Well johnny fannies with the season on the brink of bustardoville and the providence friars coming to town to play in front of 3000 (quiet) fans at the Worlds most famous arena, we face a more talented and deeper team tomorrow that will be looking for revenge. With rasheed questionable and d angelo still not 100% the game outcome is predictable. For johnny fans looking for some hope and a tonic for depression the antidote doesn't come saturday against the friars of providence. Steve lavin who is quite the virtuous person has not been able to bring the program to the level hoped. Stay thirsty my friends stay thirsty.
So, in your opinion, within just 7 days, the 12,000 "loyal" johnny fans, including at least 2,000 students, who showed up to outscream a large Duke contingent, will now stay home - either disinterested or pouting. As far as I can tell, Lavin, whose coaching abilities I am ambivalent of, is a lot more loyal to his players and this program, than our win-starved fans. Give me Creighton fans any day, who filled an arena with positive energy despite a 9 (NINE) game losing streak and a season already in the dumper.
I'm not gonna give Lavin a pat on the back for being loyal. If we payed each fan millions of dollars they'd show up to every game. So it's not like Lavin deserves applause for sticking with the team he was hired to stick with.
Jack, everyone gives credit well deserved to Harrison for turning it around. Harrison gives Harrison the blame for being the jerk who deserved to get booted. Coach K likely would have booted him. You know, loyalty has little to do with how much you are earning, and once you have a career you will understand that the best managers are loyal to the people below him who earn far less. Our fans get so damned hung up on Lavin's salary. Look if we don't win, if he was making NR money, he gets fired. And if we win, his salary is irrelevant. I wish we'd just judge him on performance - the salary is none of our business because very few fans are kicking in big time to pay it.
I still don't understand why he deserves credit. He was paid to do a service for our basketball team and he's in the midst of attempting to do a good job. I don't need to have a job to understand that if your are getting payed a lot of money, and probably won't get hired elsewhere, then you probably won't leave your current job. Only other job he would get is his espn or fox job and believe me he doesn't wanna show his face around espn again without making a tournament with his own players. All his credibility will be gone.
Lavin is a lot of things and he could talk his way out of anything but he hasn't really done anything that gives me the impression he's a loyal person.
Why? Because coaching - HS, AAU, and yes, college has a ton of dirtbags who treat kids like meal tickets, flushing them as soon as they've lost value. No doubt that Lavin had a vested interest in Harrison turning himself around, in Jordan returning to the roster earlier this year, for Obekpa to reverse his decision to leave, and Greene also - BUT if you listen to the kids, no one at SJU who is gone from here has ever disparaged Lavin, and some, like Polee and Garrett have spoken highly of him. Our tendency as fans is to take losing and then not just focus on inability to win, but to disparage every aspect of the guy. None of us, EVEN THOSE WHO CLAIM TO HAVE A FRIEND OF A FRIEND OF A FRIEND who picks up towels in the AD, really know Lavin, his intentions or work ethic. Everyone interprets everything out of context. So if Lavin means that on an off day I have to get as far away as possible, yoga, meditation whatever - to keep sane because this stuff is killing me - then right now its perverted to mean he's lazy and doesn't care.
I'm all for him not being renewed if we don't turn this around, but the rest of this fan garbage is just that.
So let me get this straight Beast: you want to give Lavin credit for convincing Obekpa and Green to return to the team but absolve him of any blame for them being disgruntled and wanting to leave in the first place? Also when you talk about flushing a kid down the toilet are you talking about how Lavin Flushed Ron Roberts down the toilet after the kid committed to us, and just a few months before school was about to start? You think the guy's a stand up guy based on how you interpret things. Others on here think the guy's a snake oil salesman based on how they interpret things. Yet others fall someone where in the middle based on how they interpret things. Whether you want to see it or not, there's plenty of merit to each position. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and that doesn't make another person's opinion "garbage" any more than it makes your opinion "garbage"
Ron Roberts was released from his LOI because LAvin felt he was a grade B recruit and wouldn't see much time here. NR recruited at a lower tier than Lavin and after discussion with Roberts explained he'd be better of in a program where he would get more run.
No, Monte, I am not speaking about opinions. I am speaking about personal attacks on his character, intentions, and efforts based on us losing rather than objective discussions about factual information.
Isn't it pro forma to release a recruit if he asks when there's a change of coach? Do we know if Roberts asked for a release since he was recruited by the previous staff? Regardless, the same will happen with all the Lavin recruits if, and when he is fired.
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No, Ron Roberts did not ask for his release. His dream was to play here and at MSG. He wanted to stay even after Norm was let go. He was treated like garbage by Lavin. Since Lavin didn't see Roberts as a "good fit", he had no qualms about giving him the boot and sending the kid in to "limbo". Because RR signed an LOI with St. Johns, he was not allowed to sign with another Big East team even after he was released from his LOI. The should clarify it for you and Beast: http://web.sny.tv/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100414&content_id=9296156&vkey=21
Monte, I don't know if you have a tie to Roberts, but neither the article nor Roberts was critical of Lavin, but questioned the rule prohibiting players released from an LOI from signing with another conference team. I'm guessing the rule is meant to prevent a player from asking out and then going to a competitor. Sort of like Wiggins verbally committing to SJU before Calhoun wooed him to UCONN after encountering a problem with one of his guards.
We all know that NR recruited at a different level than Lavin, outside the top 100 because he couldn't get the top players to come here. Wasn't there a second player (Davante something or other) that Norm was hot and heavy on who Lavin directed elsewhere just prior to an LOI?
In this scenario I don't agree with your assessment of Lavin's actions. Scholarship players often get lost in the shuffle of a coaching change. Malik Stith was liked enough by NR to get time in 32 of 33 games. Lavin, playing with NR's roster played him only in 26 games as a soph, and Dunlap benched him 9 straight games even during the Nurideen Lindsay departure, leading to Stith leaving the team mid season.
Simply put, it's typical for an incoming coach to review new recruits and to assess how he sees them fitting in compared to what was promised by the coach that recruited them. In Lavin's case he chose not to burn a 4 year commitment to a kid he saw as having no role here. To the kid's benefit, he was released rather than having to come here, not play during his freshmen year, and then have to sit out to transfer. We all know Roberts had success at St. Joe's, but that doesn't change the fact that Lavin I believe was acting reasonably and within his rights to direct what he felt was a lesser player to look elsewhere for playing time.
