Sorry to say but

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[quote="Mike Zaun" post=329309][quote="SJU61982" post=329298][quote="djramps" post=329284]Mullin was my Idol, there is no single basketball player who tops him on my all-time favorites list. With that being said this team played a super soft out of conference and then played terribly in the BE except for the Marquette games and the Villanova game. The terrible losses offset the wins in my opinion. I think if Mullin returns he needs to make a big change to the staff. St Jean has great energy but he should not be running the huddles like he does. Mullin needs to take control of the huddle, but we know he's not that kind of coach. So I think its time to make a change and it is hard to say because of how we all feel about him.

If I were looking I would do everything we could to get Bobby Hurley. Having the new AD with Duke connections do you think it would be hard to bring him here?[/quote]

To answer your question, strictly from afar: I'd say yes.

I'm sure Arizona State is taking care of him very, very well. If they're not, I'm sure they will, once they learn that he is talking to us (if that ever were to occur). Being a state school, I'm sure they are operating on a budget that we can't match.

So, I view him as unattainable. Maybe I'm wrong about that (I have no inside info), but that's how I see it.[/quote]

Perhaps getting a bit less $ (he's not exactly hurting) but being close to home and family is more appealing than being all the way on the west coast.[/quote]

I suppose that's possible (there are cases when things like that happen), but in general, I lean towards guys following the money, because that is how it usually works out, especially if it's their current employer showing them the money. I don't begrudge coaches for doing that, either.
 
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If Hurley was at Boston College or something then I wouldn't think there's a chance. Still not that far from tri-state area. But he's literally over 2,300 miles away from home. Someone else mentioned the Pac 12 and I think that bears repeating...it's a terrible conference and very finesse. Big East gives him better fit IMO. Would be close to brother and rest of family though who knows how close they are. I might even prefer Oats honestly granted he would come with a good recruiter. Have heard UCLA is going to throw boatloads of money at Hurley.
 
[quote="Frank Molfetta" post=329347]UCLA is going to throw boatloads of money at a lot of people, haha.[/quote]

They stopped being cheap with the Howland hire, if this was meant to be a commentary on their stingy ways. Alford was making $2.6. I can see them upping it to $3 for Hoiberg. I can't see them going to $5 to try to finally pry Marshall out of Kansas, though. But I guess this all depends on where your definition of boatloads starts. . .
 
[quote="L J S A" post=329420][quote="Frank Molfetta" post=329347]UCLA is going to throw boatloads of money at a lot of people, haha.[/quote]

They stopped being cheap with the Howland hire, if this was meant to be a commentary on their stingy ways. Alford was making $2.6. I can see them upping it to $3 for Hoiberg. I can't see them going to $5 to try to finally pry Marshall out of Kansas, though. But I guess this all depends on where your definition of boatloads starts. . .[/quote]

Evidently the rumor about them targetting Tony Bennett is true. Cultural fit would seem odd but he can win anywhere.
 
[quote="Frank Molfetta" post=329322]I'm honestly surprised TJ Otzelberger of South Dakota St. isn't on this list. [/quote]

Definitely agree with this one, especially with regard to us. Thought it last year, especially if Mullin decided to call it quits for some reason before this season. Of course, I was being greedy and imagining him bringing Daum along, but he would have definitely had a team with our current makeup playing well. Plus, he knows Matt and perhaps Matt sticks around if TJ were coach. . .
 
[quote="fordham96" post=329423]

Evidently the rumor about them targeting Tony Bennett is true. Cultural fit would seem odd but he can win anywhere.[/quote]

I think he plays the style he does because he has to at Virginia. Always got the impression they are like Stanford in that they lower their academic standards much less than other schools.

He certainly has the acumen to open things up a bit at UCLA. Plus, if he has any interest at all, he's probably salivating at the chance to bring in some of those 6'7" über-athletes that So. Cal produces to see what they could do on defense.

If any big-name coach is considering a jump to UCLA, there's no better time than to do it in conjunction with a possible Arizona decline.
 
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[quote="SeattleJohnny" post=329503]if AZ fires Miller and our position opens.

He is my #1 candidate.[/quote]

I can't imagine we'd hire a known cheater. Plus will there be an order to show cause attached to him?
 
[quote="L J S A" post=329505][quote="SeattleJohnny" post=329503]if AZ fires Miller and our position opens.

He is my #1 candidate.[/quote]

I can't imagine we'd hire a known cheater. Plus will there be an order to show cause attached to him?[/quote]

It is more likely SJU re-hires Jarvis than hires Sean Miller...

Let's try to stay on planet Earth guys...
 
[quote="L J S A" post=329505][quote="SeattleJohnny" post=329503]if AZ fires Miller and our position opens.

He is my #1 candidate.[/quote]

I can't imagine we'd hire a known cheater. Plus will there be an order to show cause attached to him?[/quote]

I would think that he would not be eligible to take another job at this time
Even if he were, I wouldn't want him at St John's under these circumstances
 
What does everyone think are reasonable expectations? I ask genuinely out of curiosity since there seems to be such a spectrum out there. For me I'd say this:

What I expected from Lavin:

I expected good regular seasons and for the most part he came through...however we would always be sweating it out to get to 20 or 21 wins and thus if we made the tourney it was barely. But I also expected a bit of a run in at least 1 tourney...at least win a game in 1 if not make the Sweet 16 when we had our crazy deep team balanced with size, a great shooter in Harrison, and insane athleticism. Unfortunately Lavin teams always seemed to bow out immediately in any big game in a tournament. This goes for BET, NIT, NCAA. I believe in 5 years he got 1 or 2 wins in all of those tournaments combined. That was with some damn good teams talent wise. That brings me to the other issue with Lav...he did not make players considerably better each year. They were still rather raw except Harrison (but he came in playing well pretty much immediately). Think of the Lavin years as the 2018 Nationals...very talented team but only went 2 games over .500. Successful objectively? You could argue that...but much more was expected due to the talent.

What I expected from Mullin:

We all knew Mullin would need at least a few years to get his bearings and get some Big East level talent. The past 2 seasons I expected to finish top 5 (last year) with a .500 or better record in conference and this year I expected the team to finish top 3 as a legit Big East title contender and win 10-12 games in conference clearly over .500. I expected NCAA's both years based on our talent. I also expected several bigs to be brought in so we couldn't be so easily exposed in addition to real assistant coaches to replace St. Jean and Mitch. At worst replace Mitch.

I don't think our fanbase asks for too much which is constantly overstated. I think 80% of us would be happy with making the NCAA's 3/5 years and winning at least 1 or 2 games in it every so often. We should not be an under .500 conference type team...we should be perennial top 5 at worst occasionally finishing 3rd. Is that really too much to ask?
 
[quote="Mike Zaun" post=329526]What does everyone think are reasonable expectations? I ask genuinely out of curiosity since there seems to be such a spectrum out there. For me I'd say this:

What I expected from Lavin:

I expected good regular seasons and for the most part he came through...however we would always be sweating it out to get to 20 or 21 wins and thus if we made the tourney it was barely. But I also expected a bit of a run in at least 1 tourney...at least win a game in 1 if not make the Sweet 16 when we had our crazy deep team balanced with size, a great shooter in Harrison, and insane athleticism. Unfortunately Lavin teams always seemed to bow out immediately in any big game in a tournament. This goes for BET, NIT, NCAA. I believe in 5 years he got 1 or 2 wins in all of those tournaments combined. That was with some damn good teams talent wise. That brings me to the other issue with Lav...he did not make players considerably better each year. They were still rather raw except Harrison (but he came in playing well pretty much immediately). Think of the Lavin years as the 2018 Nationals...very talented team but only went 2 games over .500. Successful objectively? You could argue that...but much more was expected due to the talent.

What I expected from Mullin:

We all knew Mullin would need at least a few years to get his bearings and get some Big East level talent. The past 2 seasons I expected to finish top 5 (last year) with a .500 or better record in conference and this year I expected the team to finish top 3 as a legit Big East title contender and win 10-12 games in conference clearly over .500. I expected NCAA's both years based on our talent. I also expected several bigs to be brought in so we couldn't be so easily exposed in addition to real assistant coaches to replace St. Jean and Mitch. At worst replace Mitch.

I don't think our fanbase asks for too much which is constantly overstated. I think 80% of us would be happy with making the NCAA's 3/5 years and winning at least 1 or 2 games in it every so often. We should not be an under .500 conference type team...we should be perennial top 5 at worst occasionally finishing 3rd. Is that really too much to ask?[/quote]

I was getting ready to ask the same question and I am pretty much in agreement with you. I would have signed on for an NCAA appearance at the beginning of the year
 
Sorry for the long post, just thought it was a good time to reassess. I just think it's so important to have expectations and stick to them instead of moving goalposts constantly. If you find yourself moving goalposts and rationalizing, you can trick your mind into accepting mediocrity if not failure and IMO that's not a virtuous thing. Lavin proved top notch recruits will come here. Unfortunately he just couldn't develop them or win enough during tournaments. Random, but I was watching a doc about an inner-city school that prides itself in landing their kids in top notch universities. They had flags on the outside of NYU, Columbia, Georgia Tech, UNC, and we were one of the flags up there as well. We are still a brand that deserves more IMO. It's just frustrating when some fans say it's just a game where a ball goes in a hoop (when we lose) and some guys spend $10k+ on this team in merch and tickets in a season when we are good (no one spends thousands on something trivial). When you come close to selling out MSG several times and have fans easily spending thousands every season, it's more than just a ball in a hoop. Pride in this program runs deep. This is the Big East and we play in MSG on national TV. We should have expectations.
 
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Mike Zaun wrote: What does everyone think are reasonable expectations? I ask genuinely out of curiosity since there seems to be such a spectrum out there.

Mike, I'm not going to address Lavin expectations because it's the past and just don't see much point rehashing now. What I will forever credit Lavin with is bringing the program back to relevance after a dark period.

I expected little to nothing from Mullin as far as wins the first two years given where he started and was pleasantly surprised at winning as many BE games as we did in year 2. Last year, I expected a bubble team and believe we would have had one but for Lovett injury and shutdown. Lack of depth did hurt us last year but some of that was unfortunate transfers of Mussini and Ellison who would have helped a lot after Lovett injury.
This year like most on here I expected success from a win and loss perspective - at least top 4 in BE regular season, 22 wins in regular season and an NCAA berth. We missed the 22 wins by 2 and playing in the Wednesday game is a big disappointment. However, if we can win a couple of BET games, make the dance and even win a game, I'd be fine with those results. I do think the staff needs adjustment (not talking about head coach) during the off season and will really question direction of program if none are made. The current model appears unsustainable. As far as long term success, I'd be happy if we were consistently in the top half of the BE and made the tourney more often than not (say 3 out of every 5 years).
 
[quote="L J S A" post=329420][quote="Frank Molfetta" post=329347]UCLA is going to throw boatloads of money at a lot of people, haha.[/quote]

They stopped being cheap with the Howland hire, if this was meant to be a commentary on their stingy ways. Alford was making $2.6. I can see them upping it to $3 for Hoiberg. I can't see them going to $5 to try to finally pry Marshall out of Kansas, though. But I guess this all depends on where your definition of boatloads starts. . .[/quote]

Wasn't being sarcastic, I honestly expect them to pay their top candidate a ton of money after a First Four loss last season and the debacle this season, plus the fact that they haven't been to a Final Four in over a decade, which is a long time by UCLA's standards.
 
[quote="Mike Zaun" post=329526]What does everyone think are reasonable expectations? I ask genuinely out of curiosity since there seems to be such a spectrum out there. [/quote]

We should make 3-4 tournaments out of every 5 with a win or more in 2 of those tournaments.

This year the reasonable expectation was to dance. Period. Some of us got a little excited with the hot start and after some big wins, but this this a flawed team.

Next year could easily be better and better under some scenarios it will be much better. Steere will be exponentially better than anything we have at center now. Can you imagine what call from he 6’6 reshort to him was like to get him to leave NC State and commit without a ship?! “Dude, you’d play 38 mpg here. Keita can’t even catch a rebound.”
 
My expectations are simple, I want to be a perennial tournament team. Sure, maybe a missed year here and there, like you said, maybe 3 out of every 5 years we're in NCAAs, I'd sign for that. And in our peak years I want to compete for a BE Championship (reg season and tournament) and make some noise in the NCAAs. I don't think that's too much to ask. Realistically, that should be the baseline for any major conference team, imho.
 
No reason not to expect success similar to or close to what a Seton Hall or Providence has attained in recent years. Dancing three years out of five would be nice as a starter to cast the program in a more positive light. In that period one would hope to make some noise in the NCAA T which has eluded both SH & Providence.

I think we will have to be patient next season and sense some roster turnover of substance. That said, let the season play out and perhaps my caution will be proven wrong. Beat DePaul to get this bad taste out of our mouths & go from there!
 
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[quote="Paultzman" post=329542]No reason not to expect success similar to or close to what a Seton Hall or Providence has attained in recent years. Dancing three years out of five would be nice as a starter to cast the program in a more positive light. In that period one would hope to make some noise in the NCAA T which has eluded both SH & Providence.

I think we will have to be patient next season and sense some roster turnover of substance. That said, let’s let season play out and perhaps my caution will be proven wrong. Beat DePaul to get this bad taste out of our mouths & go from there![/quote]

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic but I think we can have some success next year. It really all depends to me on #1 who returns and #2 if Mack can be a main contributor from day one. We just appear to be so much more well balanced, will have size, and plenty of depth.

Also another wild card is what happens with our coaching situation and if that leads current players to leave if Mullin decides to leave.
 
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