Believe it or not Lavin is respected in quite a few circles, just not with certain folks here.
Believe it or a not a lot of people fall for ponzi schemes and dump money into Pyramid businesses. How many people sent their bank account information to Nigerian princes.
I at one point was on board the Lavin Express. But I quickly found out how much of a fraud he was.
He brought our dormant program back to some prominence. It was a good thing for him to go though.
As much as I think he did not deserve the $2 mm or so that he was earning and releasing him was not a bad thing, he did achieve what many intelligent basketball people thought was completely impossible - returning our program to relevancy. However much a monumental achievement that was, once accomplished, he had to build a sustainable winning program. He failed, maybe out of laziness, but very few of us really know how lazy, except for recruiting failures. Those who cite how little he was around SJU, (and only a very few fans know that as gospel truth) have no idea how little Mullin is on campus either. It's a new era, and the transitional Lavin era is over. I do hate the continual slamming of him even if I feel his firing was justified.
If you hate the continual slamming then don't write posts defending him or praising him in any way shape or form. You and others bring it upon yourselves by writing inviting posts.
You agree he didn't deserve his salary.
You agree releasing him was the right thing.
You agree he failed.
You agree as to his recruiting failures.
You don't deny that he was not on campus.
What more proof do you need, in your own words the man was a failure.
Forget the fact that he left the most barren roster that the good lord could have created.
Out of respect to you and others I could pick apart your post line by line but I too want to move forward and have and will refrain. I strongly suggest everyone do the same and avoid praising and defending him in order to avoid posters like myself posting in response.
Last point, I could care less how much time Coach Mullin is on campus, because we do know he is at Christ the King, St. Raymonds, OSNA, St. Benedicts, Athletes Institute, Jefferson, and on and on, which is where he and staff should be. Places that were foreign to the former staff.
I'm not praising Lavin nor defending him. In fact, I didn't think much of him as a bench coach. But I will evaluate him objectively. His 5 seasons were light years ahead of Norm's 6, and to me that counts enormously. There were murmurs from coaches I spoke to who were questioning whether St. John's should drop from the Big East at the time, and even some of us questioned it. To forget all of that in the evaluation of Lavin's tenure is ridiculously unfair. THAT'S NOT PRAISE, IT'S OBJECTIVITY.
Even when we look at the load of crap of a rsoter that was left by Lavin, very few of us would doubt that if LAvin stayed and we got Sampson, kept Obekpa, and some of the other guys he was recruiting (Mussini for one) had come here that we would have had maybe 12-14 wins. THAT'S NOT PRAISE, IT'S OBJECTIVITY.
Finally, I'm glad Lavin is gone, but for you to presume that Mullin is pounding the pavement every minute of the day and Lavin was sitting at home every minute of the day when neither was/is on campus very much is just without basis. I love Mullin in terms of what he represents to the university, but so far he has not accomplished enough of anything to conclude beyond a doubt that he will outdo Lavin's 5 years is speculative at best and without basis. For one, at Mullin's salary, I'd like him to be a more visible representative of the university to students and alumni. But THAT'S NOT PRAISE FOR LAVIN, IT'S OBJECTIVITY.
Personally, Lavin wasn't my type of guy, and I think that for the money, which for starters was less than what Mullin is getting paid for with zero track record, we can do much better in terms of ROI for the program.
I will say this in terms of SJU oversight. Harrington allowed Lavin to bypass Chris Monasch and run to Rob Wile for everything. Mullin doesn't even have an experienced AD to confer with, so he is virtually on his own. The mere fact that the novice president Gempeshaw isn't doing more to leverage Mullin's importance to the university community is troubling all by itself.
I'm not a shill for Lavin. I'm happy with the decision the university made and was a big advocate for this precise decision. But I won't let the absolute vitriol of some people on here cloud my objective conclusion that Lavin did more to restore this program than destroy it.
