Rick Pitino - Head Coach at St John’s University!!!

Redenbacher said:
I am glad Pitino is here. But this narrative that the cupboard was bare and he had to “grab what he could get” drives me crazy. He inherited a bunch of imperfect but talented high major players and chose to jettison them. His choice.
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He was told how the team behaved behind closed doors. And that some players were not welcomed back because of their actions. That is the narrative on the board.
The ones he wanted back decide to go elsewhere.
Honestly the player I want from last year is the recruit who is a forward on UAB. He would have been a difference maker on this team. More then anyone else.
 
Redenbacher said:
I am glad Pitino is here. But this narrative that the cupboard was bare and he had to “grab what he could get” drives me crazy. He inherited a bunch of imperfect but talented high major players and chose to jettison them. His choice.
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This ridiculous narrative falls under the category of "if you say something often enough and emphatically enough, eventually it will be believed as the truth". Social media and the internet has gives fuel to this kind of utter nonsense.
 
For the record, I've supported and defended most of Rick's decisions from the moment he was hired. I'm still thrilled that he's here and believe he'll resurrect our program. But it's possible to be thrilled Rick is here, and at the same time still question:
-his decision to revamp the entire roster
-some of his in game decisions
-some of his media outbursts
-his lineups
-etc

Which reminds me, as I was analyzing/critiquing the Nova game to my daughter, the drunken dope in front of me turned to me and said "when was the last time you played D1 basketball?". My response was "when was the last time you acted in a major motion picture? Does that mean you're not allowed to critique the acting in a movie?". Shut him right down.
 
Redenbacher said:
I am glad Pitino is here. But this narrative that the cupboard was bare and he had to “grab what he could get” drives me crazy. He inherited a bunch of imperfect but talented high major players and chose to jettison them. His choice.
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Agree. The one that is puzzling is Dingle. Yeah he was Ivy guy, but played great v OOC solid opponents and his scoring numbers attracted a lot of portal interest. Local hoops guys also lauded landing him here.

From early on I felt there was a rub on Rick’s part. He publicly took subtle jab at his injury recovery status and just wonder if there was some tension in their relationship. The chemistry issue between Dingle and Jannis has been noted frequently, but this coach/player relationship may also merit thought. I fully expected Dingle, not a perfect player, to be a team leader, but was obviously wrong.
 
“A lot of players probably won’t be back on this team because they’re probably not a good fit for me. It’ll be a round peg in a square hole,”

What shape pegs did we wind up with

Also praise in public; criticize in private how does a 20 year old feel after their coach criticizes them on national TV at press conference?
 
Rick does a lot of talking. When it doesn’t work out, it really amplifies things to a worser degree.

I’m not quite at Zaun’s level of pessimism post-UCONN, but this program has done nothing in 25 years outside of some random upsets in January. It’s just getting sad and demoralizing at this point.

Can it be that we got Pitino five years too late, and he like the rest of his generation, can’t fully adjust to the portal and what it means to coach & recruit these guys? Feeling a lot less confident than I did in March.
 
SJUFan85/89 said:
“A lot of players probably won’t be back on this team because they’re probably not a good fit for me. It’ll be a round peg in a square hole,”

What shape pegs did we wind up with

Also praise in public; criticize in private how does a 20 year old feel after their coach criticizes them on national TV at press conference?
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Rick is way over the top w mic in his hand especially after losses. Your point about being more private re player criticism imo is spot on.

Too much hyperbole on critical & praise spectrum seems counter productive and better left unsaid.
 
SJUFan85/89 said:
“A lot of players probably won’t be back on this team because they’re probably not a good fit for me. It’ll be a round peg in a square hole,”

What shape pegs did we wind up with

Also praise in public; criticize in private how does a 20 year old feel after their coach criticizes them on national TV at press conference?
Click to expand...

They are getting paid now. It’s part of the deal. You can’t take the money and then expect all sunshine and roses.
 
I think most of us are happy about Rick being here, but this is a hoops message board and it seems appropriate to criticize or question his performance year one w/o it being heresy.

In fairness he rolled dice in portal, put a team together on the fly with spotty results. It seems logical that some of that is on staff and much on the players. Learn from season one and move on to get the program on right track seems next step.
 
SJUFan85/89 said:
“A lot of players probably won’t be back on this team because they’re probably not a good fit for me. It’ll be a round peg in a square hole,”

What shape pegs did we wind up with

Also praise in public; criticize in private how does a 20 year old feel after their coach criticizes them on national TV at press conference?
Click to expand...
You ever show up after a win and have something positive to say? Do us all a favor and go crawl back under the rock you crawled out from under. Troll!
 
monte said:
For the record, I've supported and defended most of Rick's decisions from the moment he was hired. I'm still thrilled that he's here and believe he'll resurrect our program. But it's possible to be thrilled Rick is here, and at the same time still question:
-his decision to revamp the entire roster
-some of his in game decisions
-some of his media outbursts
-his lineups
-etc

Which reminds me, as I was analyzing/critiquing the Nova game to my daughter, the drunken dope in front of me turned to me and said "when was the last time you played D1 basketball?". My response was "when was the last time you acted in a major motion picture? Does that mean you're not allowed to critique the acting in a movie?". Shut him right down.
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I agree with this and I criticized him in April for not keeping players from last year. But then I quickly gave him my support to bring in his guys and figure it out. Funny thing is, I still believe this team is good enough, but not the way he’s coaching them. Rick is great and in the HOF, but he’s not perfect. Marillac has been right all along about Jenkins, although he’s better than he gets credit for. This guy can’t have free rein to shoot whenever he wants. You can’t take 26% of the team’s shots and your big doesn’t touch the ball. Soriano played like crap, but he also never got into the flow of the game bc our pg isn’t a pg. He’s a shooting guard who passes once in awhile. When Jenkins and Soriano are taking around the same number of shots, we’ll win. We all knew we wouldn’t shoot in the 2nd half like we did in the 1st. So why didn’t we feed the ball to our big? That had nothing to do with our defense and first year this and other bs. Rick needed to make that happen and didn’t. So, let’s lick our wounds and figure this out quickly. The talent is here…we need to use it better.

Btw, I posted this here bc if I read the game thread, I will either🤮 or throw my iPad out the window.
 
Rhythm said:
He threw together a team in a month. He grabbed what he could get. He had no inroads with recruits and it is showing this year.
Next year the process will be more methodical. He knows players that are transferring and will have more time to put the pieces together.
Pitno is going to get this team to a place where they are winning consistently. He has done it everywhere he’s gone.
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You can’t say that when he let so much talent leave, though.

His excuse now about how hard it is to build a roster is literally the reason why we wanted him to keep some of the guys. I understand why a few guys had to go, but he failed to re-recruit some key pieces.

He had the backcourt he needed with Posh and King. He had the PFs he needed with Stanley and Yaxel. He had David Jones — who might not fit his style but was a senior and very talented.

He could have still added Jenkins and Alleyne. Posh-Alleyne/Jenkins- Storrr would have been very good.
 
Marillac2 said:
You can’t say that when he let so much talent leave, though.

His excuse now about how hard it is to build a roster is literally the reason why we wanted him to keep some of the guys. I understand why a few guys had to go, but he failed to re-recruit some key pieces.

He had the backcourt he needed with Posh and King. He had the PFs he needed with Stanley and Yaxel. He had David Jones — who might not fit his style but was a senior and very talented.

He could have still added Jenkins and Alleyne. Posh-Alleyne/Jenkins- Storrr would have been very good.
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Whether you're a coach or a boss, when you make radical moves and they don't pan out as expected, those moves are going to be questioned. Not passing judgement, since this story is not finished being written, but at this juncture it is fair to question those radical moves IMO.
 
Marillac2 said:
You can’t say that when he let so much talent leave, though.

His excuse now about how hard it is to build a roster is literally the reason why we wanted him to keep some of the guys. I understand why a few guys had to go, but he failed to re-recruit some key pieces.

He had the backcourt he needed with Posh and King. He had the PFs he needed with Stanley and Yaxel. He had David Jones — who might not fit his style but was a senior and very talented.

He could have still added Jenkins and Alleyne. Posh-Alleyne/Jenkins- Storrr would have been very good.
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As much as culture had to do with some players having to go, it’s hard to not look at the roster shakeup without some element of hubris on Rick’s part.
 
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