What did Looie have that his successors didn't?

How did Louie recruit Payton out of Oakland, I believe? Did he see him at national tourneys only in the east? How many in-home, in-state visits did he make? Sproling in Colorado, Broadnax in Ft. Walton Beach, FL?
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Coach C. wasn't originally looking at Payton but he and everyone else for that matter were looking at Payton's teammate, Greg Forster who wound up at UCLA. Payton only received two offers from D1 school, St. John's and Oregon State. While we did do most of our recruiting locally, we did go to the major camps which were all in the East back then, Five Star being the real big one at that time.

We did not do a lot of National recruiting, but again the players came East for camps and we would see them. Yes, we probably did have home visits of such. Sproiling became interested in St. John's watching Chris Mullin who he became a huge fan of. Don't know the Broadnax connection.
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PS that's three guys over 24 years. (I'm sure there were more). Even if Louie wasn't paying attention to anything outside the metro area (and I'm sure he was) you could use the blind squirrel/nut analogy to explain a once every 8 year occurrence.
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Just responding to his question. I am sure there were more also including Greg Porter from Va via San Jacinto JC, but of course we were also looking at Boo Harvey from Queens at the time.
 
I REMEMEMBER, AFTER WE JUST LOST AND AFTER A 17 GAME WINNING STREAK, AT HOME AMONG SEASON TICKET HOLDERS PEOPLE CALLING FOR LOU'S HEAD.I THINK EVEN AFTER LAPCHICK WON THE N.I.T IN HIS FINAL SEASON,THERE WERE PEOPLE WHO WHERE HAPPY TO SEE HIM LEAVE. GIVE LAVIN A BREAK DO YOU WANT TO LOSE KEADY?WE HAVE A HALL OF FAME COACH ON OUR BENCH A TRADITION WITH US.
 
The guys on here know Louie well. Many points already posted, but i think his connection to city coaches. It was almost as if all the city coaches were on the same team..St Johns. Louie entertained most of the city kids and in todays game where kids transfer more and more, some to be closer to family, I think he would of fared well. One thing that I always loved about Louie was, everytime he was interviewed, he always credited the other team. He was very humble and his players played with city grit. I loved when they slapped the floor on defense, that always got me fired up. lol
 
How did Louie recruit Payton out of Oakland, I believe? Did he see him at national tourneys only in the east? How many in-home, in-state visits did he make? Sproling in Colorado, Broadnax in Ft. Walton Beach, FL?
Click to expand...

Coach C. wasn't originally looking at Payton but he and everyone else for that matter were looking at Payton's teammate, Greg Forster who wound up at UCLA. Payton only received two offers from D1 school, St. John's and Oregon State. While we did do most of our recruiting locally, we did go to the major camps which were all in the East back then, Five Star being the real big one at that time.

We did not do a lot of National recruiting, but again the players came East for camps and we would see them. Yes, we probably did have home visits of such. Sproiling became interested in St. John's watching Chris Mullin who he became a huge fan of. Don't know the Broadnax connection.
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Looie got a recruiting budget increase after the Final 4. Sproling was the first prized recruit as a result.
 
Ah....the good ole days......
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[attachment]brust.jpg[/attachment]
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That is my all time favorite Sports Illustrated cover. Not that people read magazines anymore.
 
There is a misconception that Louie cleaned up on the recruiting trail. He didn't, especially later in his career.

With a Final Four behind him, a budding All-Star in Chris Mullin, the NBA rookie of the year for the Knicks in Mark Jackson, you would think Louie would have the recruiting winds at his back in the late 80s.

Yet at a time when NYC was bursting with talent, we corralled only two McD's AA - Sealy and Werdann and both in the same year.

We either missed or didn't get sniff from:
Jamal Mashburn - Hayes - Kentucky - 1st Team AA
Kenny Anderson - Molloy - GTech - 1st Team AA
Derrick Phelps - CTK - UNC - National Champion
Brian Reese - Tolentine - UNC - National Champion
Khalid Reeves - CTK - 2nd Team AA
Conrad McRae - Bklyn Tech - Cuse - All BE
Adrian Autry - Tolentine - Cuse - All BE

Instead we got second tier NY players some who had good careers like Jayson Williams,, Billy Singleton, David Cain and Shawnelle Scott, some who were marginal talents: Carl Beckett, Lamont Middleton and Derek Brown and some who were not Big East material: Terrence Mullin, Lee Green, Kevin Fitzpatrick, Darrell Aiken

Louie's style of play and hesitation to give frosh major minutes was a huge turnoff.

Couple that with recruiting blunders like Gary Payton and Chucky Sproling and Louie would have been run out of town on redmen.com.
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Let's get something straight, while Brian Reese, Adrian Autry, and Conrad McRae were highly rated and played well in college, they never made it to the NBA. Jayson Williams and Shawnelle Scott did.
You also said in another post on this thread that Coach Carnesecca brought in the recruits not Ron Rutledge. While Coach Carnesecca closed the deal, it was Ron Rutledge who was the point man identifying players who would fit into St Johns system. Coach Carnesecca himself would tell you the same thing.
 
How did Louie recruit Payton out of Oakland, I believe? Did he see him at national tourneys only in the east? How many in-home, in-state visits did he make? Sproling in Colorado, Broadnax in Ft. Walton Beach, FL?
Click to expand...

Coach C. wasn't originally looking at Payton but he and everyone else for that matter were looking at Payton's teammate, Greg Forster who wound up at UCLA. Payton only received two offers from D1 school, St. John's and Oregon State. While we did do most of our recruiting locally, we did go to the major camps which were all in the East back then, Five Star being the real big one at that time.

We did not do a lot of National recruiting, but again the players came East for camps and we would see them. Yes, we probably did have home visits of such. Sproiling became interested in St. John's watching Chris Mullin who he became a huge fan of. Don't know the Broadnax connection.
Click to expand...

Sproling met the team at their hotel during the NCAA's in Denver. The guys (players and coaches) were nice to him and he decided he wanted to play for St. John's. He then "recruited" us. This is the story he told.
 
How did Louie recruit Payton out of Oakland, I believe? Did he see him at national tourneys only in the east? How many in-home, in-state visits did he make? Sproling in Colorado, Broadnax in Ft. Walton Beach, FL?
Click to expand...

Coach C. wasn't originally looking at Payton but he and everyone else for that matter were looking at Payton's teammate, Greg Forster who wound up at UCLA. Payton only received two offers from D1 school, St. John's and Oregon State. While we did do most of our recruiting locally, we did go to the major camps which were all in the East back then, Five Star being the real big one at that time.

We did not do a lot of National recruiting, but again the players came East for camps and we would see them. Yes, we probably did have home visits of such. Sproiling became interested in St. John's watching Chris Mullin who he became a huge fan of. Don't know the Broadnax connection.
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Looie got a recruiting budget increase after the Final 4. Sproling was the first prized recruit as a result.
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Evander Lewis and Marcus Broadnax were highly rated and came here before Chuck.
 
How did Louie recruit Payton out of Oakland, I believe? Did he see him at national tourneys only in the east? How many in-home, in-state visits did he make? Sproling in Colorado, Broadnax in Ft. Walton Beach, FL?
Click to expand...

Coach C. wasn't originally looking at Payton but he and everyone else for that matter were looking at Payton's teammate, Greg Forster who wound up at UCLA. Payton only received two offers from D1 school, St. John's and Oregon State. While we did do most of our recruiting locally, we did go to the major camps which were all in the East back then, Five Star being the real big one at that time.

We did not do a lot of National recruiting, but again the players came East for camps and we would see them. Yes, we probably did have home visits of such. Sproiling became interested in St. John's watching Chris Mullin who he became a huge fan of. Don't know the Broadnax connection.
Click to expand...

Sproling met the team at their hotel during the NCAA's in Denver. The guys (players and coaches) were nice to him and he decided he wanted to play for St. John's. He then "recruited" us. This is the story he told.
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He will also tell you he was a huge Chris Mullin fan which is how he first got interested. He was a highly regarded recruit.

A player recruiting a school is not uncommon. Syracuse had never heard of let alone seen Rony Seikaly until he his Uncle who lived upstate took him to the Cuse basketball office soon after his arrival from Greece and Derrick Coleman contacted Syracuse and left a message. They looked him up in Street and Smith's book, saw where he was ranked and called him right back.
 
How did Louie recruit Payton out of Oakland, I believe? Did he see him at national tourneys only in the east? How many in-home, in-state visits did he make? Sproling in Colorado, Broadnax in Ft. Walton Beach, FL?
Click to expand...

Coach C. wasn't originally looking at Payton but he and everyone else for that matter were looking at Payton's teammate, Greg Forster who wound up at UCLA. Payton only received two offers from D1 school, St. John's and Oregon State. While we did do most of our recruiting locally, we did go to the major camps which were all in the East back then, Five Star being the real big one at that time.

We did not do a lot of National recruiting, but again the players came East for camps and we would see them. Yes, we probably did have home visits of such. Sproiling became interested in St. John's watching Chris Mullin who he became a huge fan of. Don't know the Broadnax connection.
Click to expand...

Sproling met the team at their hotel during the NCAA's in Denver. The guys (players and coaches) were nice to him and he decided he wanted to play for St. John's. He then "recruited" us. This is the story he told.
Click to expand...

He will also tell you he was a huge Chris Mullin fan which is how he first got interested. He was a highly regarded recruit.

A player recruiting a school is not uncommon. Syracuse had never heard of let alone seen Rony Seikaly until he his Uncle who lived upstate took him to the Cuse basketball office soon after his arrival from Greece and Derrick Coleman contacted Syracuse and left a message. They looked him up in Street and Smith's book, saw where he was ranked and called him right back.
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I don't disagree, 85. I just thought he became a Mullin fan after meeting the team in Denver. Maybe he was already a fan. I remember that he was a highly rated recruit. When I heard he had scored 74 pts in a HS game, I thought we had hit the jackpot.
 
It definitely was a different time in terms of the way the sport is covered now. Every team in major conferences get a games on national tv.

I also think it might be a generational thing for the HS kids. I think a kid from NYC doesn't consider St. Johns to be a major program anymore. Back in the 80's and 90's St Johns was on the same prestige level as any major college program for basketball. Now we are on the same level as the middle of the road smaller schools. I also think most big time players from NYC would rather go play on a nice campus and see something different , and still come here and play at The Garden once or twice a year. They want to get out of this city and see something different. For Lavin to recruit major players he is working from a much smaller pool of players as the big schools like Cuse, UNC, Duke etc.... because if a kid wants the experience of living on a big campus then he can pick any of those major schools, but St Johns is a different situation, if you come here its because you genuinely want to play and live in NYC.

Some people might argue that schools like Villanova and Georgetown are still able to bring in top talent every year, but Villanova and Georgetown campuses are a much different environment then St Johns is in Queens. You have beautiful campuses either right in the city or suburbs of Philly. Queens isnt exactly a draw for kids and playing in the Garden is not as big a deal as it used to be since so many teams play there throughout the year.
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Disagree...Lavin is bringing in top rated prospects...so, SJ is not necessarily the problem...they may not have turned out to be as good as billed, but they were rated highly by independent services and we landed them...I agree that a NYC kid more often than not wants to get out of the "concrete jungle" but plenty of non-NYC kids like the idea of coming to the big apple...and getting NYC kids is not a pre-req to winning
 
I think I read somewhere Manhattan's George Beamon, who had a very good career, was going to go to SJU as walk on but he got a scholarship from the Jaspers. Would have been a good player for us.

Beamon is from LI.
 
recuiting is NOT the issue with Lav, he is one of the BEST. Louie just has a rapport with coaches around the metro area. He had a softer mentor approach, and of course he was repectable to his peers and modest. I still would rather have Lav over 95% of the other coaches out there. Has he made mistakes, yes and im sure he'd admit to them. Has his team fall short of expectations? Yes, we all can agree to that. But, as a coach, I dont think at the end of the season you say to the media that our season was a bust, we stink...blah blah blah. As a coach to these kids, you still need to be positive. You still need to motivate, and I would use the same methods with my workers at work too. Im sure a lot of you will not agree with me but im already looking for Lavs recruiting commitments so i can look forward to something again, so i can tell my family and friends, "This is the year for the Johnnies", and for my family and friends to once again laugh at me and spew my words right back at me.....yea, its tough being a johnnie fan, but come that day when we are good.....Im telling you, The City Will Expload, and all the frontrunners will be out and you wont be able to get a seat at MSG........snore....snore....."WAKE UP"...was I dreaming ?????

Go Johnnies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I'd like to see a study of the concentration of college talent back in Carnesecca's days, pre conference. The NBA draft may be one indicator. Before cable TV exposure, and before major conferences, I'm going to guess that there weren't as many programs that could compete for the best players, and without TV conference money, many D1 schools just couldn't afford to recruit nationally. Even the cost of a phone call long distance was a considerable expense (could be $2 a minute in those monopoly days). I'm going to guess when Carnesecca recruited only the metro area, there wasn't as many schools vying for the top players in the area. But it's only conjecture.
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I don't know. I think it's true that the midmajors weren't as much a factor, but the big schools still had donors that let coaches call and fly to NY.
Plenty of NY kids were recruited out from under us from Kareem to Bernie King to Stephon. I think coaches didn't fly to Bodunk, Iowa unless they were from the midwest. But coaches from all the big schools called the NYC kids, don't you think?

It's not like Looie was competing on a level playing field with Dean Smith or Wooden. He just made the most of what he had.
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I think there are a lot of factors regarding the expense of recruiting and the ability of smaller schools to compete nationally. I don't know how old you are, but it wasn't so long ago - maybe 25 years, that a NYC to LAX flight without a Saturday night stayover was about $1400. When I'd travel on business, you could buy 2 RT tix with a staurday night stay each originating on the opposite coast for about $400. Then you'd simply throw out the return flight on each ticket. There are dozens of reasons for sure. The cost of recruiting and gathering knowledge about HS players has come down, and the ability of more schools to spend more has gone up.
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Makes sense.
I think there were also more nyc kids in the sense that they were actually here in the city. Now, there are good players from the metro area, but they are playing at prep schools in NC or Maine. That changes things. SJU doesn't have as big of an advantage when the kid is from Brooklyn but going to prep school somewhere up in New England. Then it's open season for all the major programs.

And to give you a sense of my age BEB, Matt Brust was my favorite player as a little kid.
 
How did Louie recruit Payton out of Oakland, I believe? Did he see him at national tourneys only in the east? How many in-home, in-state visits did he make? Sproling in Colorado, Broadnax in Ft. Walton Beach, FL?
Click to expand...

Coach C. wasn't originally looking at Payton but he and everyone else for that matter were looking at Payton's teammate, Greg Forster who wound up at UCLA. Payton only received two offers from D1 school, St. John's and Oregon State. While we did do most of our recruiting locally, we did go to the major camps which were all in the East back then, Five Star being the real big one at that time.

We did not do a lot of National recruiting, but again the players came East for camps and we would see them. Yes, we probably did have home visits of such. Sproiling became interested in St. John's watching Chris Mullin who he became a huge fan of. Don't know the Broadnax connection.
Click to expand...

Sproling met the team at their hotel during the NCAA's in Denver. The guys (players and coaches) were nice to him and he decided he wanted to play for St. John's. He then "recruited" us. This is the story he told.
Click to expand...
That makes sense because Loooie told me at a function that he didn't even have to recruit Sproling.
 
recuiting is NOT the issue with Lav, he is one of the BEST. Louie just has a rapport with coaches around the metro area. He had a softer mentor approach, and of course he was repectable to his peers and modest. I still would rather have Lav over 95% of the other coaches out there. Has he made mistakes, yes and im sure he'd admit to them. Has his team fall short of expectations? Yes, we all can agree to that. But, as a coach, I dont think at the end of the season you say to the media that our season was a bust, we stink...blah blah blah. As a coach to these kids, you still need to be positive. You still need to motivate, and I would use the same methods with my workers at work too. Im sure a lot of you will not agree with me but im already looking for Lavs recruiting commitments so i can look forward to something again, so i can tell my family and friends, "This is the year for the Johnnies", and for my family and friends to once again laugh at me and spew my words right back at me.....yea, its tough being a johnnie fan, but come that day when we are good.....Im telling you, The City Will Expload, and all the frontrunners will be out and you wontable to get a seat at MSG........snore....snore....."WAKE UP"...was I dreaming ?????

Go Johnnies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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You would "rather have Lavin over 95% of the other coaches out there"??? WOW! How do you rationalize so many coaches eclipsing his results?
 
How did Louie recruit Payton out of Oakland, I believe? Did he see him at national tourneys only in the east? How many in-home, in-state visits did he make? Sproling in Colorado, Broadnax in Ft. Walton Beach, FL?
Click to expand...

Coach C. wasn't originally looking at Payton but he and everyone else for that matter were looking at Payton's teammate, Greg Forster who wound up at UCLA. Payton only received two offers from D1 school, St. John's and Oregon State. While we did do most of our recruiting locally, we did go to the major camps which were all in the East back then, Five Star being the real big one at that time.

We did not do a lot of National recruiting, but again the players came East for camps and we would see them. Yes, we probably did have home visits of such. Sproiling became interested in St. John's watching Chris Mullin who he became a huge fan of. Don't know the Broadnax connection.
Click to expand...

Sproling met the team at their hotel during the NCAA's in Denver. The guys (players and coaches) were nice to him and he decided he wanted to play for St. John's. He then "recruited" us. This is the story he told.
Click to expand...
That makes sense because Loooie told me at a function that he didn't even have to recruit Sproling.
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That's really interesting, and gives some insights as to what the world was like pre-internet. Without information available freely at your fingertips, even as a season ticket holder then, we believed Sproling was the result of expanding to a national recruiting effort.
 
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