21-15 in BE his first 2 years pretty good so have to think 3rd year with the talent Jarvis almost took to final 4 he would have done very well too and he had recruiting going really well
Questions On Our Previous Coaches
- Thread starter NCJohnnie
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Justvso damned self destructive, who knows.
guinness77
Well-known member
Oh, I didn’t like Norm at all. I was just stating that the University kept him for so long because of the stank Jarvis left on it, and they were afraid of breaking any rules.
I definitely did not feel he deserved that long at all. I tried to join the board here during his latter years but registration here was full or something at the time because I wanted to voice that, lol. At the time, especially in my eyes, despite the various transgressions, which were egregious (and as someone rightfully pointed out of it weren’t for Ingram, we might have been done) I still held us toward the top of college basketball and Norm certainly wasn’t the guy. Keeping him as long as we did set us back just as far as the Jarvis era imho.
Oh, and to answer your last point, I think Fran would have been fine. I know we had the Riverside/Lorch connection (and that proved to be kinda dubious years later) but you can’t win without good players, and Fraschilla had no problem getting those.
Just to add;
College Basketball Reference recognized the Butler victory on January 4th as the 2,000th win in the history of St. John's Basketball (I didn't see that until after the fact). Since the NCAA does not recognize it, we couldn't acknowledge it as such.
In game coaching was not his strength, but I always gave him credit for knowing that, and bringing Mike Dunlap, and later Jim Whitesell, on board to counter-balance that. Most coaches only want their pals on staff, who are usually extensions of themselves.
Of our four coaching hires prior to Rick, he was by far the most successful. We were a postseason team all 4 years he was actually on the sidelines.
Hey guys, I’ve certainly heard about these stories through the years, but I was hoping someone can clarify what they mean when they say Ingram saved us from getting worse sanctions?
carmineabbatiello
Well-known member
A woman from a Pittsburgh strip club was brought back to a players hotel room. It was agreed that the woman would have sex with multiple players for money. After the players ran a train on her, they refused to pay her. The woman threatened if they did not pay, she would call the cops and say she was raped. A quick thinking Ingram recorded or videod this on his cell phone and saved the day.
guinness77
Well-known member
Yup. Good luck proving that allegation wasn’t true without the taped evidence. Even if they come out of that innocent, the allegation and implication alone, without evidence clearing them, would have been hard to run from.
God, between Keita, Reynolds, everything Jarvis did and the night in Pittsburgh, we will never have a rock bottom as low as that again. Just, unbelievable remembering it.
I'm relatively sure some fans ( I think Theo was one of them ) started wearing brown bangs over their heads to games at the end of the Norm error. Aside from making a statement with the heat in that Arena they were risking their own lives.
Us fans should never forget when other fans sacrifice their own lives for the greater good
guinness77
Well-known member
I think I have finally found a person who draws warmer blood than me
And yet somehow this coaching savant was unemployed in the profession for 10 years before SJU and ever since. It's almost as though folks figured out that while given resources he can recruit with the best of them, he can't actually do the job.
well if he got us to the post season each year he was on the sidelines ( not including the cancer year which was a total rebuild anyway )
he kinda did the job. No ?
I remember the first game after the Pittsburgh incident at the Garden against BC. They had like 6-7 players dressed and they asked Rutledge to unretire to assist the rest of the season.
That was the lowest of all lows. For the first time I feared for the future of the program because they were not just bad, they now crossed over into the dark and made the university a national punch line.
You could just imagine the salacious headlines that wrote themselves about the largest Catholic university in the country.
Plus, Fr. Harrington did not care about the program very much and did not invest in its infrastructure. That was what caused the original rift between Jarvis and the university. He felt they went back on their word.
Cannot believe it will be almost 21 years.
I'm not rehashing the Lavin era. Literally anyone who watches basketball, including his former players, will tell you that he can't coach, like at all.
He made the tournament with a team of seniors he inherited. Having flown to Denver for that game, he then proceeded to grossly mismanage it and get blown out.
Then he basically swung for the fences on talented head cases and one year managed to hit on enough of them to get into the tournament as a 9 seed, where he promptly got blown out again.
One might note that after his first year his BE records were:
6-12
8-10
10-8
10-8
A real barnburner, there.
And yet, somehow this coaching phenom - who went to an Elite 8 and four Sweet 16s at UCLA - was unwanted by any other program from 2003-2010 and 2015 - date. And if you exclude SJU, which was in "what the heck, let's swing for the fences since we literally have nothing to lose at this point" mode when it hired him, its been 20+ years since any program in the country wanted to take advantage of Lavin's coaching genius.
In that period DePaul hired Dave Leitao - twice. Pitt hired Kevin Stallings. Houston hired Clyde Drexler. Louisville hired Kenny Payne. Rutgers hired Eddie Jordan. Missouri hired Kim Anderson. Florida International hired Isaiah Thomas (yes THAT Isaiah Thomas; if memory serves they maybe also hired He Who Shall Not Be Named which shows you that they have a real knack for hiriing).
And yet despite this pool of ... whatever it is ... literally NOBODY has even wanted to have a conversation with Lavin in 20 years with the sole exception of SJU - and even THEY decided he couldn't coach and fired him.
This goes under the "everybody isnt' wrong" heading, or the LMF New York City Parking Spot Rule which provides that "if a parking spot looks too good to be true, it is."
Anyway having said I wasn't going to rehash it I have now rehashed some of it (we aren't going to talk about the head cases he brought in, the lack of organizational control, the moronic substitution patterns, the inabiity to adjust to, well, anything, or any of the rest of it).
I recognize that folks who aren't interested in the details of the game are satiisfied with "but he made the NCAA tournament twice in 5 years" but the fact that nobody who is responsible for an actual basketball program agrees with you should maybe give you pause.
He absolutely made us relevant again for which I’ll always be grateful. I enjoyed rooting for the guys he brought in.
Are you talking about Lavin or Seth Greenberg ? Greenberg ( LMF Favorite candidate to coach at St Johns ) was 68-76 in the ACC and an amazing 47-63 in the Vaunted Conference USA
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carmineabbatiello
Well-known member
Does anyone know the name of this strip club and if it still exists? I'm in Pittsburgh a lot and would like to go visit it. For historical research purposes of course.
You're factually inaccuarte in one area: He turned down NC State in 2006, so there was interest. I don't think he wanted to be coaching in Raliegh, NC.
Those are certainly the arguments against him, and he hasn't done well at San Diego, either (they're 4-18 this year - only Doug Gottlieb is jealous of that).
Still, for the most part, I thought he did well here. The only year I was dissapointed in the job he did was when his crop of recruits were all juniors. That team should have made the NCAA Tournament, but he seemed too concerend with making sure everyone got playing time. I actually think he did a better job the next year, in his final season (partially due to having less options).
His big mistake, and I actually supported it at the time, was not selling out one of his assistant coaches, to bring Tiny Morton on staff, in the recruiting of Isiah Whitehead. That made Seton Hall a contender, and us a pretender, for a decade.
The problem with Lavin had less to do with the actual numbers and whether he made us somewhat relevant again(he did, somewhat), and more to do with the fact that the success levels never matched the level of talent he had(except for his first year), and there always seemed to be turmoil surrounding the team. Those are 2 signs of a not so good coach.
As much as I hate to admit this, I agree with most of LMF's assessment of him, and expressed those same concerns about him when he was hired.