Here's another couple of random thoughts on the subject of our coaching history.
I have always remained a fan of coach Roberts as a man and a coach. He accomplished exactly what he was charged to do at SJU.
In his final year, when the ante was raised his kids were not yet ready. They did deliver the goal in their final year both on the court, and in giving STJ a world and NCAA record of 10 out of ten college graduates in a basketball program. Further, at least 2 of his total 4 assistants now are head coaches at D-1 programs and Coach, himself, is assisting and competing for a national championship every year at Kansas. I wish him well.
I don't think Jarvis, Fraschilla, or Brian have developed any staff into head coaches and no one had the graduation rate with their own players.
You lost me with this opening paragraph. NR was hired to rebuild a SJU program that was one year removed from an NIT championship the season he was hired. He was hired to WIN, and given the nod with a losing head coach resume, primarily because he recruited for Bill Self and came across as a good guy in interviews. Jarvis and Fraschilla, who both won here, were considered anything but good guys upon their firings, and FH was sick of having guys like this represent the University. (Funny how the BOTs concluded that Harrington and Wile could no longer represent the University based on their own dealings, but that's another story)
Any notion that NR developed two assistants into head coaches is pure hogwash. Glenn Braica was a 15 year assistant at St. Francis before stepping up to a Big East assistant's position. He met NR at Queens College, where they both played, and a long friendship followed. Upon NR's firing, the head coaching position at St. Francis opened, and Braica got the job, much based on his 15 year association with the program. He is 43-48 there.
Chris Casey is the head coach at Niagara, was hired last April, one month after Father Maher, who sat on the SJU bench for years, took over as the school's President. After leaving St. John's, Casey went on to a head coaching job at CW Post, and went 62-25 there in 3 seasons. DII head coaching jobs generally pay a lot less than an assistant slot at a big time program. In Post's league, a lot of head coaches had full time day jobs elsewhere. Like Cluess before him, he was hired by Niagara on the strength of his success at Post, and the Niagara-SJU-Vincentian-Fr. Maher connection cannot be discounted here.
You are free to like NR as a person. I've met people who know him very well and say he is a swell guy. But to distort his accomplishments at SJU as anything but a failure to win are just sidebars. Graduating players is admirable, but there are guys like Bob Knight who graduated nearly every player who ever played for him, and still managed to win a little.
It's a little ironic that we are in aggregate concluding that Lavin isn't a great coach, but Lavin and co. made a lot of changes to the roles of players he inherited from NR, and the improvement was radical.
I have no problem with the rest of your post, but as far as NR accolades, spare me - I like too many of us, was there for the whole losing era.
