Sunday N.Y. Daily News / For SJU, It's Glory Daze

J

jerseyshorejohnny

Well-known member
Sunday, October 6

Anderson Facing Uphill Battle As New Coach In Queens

Unfortunately, unable to access a link

If someone can, it would be appreciated
 
This story has been regurgitated with the last three coaching hires. Six years of utter mediocrity under Norm Roberts needed an outside the box hire and Steve Lavin filled that role in the first couple of seasons. Unfortunately he suffered a couple of personal setbacks that also stagnated the progress by year 4. Even with that he went to two NCAA and NIT tournaments. The real setback happened 4 years ago with the baffling hire of Mullin. THAT is why we are facing an uphill battle now. There was literally zero recruiting going on by the staff except for Matt who was focused on malcontent transfers. Rather than focus on building a national recruiting model we took the easy and quick fix route with transfers that didn't blend well. There were plenty of local high major kids and except for getting lucky with Shamorie Ponds they blew every local recruit who was being recruited harder to the backwoods of Storrs or the tundra of Syracuse. Spokane became a destination rather than the bright lights of Broadway. To be competitive this staff needs to build with 4 star recruits wherever they are after establishing a foundation with the 2 and 3 star players they focused on through 2020.
 
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What to say? Article's a generic overview of the changing hoops scene in NYC and the dramatic decline in NY-born talent playing and staying in NYC high schools.
True, but the piece ignores any difference an experienced, winning, hardworking coach and a dedicated staff with roots in other regions and JUCO can accomplish despite the changing landscape.
I'm hopeful CMA & Staff will make a difference.
We shall see.
 
agree that it's the same story, but the more I continue to hear about the NYC pipeline eroding, the more I believe it makes sense to recruit nationally. There have got to be a decent amount of quality ballers in other states who would be drawn to the bright lights of NYC and MSG. Sometimes it might be the kid from another city, a suburb or maybe even the kid from the country or select international given the diversity NY offers. We only need to find 3-4 of them. Passing up State U of choice is one that should be able to be overcome with the right foundation and selling points..... winning helps.
 
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Chicago days hits the nail on the head. The recruiting advantages SJU had for probably fifty years have certainly diminished but even so the NYC location is today still better than ninety five per cent of all colleges.
As far as recruits losing the stipend because of SJU adding the dorms as an excuse for not getting some top recruits , in the Looie era not having dorms was the reason giving for not attracting recruits who preferred living on campus.
The SJU program was in good shape under Jarvis until he lost control which put the program in the depths and Roberts was incapable of reviving the program. Neither Lavin nor Mullin were willing to put in the required work which can be overwhelming.
The current staff has shown that it is willing to put the effort in and while they will have to put in ten times the recruiting effort Looie did , they seem determined to do just that.
 
The quality of the linked NY Daily News article illustrates why the paper’s once proud circulation has dwindled to less than 200,000.
 
Looks like the staff is hard working. That said ,our ‘20 recruits are underwhelming in totality. .Assuming Figgy leaves, do we have 1 recruit ranked in the top 150 for next year? That is concerning.
 
[quote="richard A Steinfeld" post=359412]Looks like the staff is hard working. That said ,our ‘20 recruits are underwhelming in totality. .Assuming Figgy leaves, do we have 1 recruit ranked in the top 150 for next year? That is concerning.[/quote]

I agree that our 2020 class runs short of Top 150 talent. Posh just missed (low 150s Rivals/247), Cole is a JUCO AA, Moore was a scoring machine in HS and rumor has it that we're not done.
So, while concerning, we may still be pleasantly surprised at the end of the day.
 
[quote="Chicago Days" post=359415][quote="richard A Steinfeld" post=359412]Looks like the staff is hard working. That said ,our ‘20 recruits are underwhelming in totality. .Assuming Figgy leaves, do we have 1 recruit ranked in the top 150 for next year? That is concerning.[/quote]

I agree that our 2020 class runs short of Top 150 talent. Posh just missed (low 150s Rivals/247), Cole is a JUCO AA, Moore was a scoring machine in HS and rumor has it that we're not done.
So, while concerning, we may still be pleasantly surprised at the end of the day.[/quote]

Posh will be top 150. He only dropped because of his broken arm. Juco AA is equivalent of snoretty good D1 recruit. Moore seems like plenty of potential. Wusu seems solid. Certainly would love more top 150 talent but we have quite a few teams in our league who have built with lots of mediocre ranked kids. Seton hall has improved a lot with the right kids on board. I think we can be competitive right off the bat, but it likely kill take a bit more time to land a stable full of D1 studs considering our less than mediocre history. Let’s face it, besides Ponds, SJU under Mullin wasn’t competitive for many highly ranked HS kids at all. We went hard on highly ranked transfers that teams didn’t want and finally made the tourney, but we weren’t reeling in any highly ranked HS kids for the most part. That means that we haven’t been active on the high school recruiting trail since before Mullin, and Lavin wasn’t known to hit the tristate very hard. We are years behind recruiting a lot of these kids, especially locally.
 
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[quote="otis" post=359411]The quality of the linked NY Daily News article illustrates why the paper’s once proud circulation has dwindled to less than 200,000.[/quote]

I used to visit all the NY dailies pretty much everyday, but stopped going to the DN site a long time ago. I hadn't realized how weak it had become until taking a look today. Like many outlets, seems to be stuck in a death spiral...
 
[quote="Class of 72" post=359398]This story has been regurgitated with the last three coaching hires. Six years of utter mediocrity under Norm Roberts needed an outside the box hire and Steve Lavin filled that role in the first couple of seasons. Unfortunately he suffered a couple of personal setbacks that also stagnated the progress by year 4. Even with that he went to two NCAA and NIT tournaments. The real setback happened 4 years ago with the baffling hire of Mullin. THAT is why we are facing an uphill battle now. There was literally zero recruiting going on by the staff except for Matt who was focused on malcontent transfers. Rather than focus on building a national recruiting model we took the easy and quick fix route with transfers that didn't blend well. There were plenty of local high major kids and except for getting lucky with Shamorie Ponds they blew every local recruit who was being recruited harder to the backwoods of Storrs or the tundra of Syracuse. Spokane became a destination rather than the bright lights of Broadway. To be competitive this staff needs to build with 4 star recruits wherever they are after establishing a foundation with the 2 and 3 star players they focused on through 2020.[/quote]

Good comment regarding "out of the box" hire. I heard that from someone who was a NYC college star (not SJU), friend of the Mullin family, and subsequently involved in NYC HS and College basketball. I asked him his impression of CMA. He said he met CMA at the Brooklyn (& Queens) Old Timers dinner this spring and was impressed with him as a person and has heard similar from others. He said Chris really did not have his heart in coaching. He also said SJU needed an "out of the box" hire and he felt CMA was that person (as was Cragg). Now we will need to see what happens but I agree that a direction change was needed and now we have hired a successful coach who is not a self promoter and who has contacts beyond NYC but is not overlooking local BB players and coaches.
 
Only at STJ is hiring guys with strong experience and histories of success considered out of the box. SMDH
 
I think CMA can be another Cooley...he just badly needs to land 1 legitimate class first. Not sure he will succeed here with mostly 2-3 star talent when the rest of the conference has 3-4. Remember, 2 star is Marist territory. So far CMA's intangibles have been very solid...no nonsense and hard work. Kids seem to be buying in. But we just need that 1 legit class. After we lose LJ and Heron next year it's going to be pretty rough again most likely.
 
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Let's wait and see what this year brings. CMA's style might just bring in better recruits.
Wait and see, but let's enjoy this season.
 
[quote="Mike Zaun" post=359427]I think CMA can be another Cooley...he just badly needs to land 1 legitimate class first. Not sure he will succeed here with mostly 2-3 star talent when the rest of the conference has 3-4. Remember, 2 star is Marist territory. So far CMA's intangibles have been very solid...no nonsense and hard work. Kids seem to be buying in. But we just need that 1 legit class. After we lose LJ and Heron next year it's going to be pretty rough again most likely.[/quote]

Mike Anderson 369-200
Ed Cooley 254-179

Mike Anderson can be another Cooley??? Maybe Cooley has he potential to be a Mike Anderson... Anderson’s record is a ton better in top conferences.
 
[quote="Mike Zaun" post=359427]I think CMA can be another Cooley...he just badly needs to land 1 legitimate class first. Not sure he will succeed here with mostly 2-3 star talent when the rest of the conference has 3-4. Remember, 2 star is Marist territory. So far CMA's intangibles have been very solid...no nonsense and hard work. Kids seem to be buying in. But we just need that 1 legit class. After we lose LJ and Heron next year it's going to be pretty rough again most likely.[/quote]

Why bother even playing the games? It would be silly to see what an actual coach and staff can do.
 
[quote="rawdognyc" post=359431][quote="Mike Zaun" post=359427]I think CMA can be another Cooley...he just badly needs to land 1 legitimate class first. Not sure he will succeed here with mostly 2-3 star talent when the rest of the conference has 3-4. Remember, 2 star is Marist territory. So far CMA's intangibles have been very solid...no nonsense and hard work. Kids seem to be buying in. But we just need that 1 legit class. After we lose LJ and Heron next year it's going to be pretty rough again most likely.[/quote]

Why bother even playing the games? It would be silly to see what an actual coach and staff can do.[/quote]

Of course it will be interesting to see what he can do and we have no idea how we will look. However, 2 star kids are low D1 territory like I said Marist, St. Peter's, Fairfield, etc. That's the level they recruit and play at. We are St. John's of the major Big East so it's very likely 2 stars will not cut it. Stars are obviously not everything but they also aren't meaningless. There's a reason most high major teams routinely blow out the low D1 teams...the major ones get much better recruits who are more talented, bigger, stronger, and faster. I don't care if you are John Wooden...you can't win in the big leagues with marginal talent. Getting Posh was a great get IMO...I understand that CMA has been playing catch up through no fault of his own but my point was that he will almost certainly need to get nothing but high 3 star and several 4 star HS kids consistently to have a chance of succeeding. Right now we are not getting that and I know it's just because we're filling the roster, but hope we never need 2 star guys again. I think our staff has solid potential, but getting some legit 4 star kids early (not just 1) IMO is going to be a necessity to not be a shoe-in for 8th to 10th in conference every year. Remember, UConn is coming too. You want to play with the big dogs, you need big dog players.
 
[quote="austour" post=359423]Only at STJ is hiring guys with strong experience and histories of success considered out of the box. SMDH[/quote]
Ladies and gentlemen, today’s winner of the Internet!
 
[quote="Spocky Ramone" post=359434][quote="austour" post=359423]Only at STJ is hiring guys with strong experience and histories of success considered out of the box. SMDH[/quote]
Ladies and gentlemen, today’s winner of the Internet![/quote]

Yeah it’s spot on. It’s also why we are in much of this trouble to begin with and why once again we are rebuilding. After Jarvis, a guy like McKillop was the right hire and we failed since then.
 
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