by Jarvis.

And yeah, I think we did him wrong by casting him out way too soon because we were Nervous Nellies.
 
SeattleJohnny said:
Was beginning to worry when I hadn't seen a paultz response on Rick for awhile in this thread. We should really rename it to Rick Pitino, as there are no other candidates and hopefully won't be any.
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Can't wait for Rick's Place to open and seeing Ilsa, Captain Renault, Signors Ferrari and Ugarte (preferred them as the Fatman and Joel Cairo) and of course Sam. "Round up the usual suspects"
 
RedStormRising said:
Hard to ignore Hawaii, some how he brought sanctions to Hawaii. Didn’t think the NCAA bother to look at schools like that, I guess Pitino didn’t either.
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I get you don’t like Pitino. And that’s fine. I didn’t like Mullin. Everyone can’t like every coach.

But let’s be fair. He was an assistant coach and took the job after the HC was fired. As a young assistant I wouldn’t say he ‘brought’ sanctions on the school. The sanctions were part of his time yes. But that’s on the HC. He probably learned from the HC methods that he would use later in life.

Ironically then he was the HC at Lville where then he’s responsible for what happened under his watch. But all the smart people were cheating. Not all we’re caught. Again I don’t care about sanctions anymore. College Sports is now a form of professional sports. Tough pill for some to swallow. I want to win and he’s a winner. I’m not worried about violations now because they will be fewer and far between.
 
room112 said:
I apologize in advance for taking this of topic. But I wasn't a member of this board at the time, and I don't really recall the circumstances. Was there a tipping point that caused Jarvis to be fired mid season? Since that is so rare in college basketball, and was early in that season. Obviously I know the season started out terrible and recruiting was dismal, but why did they wait 6 games into a new season?
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To this day I laugh when I see Jarvis was fired. It was as much him quitting as a firing. But he had smarter people than the school did to message it.
 
Moose said:
To this day I laugh when I see Jarvis was fired. It was as much him quitting as a firing. But he had smarter people than the school did to message it.
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Moose is spot on. Jarvis and the rest of his staff was so fed up with the way the program was being treated by Harrington and the rest of the clowns. Our practice facility consisted of Alex Evans calling local high schools each week to see what days the team could practice at since Alumni Hall was off line so much. Much of the summer the gym was closed and the team had to be vanned to Queens College and their crap facility. When school did open, volleyball got first dibs on court time. In what bizarro world would a volleyball team get priority over mens hoops? Each time VB had a home match the team had to search for local gyms to practice in. Usually CK or Molloy but the prime location was Cathedral College in Queens. Wooden backboards and non breakaway rims and not regulation size court. Real great for getting ready for UCONN. And the team was not given any locker room facilities and had to constantly deal with local,high schools using the swimming pool located right next to the court. One day Artest hung on the rim and broke the wood back board so they had to practice half court only for 3 days. Jarvis used to comment all the time “you think Bobby Knight or Coach K is searching for off campus gyms each day to practice?”

‘During winter break, the gym was always closed down for 3 weeks for winter commencement ceremonies and the annual Christmas show. SJU was too cheap to bring in maintenance to break down the commencement stage so the team could practice on the court. The Women’s team had to scramble for courts many days too.
‘Fast forward to playing on the road. Most every team traveled with tutors…not SJU…most athletes around the conference were given laptops…not SJU. When otherteams chartered, SJU took commercial which meant another night in a hotel post game. When other teams took commercial, Jarvis was told to bus if possible. There was one infamous trip where another Big East team was playing at Pitt and SJU at WVU. Both tipped off at 7pm on a Saturday night. They were scheduled to meet in 48 hrs at MSG. Well that other team chartered right to NYC, checking in the Four Seasons by 11pm and eating a proper post game meal and getting a good night sleep and practice Sunday at MSG. Where was SJU? On a 8 hour bus trip back to NYC eating cold KFC and team was so beat they did not practice that Sunday. Guess who won Monday night? And each road trip the players and coaches would be amazed how the visiting locker rooms on the road were better than what the team had at Alumni as their locker room.
So many times Jarvis brought up the inequality during the early 2000’s when the arms race in new facilities and other things compared to most other top Big East schools but they always fell on deaf ears. It was the old Louie recruited with a roll of Subway token it was sickening the lack of support. So many more stories so little time.
 
L J S A said:
How many people are actually saying this?
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lol he's probably
panther2 said:
If Iona comes back from 5 points down to beat UCONN, you and others would be posting about how Pitino's team kept their composure in the face of adversity.

Like most on this board, I understand that having Pitino as our coach would kick start our program back to respectability and hopefully more. This doesn't preclude us from recognizing what Speedy and Hofstra did last night in a hostile environment.
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That's true like Claxton everyone would be saying those things about Pitino. Claxton's team (Hofstra) kep their composure, but I still consider it a choke. If the other team (Rutgers) keeps their composure, taking care of each possession, hitting their FT's guess what? RU wins.

If Iona beats UConn the same way, it's because UConn choked. Lets be honest.
 
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Alumni Hall said:
Moose is spot on. Jarvis and the rest of his staff was so fed up with the way the program was being treated by Harrington and the rest of the clowns. Our practice facility consisted of Alex Evans calling local high schools each week to see what days the team could practice at since Alumni Hall was off line so much. Much of the summer the gym was closed and the team had to be vanned to Queens College and their crap facility. When school did open, volleyball got first dibs on court time. In what bizarro world would a volleyball team get priority over mens hoops? Each time VB had a home match the team had to search for local gyms to practice in. Usually CK or Molloy but the prime location was Cathedral College in Queens. Wooden backboards and non breakaway rims and not regulation size court. Real great for getting ready for UCONN. And the team was not given any locker room facilities and had to constantly deal with local,high schools using the swimming pool located right next to the court. One day Artest hung on the rim and broke the wood back board so they had to practice half court only for 3 days. Jarvis used to comment all the time “you think Bobby Knight or Coach K is searching for off campus gyms each day to practice?”

‘During winter break, the gym was always closed down for 3 weeks for winter commencement ceremonies and the annual Christmas show. SJU was too cheap to bring in maintenance to break down the commencement stage so the team could practice on the court. The Women’s team had to scramble for courts many days too.
‘Fast forward to playing on the road. Most every team traveled with tutors…not SJU…most athletes around the conference were given laptops…not SJU. When otherteams chartered, SJU took commercial which meant another night in a hotel post game. When other teams took commercial, Jarvis was told to bus if possible. There was one infamous trip where another Big East team was playing at Pitt and SJU at WVU. Both tipped off at 7pm on a Saturday night. They were scheduled to meet in 48 hrs at MSG. Well that other team chartered right to NYC, checking in the Four Seasons by 11pm and eating a proper post game meal and getting a good night sleep and practice Sunday at MSG. Where was SJU? On a 8 hour bus trip back to NYC eating cold KFC and team was so beat they did not practice that Sunday. Guess who won Monday night? And each road trip the players and coaches would be amazed how the visiting locker rooms on the road were better than what the team had at Alumni as their locker room.
So many times Jarvis brought up the inequality during the early 2000’s when the arms race in new facilities and other things compared to most other top Big East schools but they always fell on deaf ears. It was the old Louie recruited with a roll of Subway token it was sickening the lack of support. So many more stories so little time.
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holy shite
 
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